Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904)
(Old Style: 17 January 1860 – 2 July 1904) was a major Russian short story writer and playwright.
There are no small number of people in this world who, solitary by nature, always try to go back into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail.
He who doesn’t know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others’ successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.
One can only call that youth healthful which refuses to be reconciled to old ways and which, foolishly or shrewdly, combats the old. This is nature’s charge and all progress hinges upon it.
Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.
Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?
The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.
Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority.
Ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves; political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles. But don't be disconcerted by their aquiline appearance. They are not eagles, but rats or dogs.
Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?
There are no lower or higher or median moralities. There is only one morality, and it is precisely the one that was given to us during the time of Jesus Christ and that stops me, you and Barantsevich from stealing, offending others, lying etc.
Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.
If you can’t distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn’t undertake philanthropic work.
Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
It is depressing to hear the unfortunate or dying man jest.
I have no faith in our hypocritical, false, hysterical, uneducated and lazy intelligentsia when they suffer and complain: their oppression comes from within. I believe in individual people. I see salvation in discrete individuals, intellectuals and peasants, strewn hither and yon throughout Russia. They have the strength, although there are few of them.
An expansive life, one not constrained by four walls, requires as well an expansive pocket.
Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.
We live not in order to eat, but in order not to know what we feel like eating.
Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic.