Top 500 Anton Chekhov Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

253. “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

254. “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

255. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

257. “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

258. “If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It’s better to live somehow than not at all.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

261. “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

262. “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

263. “Happiness does not await us all. One needn’t be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money. That is why we must hang on to one another.”

— Anton Chekhov

264. “If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.”

— Anton Chekhov

265. “We go to great pains to alter life for the happiness of our descendants and our descendants will say as usual: things used to be so much better, life today is worse than it used to be.”

— Anton Chekhov

266. “I have no will of my own. Never did. Limp and lily-livered, I always obey – is it possible that’s attractive to women?”

— Anton Chekhov

267. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

269. “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

270. “I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles.”

— Anton Chekhov

271. “There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig.”

— Anton Chekhov

272. “I’ve noticed that people who get married cease to be curious.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

274. “People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.”

— Anton Chekhov

275. “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

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

— Anton Chekhov

277. “You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.”

— Anton Chekhov

278. “It is as acceptable now to love the wives of others as it is to smoke their cigars and read their books.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

280. “Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”

— Anton Chekhov

281. “In countries where there is a mild climate, less effort is expended on the struggle with nature and man is kinder and more gentle.”

— Anton Chekhov

Featured in: Country Quotes

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

— Anton Chekhov

283. “I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don’t like. No other criterion exists for me.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

285. “To make a face from marble means to remove from the slab everything that is not the face.”

— Anton Chekhov

286. “It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

288. “Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.”

— Anton Chekhov

289. “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

290. “The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.”

— Anton Chekhov

291. “Moscow is a city that has much suffering ahead of it.”

— Anton Chekhov

292. “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

293. “Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.”

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

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

— Anton Chekhov

296. “You are right to demand that an artist engage his work consciously, but you confuse two different things: solving the problem and correctly posing the question.”

— Anton Chekhov

297. “By poeticizing love, we imagine in those we love virtues that they often do not possess; this then becomes the source of constant mistakes and constant distress.”

— Anton Chekhov

298. “It always seems to the brothers and the father that their brother or son didn’t marry the right person.”

— Anton Chekhov

299. “When a person hasn’t in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog’s bark in every sound.”

— Anton Chekhov

300. “Probably nature itself gave man the ability to lie so that in difficult and tense moments he could protect his nest, just as do the vixen and wild duck.”

— Anton Chekhov