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Anton Chekhov Quotes
1860–1904 Russia
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Анто́н Па́влович Че́хов) (29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) (Old Style: 17 January 1860 – 2 July 1904) was a Russian short story writer and playwright.
Russia Novelists Physicians Playwrights Short story writers Also known as: Anton Chekov, Chekhov
Random Anton Chekhov quote
215 quotes
He who constantly swims in the ocean loves dry land.
One must speak about serious things seriously.
Hypocrisy is a revolting, psychopathic state.
At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.
Gooseberries (1898)
There is nothing more vapid than a philistine petty bourgeois existence with its farthings, victuals, vacuous conversations, and useless conventional virtue.
If you really think about it, everything is wonderful in this world, everything except for our thoughts and deeds when we forget about the loftier goals of existence, about our human dignity.
The Lady with the Dog (1899)
Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.
People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.
We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
Uncle Vanya (1897)
It has become customary to say that a man needs only six feet of land. But a corpse needs six feet, not a person.
Gooseberries (1898)
Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don’t know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hard and tortuous to write a bad one.
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.
Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they’ll find a means to be happy.
Uncle Vanya (1897)
Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)
People love talking of their diseases, although they are the most uninteresting things in their lives.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)
I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.
How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)
If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."
I try to catch every sentence, every word you and I say, and quickly lock all these sentences and words away in my literary storehouse because they might come in handy.
The Seagull (1896)
To regard one’s immortality as an exchange of matter is as strange as predicting the future of a violin case once the expensive violin it held has broken and lost its worth.
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