Anton Chekhov: Trending quotes

Anton Chekhov trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection

Anton Chekhov: 444 quotes5 likes

“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.”

Anton Chekhov book The Lady with the Dog

The Lady with the Dog (1899)

“Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.”

Episode from a Practice

“[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.”

Anton Chekhov book Verotchka

Verotchka (1887)

“Children are holy and pure. Even those of bandits and crocodiles belong among the angels…. They must not be turned into a plaything of one’s mood, first to be tenderly kissed, then rabidly stomped at.”

Letter to his brother, A.P. Chekhov (January 2, 1889)
Letters

“"Grigory Petrovitch, let us weep, let us weep with joy!" he said in a thin voice, and then at once burst out laughing in a loud bass guffaw. "Ho-ho-ho! This is a fine daughter-in-law for you too! Everything is in its place in her; all runs smoothly, no creaking, the mechanism works well, lots of screws in it."”

Anton Chekhov book In the Ravine

Source: In the Ravine (1900), Ch. 3, pp. 193-4

“When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.”

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.”

Letter to Alexei Pleshcheev (October 4, 1888)
Letters

“He who constantly swims in the ocean loves dry land.”

Letter to E.M. Shavrova (September 16, 1891)
Letters

“She read a lot, wrote letters without the letter ъ, …”

Anton Chekhov book The Lady with the Dog

Она много читала, не писала въ письмахъ ъ, …
The Lady with the Dog

“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.”

Act IV
Uncle Vanya (1897)

“After us they’ll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, “Oh! Life is so hard!””

and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.
Act II
The Three Sisters (1901)

“He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear and cool autumn days, flocks of migrating thrushes drift over a village. Until his death he will be drawn to freedom.”

Anton Chekhov book Gooseberries

Gooseberries (1898)

“When a person hasn’t in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog’s bark in every sound.”

A Dreary Story or A Tedious Story (1889)

“Probably nature itself gave man the ability to lie so that in difficult and tense moments he could protect his nest, just as do the vixen and wild duck.”

Difficult People https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/chekhov/anton/c51wif/chapter2.html (1886)

“To Moscow, to Moscow, to Moscow!”

Act II
The Three Sisters (1901)

“Grigory Petrovitch, let us weep, let us weep with joy!”

Anton Chekhov book In the Ravine

he said in a thin voice, and then at once burst out laughing in a loud bass guffaw. "Ho-ho-ho! This is a fine daughter-in-law for you too! Everything is in its place in her; all runs smoothly, no creaking, the mechanism works well, lots of screws in it."
Source: In the Ravine (1900), Ch. 3, pp. 193-4

“To a heart transformed by love, it is a mandolin.”

Act II
The Cherry Orchard (1904)

“Tell me, pleez, my sawl, when will I live like human, that is, to work and not to be in need? Now I work, and I'm in need, and I spoil my reputation by the need to write bullshit.”

Скажи, пожалюста, душя моя, когда я буду жить по-человечески, т. е. работать и не нуждаться? Теперь я и работаю, и нуждаюсь, и порчу свою репутацию необходимостью работать херовое.
Letter to the Alexander Chekhov (April 14, 1887)
Letters

“I should think that for one who has tasted the joys of creation, no other pleasure could exist.”

Anton Chekhov The Seagull

Anna to Trigorin, Act I
The Seagull (1896)
Original: (ru) Но, я думаю, кто испытал наслаждение творчества, для того уже все другие наслаждения не существуют.

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.”