Anton Chekhov Quotes From ‘The Seagull’
In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit.
— Anton Chekhov
We should show life neither as it is, nor as it should be, but as we see it in our dreams.
— Anton Chekhov
Wine and tobacco destroy the individuality.
— Anton Chekhov
Why do I hear a note of sadness that wrings my heart in this cry of a pure soul?
— Anton Chekhov
I feel as if I had been in the world a thousand years, and I trail my life behind me like an endless scarf.
— Anton Chekhov
I understand that in our work – doesn’t matter whether it’s acting or writing .
— Anton Chekhov
The fear of death is an animal passion which must be overcome.
— Anton Chekhov
How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life!
— Anton Chekhov
Living characters! Life must be represented not as it is, but as it ought to be; as it appears in dreams.
— Anton Chekhov
What’s important isn’t fame or glamour, none of the things I used to dream about, it’s the ability to endure.
— Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov Quotes About Love
Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state.
— Anton Chekhov
Your ego breaks in two: you begin to think of yourself in the third person.
— Anton Chekhov
They aren’t aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.
— Anton Chekhov
After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else.
— Anton Chekhov
Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.
— Anton Chekhov
Being in love shows a person who he should be.
— Anton Chekhov
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
— Anton Chekhov
Perhaps man has a hundred senses.
— Anton Chekhov
Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.
— Anton Chekhov
The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
— Anton Chekhov
The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.
— Anton Chekhov
When asked, ‘Why do you always wear black?’, he said, ‘I am mourning for my life.’
— Anton Chekhov
We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
— Anton Chekhov
If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.
— Anton Chekhov
To fear love is to fear life, and those whose fear life are already three parts dead…
— Anton Chekhov
Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others.
— Anton Chekhov
Love Friendship And Respect Do Not Unite People As Much As A Common Hatred For Something
— Anton Chekhov
I’ve never been in love. I’ve dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.
— Anton Chekhov
When you love, you reveal so much affection and tenderness in yourself that sometimes you hardly believe you are able to love like that.
— Anton Chekhov
Reason and justice tell me there’s more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.
— Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov Quotes About Life
All saints have past and all sinners have a future.
— Anton Chekhov
You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.
— Anton Chekhov
I’ve never been in love. I’ve dream’t of it day and night.
— Anton Chekhov
Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it’s unimaginable.
— Anton Chekhov
But my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.
— Anton Chekhov
My love is like a stone tied round my neck; it’s dragging me down to the bottom.
— Anton Chekhov
Man will become better when you show him what he is like.
— Anton Chekhov
There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.
— Anton Chekhov
Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.
— Anton Chekhov
When a woman isn’t beautiful, people always say, ‘You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.
— Anton Chekhov
More Awesome Anton Chekhov Quotes (The Author Of Ivanov)
Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
— Anton Chekhov
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
— Anton Chekhov
Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
— Anton Chekhov
People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.
— Anton Chekhov
Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.
— Anton Chekhov
Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.
— Anton Chekhov
A good upbringing means not that you won’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won’t notice it when someone else does.
— Anton Chekhov
Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.
— Anton Chekhov
If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.
— Anton Chekhov
The sea has neither meaning nor pity.
— Anton Chekhov
No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand… Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
— Anton Chekhov
The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
— Anton Chekhov
I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.
— Anton Chekhov
When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can’t be cured.
— Anton Chekhov
A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.
— Anton Chekhov
If you cry ‘forward’, you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.
— Anton Chekhov
To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.
— Anton Chekhov
People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.
— Anton Chekhov
The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
— Anton Chekhov
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
Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
— Anton Chekhov
To advise is not to compel.
— Anton Chekhov
We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.
— Anton Chekhov
Passion must be concealed in a society where cold reserve and indifference are the signs of good breeding.
— Anton Chekhov
Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
— Anton Chekhov
The more refined one is, the more unhappy.
— Anton Chekhov
One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.
— Anton Chekhov
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.
— Anton Chekhov
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
Advertising is the very essence of democracy.
— Anton Chekhov
When you’re thirsty and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean, that’s faith; when you start to drink and finish only a glass or two, that’s science.
— Anton Chekhov
When an actor has money he doesn’t send letters, he sends telegrams.
— Anton Chekhov
The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.
— Anton Chekhov
It’s easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook.
— Anton Chekhov
The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.
— Anton Chekhov
A fiance is neither this nor that: he’s left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
— Anton Chekhov
How unbearable at times are people who are happy, people for whom everything works out.
— Anton Chekhov
Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.
— Anton Chekhov
What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.
— Anton Chekhov
When asked, “Why do you always wear black?”, he said, “I am mourning for my life.
— Anton Chekhov
Wisdom…. comes not from age, but from education and learning.
— Anton Chekhov
Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.
— Anton Chekhov
If you are afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.
— Anton Chekhov
Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other
— Anton Chekhov
Man is what he believes.
— Anton Chekhov
There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.
— Anton Chekhov
A woman can become a man’s friend only in the following stages – first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.
— Anton Chekhov
There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.
— Anton Chekhov
The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.
— Anton Chekhov
There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.” (The Mill)
— Anton Chekhov
The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
— Anton Chekhov
Even in Siberia there is happiness.
