215 quotes
Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.
Misfortune (1886)
What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all.
The Three Sisters (1901)
"Yes, that's how it is, child. He who works, he who is patient is the superior."
In the Ravine (1900)
Good breeding doesn't mean that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice when someone else does.
The House with the Mezzanine (1896)
There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.
The Teacher of Literature (1894)
That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.
Letter to a Learned Neighbor (1880)
Hoping for the critics' indulgence, the author asks to send money for his story immediately, otherwise his wife and kids will die of hunger.
A man who doesn’t drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man.
The air of one’s native country is the most healthy air.
You look at any poetic creature: muslin, ether, demigoddess, millions of delights; then you look into the soul and find the most ordinary crocodile!
Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.
The Seagull (1896)
Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)
A fiancé is neither this nor that: he’s left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
Love (1886)
There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent.
After the Theatre (1892)
When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.
Prudence and justice tell me that in electricity and steam there is more love for man than in chastity and abstinence from meat.
Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher’s stone.
Russian Pancakes or Bliny (1886)
It’s even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.
Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds.
Ah, but ignorance is better. At least then there's hope.
Uncle Vanya (1897)