anton-chekhov Quotes About ifs

“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 . . . one must ruthlessly suppress everything that is not concerned with the subject. If, in the first chapter, you say there is a gun hanging on the wall, you should make quite sure that it is going to be used further on in the story.”

Ifs Should Firsts Has Beens Ends Stories Used Lying My Own Written Subjects Wall Gun Concerned Crosses Chapters Hanging On

Author:Anton Chekhov

“When one sees one of the romantic creatures before him he imagines he is looking at some holy being, so wonderful that its one breath could dissolve him in a sea of a thousand charms and delights; but if one looks into the soul -- it's nothing but a common crocodile.”

Ifs Looks Soul Women Common Imagine Wonderful Sea Holy Thousand Creatures Breaths Delight Charm Crocodiles

Book:The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

Source: The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

“I can't accept "our nervous age," since mankind has been nervous during every age. Whoever fears nervousness should turn into a sturgeon or smelt; if a sturgeon makes a stupid mistake, it can only be one: to end up on a hook, and then in a pan in a pastry shell.”

Ifs Should Has Beens I Can Ends Age Turns Mistake Accepting Mankind Stupid Nervous Shells Hook Pastries Nervousness Stupid Mistake

Author:Anton Chekhov

“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.”

People Ifs Needs Years Persons Lying Turns Pay Drink Taxes Profit Graves Enormous Profitable

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If only one tooth aches, rejoice that not all of them ache.... If your wife betrays you, be glad that she betrayed only you and not the nation.”

Ifs Nations Wife Glad Teeth Rejoice Betray Betrayed Ache

Author:Anton Chekhov

“I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it's tobacco, then let it be tobacco.”

Ifs Today Speak Wife My Wife Smoke Tobacco

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Women writers should write a lot if they want to write. Take the English women, for example. What amazing workers.”

Ifs Want Should Writing Example Workers

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If there's any illness for which people offer many remedies, you may be sure that particular illness is incurable, I think.”

People Ifs Thinking May Particular Offers Illness Remedy

Book:Greatest Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Novel and A Biography (Including The Steppe, Ward No. 6, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, On Trial, The Darling, The Bet, Vanka, After the Theatre and many more)

Source: Greatest Works of Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Novel and A Biography (Including The Steppe, Ward No. 6, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, On Trial, The Darling, The Bet, Vanka, After the Theatre and many more)

“If there's a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must fire the gun by act three, scene two. If you fire a gun in act three, scene two, you must see the gun on the wall in act one, scene one.”

Ifs Two Book Three Language Fire Wall Scene Gun

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don't have a passport.”

Ifs Feels Language Travel Passports

Author:Anton Chekhov

“For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.”

Ifs Life Wells Soul Would Be School Behinds Fine Eternity Salvation Retreat Fine Things Without A Trace

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.”

Ifs Knows Writing Hard Play Easy Judging Criticism

Author:Anton Chekhov

“In two or three hundred years life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astounding. Man needs such a life and if it hasn't yetappeared, he should begin to anticipate it, wait for it, dream about it, prepare for it. To achieve this, he has to see and know more than did his grandfather and father.”

Ifs Knows Men Needs Should Years Two Dream Earth Beautiful Three Father Waiting Change Generations Achieve Hundred Grandfather Anticipate

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If you fear loneliness, then don't get married.”

Ifs Fear Marriage Loneliness Married

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Love is a great thing. It is not by chance that in all times and practically among all cultured peoples love in the general senseand the love of a man for his wife are both called love. If love is often cruel or destructive, the reasons lie not in love itself, but in the inequality between people.”

People Ifs Men Love Reason Lying Chance Love Is Wife Great Things All Time Inequality Destructive

Author:Anton Chekhov

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

Ifs Soul Helping Desire Common Failing Charity Consideration Theoretical Common Good Personal Happiness

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If you can't distinguish people from lap-dogs, you shouldn't undertake philanthropic work.”

People Ifs Work Dog Charity Lap Philanthropic Lap Dogs

Author:Anton Chekhov

“I do not know why one should not hunt two hares even in the literal sense....”