— Anton Chekhov
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
If my life can ever be of any use to you, come and take it.
— Anton Chekhov
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
Only one who loves can remember so well.
— Anton Chekhov
Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.
— Anton Chekhov
Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.
— Anton Chekhov
They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.
— Anton Chekhov
Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.” (Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)
— Anton Chekhov
And what does it mean — dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.
— Anton Chekhov
MEDVIEDENKO Why do you always wear mourning? MASHA I dress in black to match my life. I am unhappy.
— Anton Chekhov
If you want to work on your art, work on your life.
— Anton Chekhov
Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.
— Anton Chekhov
It’s very hard, feeling that you’re no more than a piece of unwanted furniture in this world.
— Anton Chekhov
This life of ours…human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up—no more flower.
— Anton Chekhov
When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it cannot be cured.
— Anton Chekhov
I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.
— Anton Chekhov
And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
— Anton Chekhov
Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.
— Anton Chekhov
Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there’s an unfinished novel waiting for me.
— Anton Chekhov
..when one has no real life, one lives by mirages. It’s still better than nothing.
— Anton Chekhov
Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let’s have a philosophical conversation.
— Anton Chekhov
There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. But now we must live … we must work, just work!
— Anton Chekhov
I should think I’m going to be a perpetual student.
— Anton Chekhov
I feel like a donkey, with a stick in my mouth and a carrot up my ass.
— Anton Chekhov
I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.
— Anton Chekhov
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
— Anton Chekhov
The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.
— Anton Chekhov
For God’s sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.
— Anton Chekhov
To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.
— Anton Chekhov
What must human beings be, to destroy what they can never create?
— Anton Chekhov
They say, tell me what you’ve read and I’ll tell you who you are.
— Anton Chekhov
He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.
— Anton Chekhov
We all have too many wheels, screws and valves to judge each other on first impressions or one or two pointers. I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me and we don’t understand ourselves.
— Anton Chekhov
There is nothing new in art except talent.
— Anton Chekhov
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
Desription should be very brief and have an incidental nature.
— Anton Chekhov
A naive man is nothing better than a fool. But you women contrive to be naive in such a way that in you it seems sweet, and gentle, and proper, and not as silly as it really is.
— Anton Chekhov
In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!” (Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)
— Anton Chekhov
My thoughts about human happiness, for some peculiar reason, had always been tinged with a certain sadness.
— Anton Chekhov
Oh, dreams! In one night, lying with one’s eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness.
— Anton Chekhov
I must run away, I must escape this very day or I shall go out of my mind.
— Anton Chekhov
If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.
— Anton Chekhov
Write about this man who, drop by drop, squeezes the slave’s blood out of himself until he wakes one day to find the blood of a real human being–not a slave’s–coursing through his veins.
— Anton Chekhov
Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.
— Anton Chekhov
The teacher must be an actor, an artist,passionately in love with his work.
— Anton Chekhov
A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.
— Anton Chekhov
TRIGORIN Why do I hear a note of sadness that wrings my heart in this cry of a pure soul? If at any time you should have need of my life, come and take it.
— Anton Chekhov
A woman can only become a man’s friend in three stages: first she’s an agreeable acquaintance, then a mistress and only after that a friend.
— Anton Chekhov
Existence is tedious, anyway.
— Anton Chekhov
A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.
— Anton Chekhov
One hundred years from now, the people who come after us, for whom our lives are showing the way–will they think of us kindly? Will they remember us with a kind word? I wish to God I could think so.
— Anton Chekhov
Once a man gets a fixed idea, there’s nothing to be done.
— Anton Chekhov
Every coming year is as bad as the previous one, the only difference being that in most cases it is even worse.
— Anton Chekhov
Men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself: “I am doing God’s will on earth.
— Anton Chekhov
Which executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the course of many years
— Anton Chekhov
I still lack a political, religious, and philosophical world view. I change it every month, so I’ll have to limit myself to the description of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.
— Anton Chekhov
It’s better to live down a scandal than to ruin one’s life.
— Anton Chekhov
It is always “Youth, youth,” when there is nothing else to be said.
— Anton Chekhov
..One has to be a mindless barbarian to burn such beauty in a stove, to destroy what we can not create..
— Anton Chekhov
When a woman is plain, people say, ‘What beautiful eyes you have, beautiful hair.
— Anton Chekhov
One should not put a loaded rifle onto the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.
— Anton Chekhov
It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporeal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.
— Anton Chekhov
Only entropy comes easy.
— Anton Chekhov
The life of a man is like a flower, blooming so gaily in a field. Then, along comes a goat, he eats it and the flower is gone!
— Anton Chekhov
My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom–freedom from violence and falsehood, no matter how the last two manifest themselves.
— Anton Chekhov
There is no greater sorrow than to know another’s secret when you cannot help them.
— Anton Chekhov
Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.
— Anton Chekhov
She had a passionate longing for the garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars.
— Anton Chekhov
Shabelsky: Doctors are the same as lawyers, the sole difference being that lawyers only rob you, but doctors rob you and kill you too…
— Anton Chekhov
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
