Anton Chekhov: Personal

Anton Chekhov was Russian dramatist, author and physician. Explore interesting quotes on personal.
Anton Chekhov: 444 quotes5 likes

“Tell mother that however dogs and samovars might behave themselves, winter comes after summer, old age after youth, and misfortune follows happiness (or the other way around). A person can not be healthy and cheerful throughout life. Losses lie waiting and man can not safeguard against death, even if he be Alexander of Macedonia. One must be prepared for anything and consider everything to be inevitably essential, as sad as that may be.”

Anton Chekhov

Letter to his sister Maria Pavlovna Chekhov (November 13, 1898)
Letters

“It always seems to the brothers and the father that their brother or son didn't marry the right person.”

Anton Chekhov

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book…. One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.”

Anton Chekhov

Letter to N.M. Ezhov (March 22, 1893)
Letters

“Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie.”

Anton Chekhov book The Letter

The Letter (1887)

“It has become customary to say that a man needs only six feet of land. But a corpse needs six feet, not a person.”

Anton Chekhov book Gooseberries

Gooseberries (1898)

“When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you’ll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you’ll eat yourself.”

Anton Chekhov

Fatherlessness or Platonov, Act I, sc. xiv (1878)

“There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent.”

Anton Chekhov book After the Theatre

After the Theatre (1892)

“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.”

Anton Chekhov

Act IV
The Seagull (1896)

“The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issues not from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.”

Anton Chekhov

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.”

Anton Chekhov

Rothschild’s Fiddle (1894)

“Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.”

Anton Chekhov book Gooseberries

Gooseberries (1898)

“The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist.”

Anton Chekhov

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (November 25, 1892)
Letters

“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.”

Anton Chekhov

Letter to A.N. Pleshcheev (October 25, 1888)
Letters

“Eyes—the head’s chief of police. They watch and make mental notes. A blind person is like a city abandoned by the authorities. On sad days they cry. In these carefree times they weep only from tender emotions.”

Anton Chekhov

A Brief Human Anatomy (1883)

“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.”

Anton Chekhov book Gooseberries

Gooseberries (1898)

“When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.”

Anton Chekhov

Letter to Maxim Gorky (January 3, 1899)
Letters

“Love is a scandal of the personal sort.”

Anton Chekhov

The Piano Player (1885)

“Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?”

Anton Chekhov

Source: Letter to A.S. Suvorin (November 18, 1891)

“When a person doesn’t understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn’t search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn’t understand.”

Anton Chekhov

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 15, 1889)
Letters

“"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb, but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing, he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."”

Anton Chekhov book In the Ravine

Source: In the Ravine (1900), Ch. 6, pp. 216