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Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov Quotes

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Famous Anton Chekhov Quotes

“Little girls ought to be taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the physiological aspect, too -- to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a glass of water --”

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Author:Anton Chekhov
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“Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground.”

MenHas BeensHomeBeautifulCoursesAnimalMillionsGoneForeverCuttingTreeStupidObjectsBirdPicksRiversDown AndBlowWoodsRussiaForestsLandscapeFuelLazyTremblingShrinkingStoopsWild AnimalBeautiful Landscapes
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…
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“Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape.”

ThinkingMenHelpingFeelingsLife IsConsciousnessMaturityTrapsThinking Man
Book:Anton Chekhov: The Collected Novellas and Short Stories in Multiple Translations: Over 200 Stories From the Renowned Russian Playwright and Author of Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters in Multiple Translations including Ward No. 6 , The Lady with the Dog and Others
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“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are laid waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”

MenHas BeensEarthOrderGivenGrowsAnimalCreativityForeverTreeDyingBecomingWasteBirdRiversClimateDisappearBillionsForestsDestroyedLandscapeDryFewerCrashMarvelousShallowRuinedWildlifeDry Up
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“The time's come: there's a terrific thunder-cloud advancing upon us, a mighty storm is coming to freshen us up....It's going to blow away all this idleness and indifference, and prejudice against work....I'm going to work, and in twenty-five or thirty years' time every man and woman will be working.”

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Author:Anton Chekhov
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“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.”

MenHumansLawFallStrongNatureHuman NatureWeakRelationVictimEverydayEqualityNewspapersLogicalMutualArticlesEveryday LifeSoupIrrelevantStanding OutMixturesWovenHuman RelationsTextbooksSubservientIncongruity
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“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.”

IfsKnowsMenUsedWishFeltLove YouSummerOriginalsWinterBootsSummer 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…
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“A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.”

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Book:The Life and Genius of Anton Chekhov: Letters, Diary, Reminiscences and Biography: Assorted Collection of Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned Russian Author and Playwright of Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and The Seagull
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“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.”

IfsMenWritingI CanSoulNamesLostDoubtGoes OnPrayingDrinkHealthyWeaknessIntelligentSalvationBottomComplainingEducatedMy SoulHillsNo DoubtLazinessAcheLoftyNo Hope
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…
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“He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same.”

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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…
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“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.”

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Author:Anton Chekhov
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“This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!”

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Author:Anton Chekhov
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“Man is what he believes.”

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Book:The Life and Genius of Anton Chekhov: Letters, Diary, Reminiscences and Biography: Assorted Collection of Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned Russian Author and Playwright of Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and The Seagull
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“Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.”

MenHas BeensReasonGivenGrowsEnvironmentLandRiversAddClimateEnvironmentalCreatorDisappearForestsDryGlobal WarmingAnimal RightsEcologyConservationRuinedMother EarthDestroyersNature Of ManNature And EnvironmentSave Mother EarthForests And TreesNature ConservationGreen LivingDry UpGreen TreesNature LifeGo GreenLand ConservationCreation Of ManDestroying The EnvironmentWild LifeDestroyed Nature
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. ... It is comprehensible when I write: "The man sat on the grass," because it is clear and does not detain one's attention. On the other hand, it is difficult to figure out and hard on the brain if I write: "The tall, narrow-chested man of medium height and with a red beard sat down on the green grass that had already been trampled down by the pedestrians, sat down silently, looking around timidly and fearfully." The brain can't grasp all that at once, and art must be grasped at once, instantaneously.”

IfsMenWritingDoeArtHardHandsDifficultAttentionBrainClearFiguresHe ManRedCrossesGreenMediumsCraftsGrassHeightSatTallBeardAdjectivesPedestriansAdverbsGreen GrassAdjectives And Adverbs
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“I long to embrace, to include in my own short life, all that is accessible to man. I long to speak, to read, to wield a hammer in a great factory, to keep watch at sea, to plow. I want to be walking along the Nevsky Prospect, or in the open fields, or on the ocean - wherever my imagination ranges.”

MenWantLifeLongSpeakImaginationMy OwnWatchesSeaFieldsWalkingOceanEmbraceRangeFactoriesMy ImaginationHammersShort LifeOpen Fields
Book:Forty Stories
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