Anton Chekhov Quotes
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401. “I think human beings must have faith or must look for faith, otherwise our life is empty, empty. To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why children are born, why there are stars in the sky. You must know why you are alive, or else everything is nonsense, just blowing in the wind.”

— Anton Chekhov

402. “How unbearable at times are people who are happy, people for whom everything works out.”

— Anton Chekhov

403. “When you want to touch the reader’s heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.”

— Anton Chekhov

404. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

409. “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

410. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

413. “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

414. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

417. “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

418. “Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.”

— Anton Chekhov

419. “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

420. “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

421. “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

422. “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

423. “Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

426. “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

427. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

429. “I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.”

— 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. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

434. “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

435. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

437. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

442. “And it is the way with us that you may express disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you like, but God preserve you from touching the Liberals! Heaven forbid!”

— Anton Chekhov

443. “It’s immoral to steal, but you can take things.”

— Anton Chekhov

444. “Write, write, write-till your fingers break.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

446. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

448. “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

449. “It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.”

— Anton Chekhov

450. “When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.”

— Anton Chekhov