Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904)
(Old Style: 17 January 1860 – 2 July 1904) was a major Russian short story writer and playwright.
To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don’t have a passport.
That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.
What writers influenced me as a young man? Chekhov! As a dramatist? Chekhov! As a story writer? 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.
I’m in mourning for my life.
An artist must pass judgment only on what he understands; his range is limited as that of any other specialist—that's what I keep repeating and insisting upon. Anyone who says that the artist's field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealings with imagery. An artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes.
Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms.
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.
Everyone has the same God; only people differ.
Despicable means used to achieve laudable goals render the goals themselves despicable.
The cherry orchard is now mine!... I bought the estate on which my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even permitted in the kitchen.
There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.
In my opinion it is harmful to place important things in the hands of philanthropy, which in Russia is marked by a chance character. Nor should important matters depend on leftovers, which are never there. I would prefer that the government treasury take care of it.
There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.
The more simply we look at ticklish questions, the more placid will be our lives and relationships.
It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.
In order to cultivate yourself and to drop no lower than the level of the milieu in which you have landed, it is not enough to read Pickwick and memorize a monologue from Faust.... You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will.... Each hour is precious.
The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.
People should be beautiful in every way—in their faces, in the way they dress, in their thoughts and in their innermost selves.