Ifs Knows Two Determination Pursue Hunting Rabbits Literal Hounds

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that "each case be individualized." If this advice is followed, one becomes persuaded that those means recommended in textbooks as the best, means perfectly appropriate for the template case, turn out to be completely unsuitable in individual cases.”

Ifs Mean Turns Individual Cases Advice Medicine Cures Appropriate Individualism Therapists Textbooks

Author:Anton Chekhov

“The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can't return even if it wants to.”

Ifs Want Doe Government Return Capital Punishment

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It's better to live somehow than not at all.”

Ifs Courses Prison Latter Execution Capital Punishment

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.”

Ifs Lying Speak Authority

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If many remedies are prescribed for an illness you can be sure it has no cure”

Ifs Illness Cures Remedy

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it.”

Ifs Firsts Use Gun Thirds Introducing

Author:Anton Chekhov

“I often wonder: suppose we could begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light ... I have a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry. ... No, no!”

Ifs Thinking Trying Two Use Light Rooms Wonder Knowing Wife Flower Daughter My Wife Repeats Rough Delicate Two Daughters Rough Drafts

Book:The Three Sisters

Source: The Three Sisters

“If you wish women to love you be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter & women fell in love with him.”

Ifs Knows Men Used Wish Felt Love You Summer Originals Winter Boots Summer And Winter

Book:The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

Source: The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

“Life has gone by as if I never lived”

Ifs Gone

Book:The Cherry Orchard: in a new English version

Source: The Cherry Orchard: in a new English version

“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”

Ifs Use Claims

Author:Anton Chekhov

“You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)

“I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.”

Ifs Thinking Heart Would Be My Own Tears My Heart Good Things Passing Passings If I Could Breasts Oppressed Weary Vague Discontent My Own Life Dissatisfaction

Book:Forty Stories

Source: Forty Stories

“If an intelligent, educated, and healthy man begins to complain of his lot and go down-hill, there is nothing for him to do but to go on down until he reaches the bottom--there is no hope for him. Where could my salvation come from? How can I save myself? I cannot drink, because it makes my head ache. I never could write bad poetry. I cannot pray for strength and see anything lofty in the languor of my soul. Laziness is laziness and weakness weakness. I can find no other names for them. I am lost, I am lost; there is no doubt of that.”

Source: The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

“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.”

Ifs Thinking Way Stills Would Be Tree Wind Died One Way Parts Of Life

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.”

Ifs Want Humans Human Life Good Life

Author:Anton Chekhov

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.”

Ifs Want Art Growth

Author: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.”

Ifs Thinking Heart Would Be Felt Tears My Heart Heavy If I Could Chests Marvellous

Author: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.”

Ifs Self Running Brain Mouths Sake Self Respect Lunch

Book:How to Write Like Chekhov: Advice and Inspiration, Straight from His Own Letters and Work

Source: How to Write Like Chekhov: Advice and Inspiration, Straight from His Own Letters and Work

“If I had listened to the critics I'd have died drunk in the gutter”

Ifs Inspirational Motivational Success Died Critics Drunk Ballet Gutters

Author:Anton Chekhov

“A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples' character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe. ... What a terrible future!”

“If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.”

Ifs Love Inspirational Marriage Loneliness Marrying Loneliness And Solitude

Book:The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

Source: The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov: Novellas, Short Stories, Plays, Letters & Diary: Three Sisters, Seagull , The Shooting Party, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, Chameleon, Tripping Tongue, On The Road, Vanka, Ward No. Six, Swedish Match, Nightmare, Bear, Reluctant Hero, Joy…

“If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.”

Ifs Failing Cry

Author: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.”

People Ifs Years May Matter States Extremes Fairness Unfair Unjust Lapses Convicts Lack Of Faith

Author:Anton Chekhov

“A litterateur is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer. . . . He is just like an ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter, because of his fastidiousness or from a wish to give pleasure to his readers, were to describe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroad contractors.”