Anton Chekhov Quotes
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401. “The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.”

— Anton Chekhov

402. “It’s even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.”

— Anton Chekhov

403. “I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it’s tobacco, then let it be tobacco.”

— Anton Chekhov

404. “If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”

— Anton Chekhov

405. “A man and a woman marry because both of them do not know what to do with themselves.”

— Anton Chekhov

406. “Oh, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read – my own or other people’s works – it all seems to me not short enough.”

— Anton Chekhov

407. “Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? Before God or, perhaps, before the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not before people. Among people, one must be conscious of one’s dignity.”

— Anton Chekhov

408. “There isn’t a Monday that would not cede its place to Tuesday.”

— Anton Chekhov

409. “Our pride and self-importance are European, while our development and actions are Asiatic.”

— Anton Chekhov

410. “In general, Russia suffers from a frightening poverty in the sphere of facts and a frightening wealth of all types of arguments.”

— Anton Chekhov

411. “When men ask me how I know so much about men, they get a simple answer: everything I know about men, I learned from me.”

— Anton Chekhov

412. “There is nothing new in art except talent.”

— Anton Chekhov

413. “Flies purify the air, and plays – the morals.”

— Anton Chekhov

414. “When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean-that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses-that is science.”

— Anton Chekhov

415. “By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.”

— Anton Chekhov

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

416. “All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.”

— Anton Chekhov

417. “Eyes – the head’s chief of police. They watch and make mental notes.”

— Anton Chekhov

418. “If you look at anything long enough, say just that wall in front of you – it will come out of that wall.”

— Anton Chekhov

419. “What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all.”

— Anton Chekhov

420. “You look boldly ahead; isn’t it only that you don’t see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes.”

— Anton Chekhov

421. “There are people whom even children’s literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.”

— Anton Chekhov

422. “Lermontov died at age twenty-eight and wrote more than have you and I put together. Talent is recognizable not only by quality, but also by the quantity it yields.”

— Anton Chekhov

423. “Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.”

— Anton Chekhov

424. “Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.”

— Anton Chekhov

425. “When an actor has money he doesn’t send letters, he sends telegrams.”

— Anton Chekhov

426. “Great Jove angry is no longer Jove.”

— Anton Chekhov

427. “For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.”

— Anton Chekhov

428. “We old bachelors smell like dogs, do we? So be it. But I must take issue with your claim that doctors who treat female illnesses are womanizers and cynics at heart. Gynecologists deal with savage prose the likes of which you have never dreamed of.”

— Anton Chekhov

429. “Satiation, like any state of vitality, always contains a degree of impudence, and that impudence emerges first and foremost when the sated man instructs the hungry one.”

— Anton Chekhov

430. “Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.”

— Anton Chekhov

431. “Every coming year is as bad as the previous one, the only difference being that in most cases it is even worse.”

— Anton Chekhov

432. “Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?”

— Anton Chekhov

433. “An artist observes, selects, guesses, and synthesizes.”

— Anton Chekhov

434. “It’s better to live down a scandal than to ruin one’s life.”

— Anton Chekhov

435. “It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.”

— Anton Chekhov

436. “To believe in God is not hard. Inquisitors, Byron and Arakcheev believed in Him. No, believe in man!”

— Anton Chekhov

437. “I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.”

— Anton Chekhov

438. “It’s worth living abroad to study up on genteel and delicate manners. The maid smiles continuously; she smiles like a duchess on a stage, while at the same time it is clear from her face that she is exhausted from overwork.”

— Anton Chekhov

439. “The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.”

— Anton Chekhov

440. “The more cultured a man, the less fortunate he is.”

— Anton Chekhov

441. “What a delight it is to respect people!”

— Anton Chekhov

442. “There are no small number of people in this world who, solitary by nature, always try to go back into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail.”

— Anton Chekhov

443. “The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.”

— Anton Chekhov

444. “Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a bad time of it.”

— Anton Chekhov

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

445. “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”

— Anton Chekhov

446. “Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.”

— Anton Chekhov

447. “I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.”

— Anton Chekhov

448. “Three o’clock in the morning. The soft April night is looking at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can’t sleep, I am so happy.”

— Anton Chekhov

449. “I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.”

— Anton Chekhov

450. “Ah, Caviar! I keep on eating it, but can never get my fill. Like olives. It’s a lucky thing it’s not salty.”

— Anton Chekhov