Top 500 Anton Chekhov Quotes (2023 Update)
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301. “That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.”

— Anton Chekhov

302. “In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because – I don’t know why.”

— Anton Chekhov

303. “An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.”

— Anton Chekhov

304. “But if you had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone: “My work is literature.””

— Anton Chekhov

305. “In one-act pieces there should be only rubbish that is their strength.”

— Anton Chekhov

306. “I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.”

— Anton Chekhov

307. “It is a poor thing for the writer to take on that which he doesn’t understand.”

— Anton Chekhov

308. “A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.”

— Anton Chekhov

309. “No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are unfair, from year to year he lapses into an embittered state characterized by an extreme lack of faith.”

— Anton Chekhov

310. “The critics suppose that it is easy to write a play. They aren’t aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.”

— Anton Chekhov

311. “The more simply we look at ticklish questions, the more placid will be our lives and relationships.”

— Anton Chekhov

312. “The bourgeoisie loves so-called “positive” types and novels with happy endings since they lull one into thinking that it is fine to simultaneously acquire capital and maintain one’s innocence, to be a beast and still be happy.”

— Anton Chekhov

313. “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

314. “Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able to settle back in the arms of the playwright. Instinctively we know that the playwright knows his business.”

— Anton Chekhov

315. “If you can’t distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn’t undertake philanthropic work.”

— Anton Chekhov

316. “There are in life such confluences of circumstances that render the reproach that we are not Voltaires most inopportune.”

— Anton Chekhov

317. “To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.”

— Anton Chekhov

318. “A grimy fly can soil the entire wall and a small, dirty little act can ruin the entire proceedings.”

— Anton Chekhov

319. “Desription should be very brief and have an incidental nature.”

— Anton Chekhov

320. “Neither I nor anyone else knows what a standard is. We all recognize a dishonorable act, but have no idea what honor is.”

— Anton Chekhov

321. “Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?”

— Anton Chekhov

322. “She had a passionate longing for the garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars.”

— Anton Chekhov

323. “The State is not God. It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire.”

— Anton Chekhov

324. “They say man only needs six feet of Earth. But it is a corpse, and not man, which needs these six feet.”

— Anton Chekhov

325. “And you know that anyone who at least once in his life has caught a perch or seen blackbirds migrating in the fall, when they rush in flocks over the village on clear, cool days, is no longer a townsman, and will be drawn towards freedom till his dying day.”

— Anton Chekhov

326. “It was hard and sour, but, as Poushkin said, the illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. I saw a happy man, one whose dearest dream had come true, who had attained his goal in life, who had got what he wanted, and was pleased with his destiny and with himself.”

— Anton Chekhov

327. “And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a moment to catch his breath. The past, he thought, is connected with the present in an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of the other. And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain: he touched one end, and the other moved.”

— Anton Chekhov

328. “Those who take an official, business-like attitude towards other people’s suffering, like judges, policemen, doctors, from force of habit, as time goes by, become callous to such a degree that they would be unable to treat their clients otherwise than formally even if they wanted to; in this respect they are no different from the peasant who slaughters sheep and calves in his backyard without noticing the blood.”

— Anton Chekhov

329. “I shall renounce it all beforehand.”

— Anton Chekhov

330. “Though my fortune is not large, yet I am in a position to support a beloved being and children at my side.”

— Anton Chekhov

331. “In the first place, the ideas of people who are not intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it’s extremely difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I.”

— Anton Chekhov

332. “My illness is only that in twenty years I have only found one intelligent man in the whole town, and he is mad.”

— Anton Chekhov

333. “Oh, if only this new, bright life would come sooner, when one could look one’s fate directly and boldly in the eye, be conscious of one’s rightness, be cheerful, free! And this life would come sooner or later!”

— Anton Chekhov

334. “Sapping the foundations of civilisation, of authority, of other people’s altars, spattering them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal one’s own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very vain, base, and nasty creature.”

— Anton Chekhov

335. “An idle life cannot be pure.”

— Anton Chekhov

336. “The aim of fiction is honest and absolute truth.”

— Anton Chekhov

337. “The Lie which elates us is dearer than a thousand sober truths.”

— Anton Chekhov

338. “He belongs to the class of simple-hearted, practical, and dull-witted people, prompt in carrying out orders, who like discipline better than anything in the world, and so are convinced that it is their duty to beat people.”

— Anton Chekhov

339. “I yearned for mental tranquility, health, fresh air, good food. I was becoming a dreamer, and, like a dreamer, I did not know exactly what I wanted.”

— Anton Chekhov

340. “I look upon labels and tags as prejudices. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.”

— Anton Chekhov

341. “As a good actor reflects in himself the movements and voice of others, so Vassilyev could reflect in his soul the sufferings of others. When he saw tears, he wept; beside a sick.”

— Anton Chekhov

342. “I hope that in the next world I shall be able to look back upon this life and say: Those were beautiful dreams.”

— Anton Chekhov

343. “There are a great many wicked people in the world,” said Emelyan.”

— Anton Chekhov

344. “But when I walk by the peasants’ woods which I have saved from cutting down, or when I hear the rustling of the young copse planted by my own hands, I realise that the climate is to some extent in my power, and that if in a thousand years man is to be happy I too shall have had some small hand in it.”

— Anton Chekhov

345. “We attach no value to our own opinion even when it is wise, but tremble before the opinion of all sorts of stupid people.”

— Anton Chekhov

346. “Podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not – and decides to take offence.”

— Anton Chekhov

347. “Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory.”

— Anton Chekhov

348. “There is something mystical in the proud man in the sense in which you use the words. You may be right from your point of view, but, if we look at it simple-mindedly, what room is there for pride? Is there any sense in it, when man is so poorly constructed from the physiological point of view, when the vast majority of us are so gross and stupid and profoundly unhappy? We must give up admiring ourselves. The only thing to do is to work.”

— Anton Chekhov

349. “But, as I was saying, life holds nothing for me; my race is run. I am old, I am tired, I am trivial; my sensibilities are dead. I could never attach myself to any one again.”

— Anton Chekhov

350. “She was fond of her comfort.”

— Anton Chekhov