Quotessence
Home / Authors / Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov Quotes

Physician

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleIfsMenWritingKnowsLiteratureShouldTwoThinkingPersonsYearsArtistLifeLyingDoeFirstsHappinessLooksSeemsWant

Famous Anton Chekhov Quotes

“He [Ivan Alexeyevich Ognev] walked along, and he thought how often it happens in life that one meets wonderful people and what a pity it was that nothing remains of these meetings but memories. Sometimes a flight of cranes will pass like a flash across the horizon and a light wind carries back their wailing, rapturous cry, but a minute later, no matter how greedily you may peer into the blue distance, you will not see a sign of them nor hear a sound--in just the same way people, with their faces and words, will flash into our lives and melt into our past, leaving nothing behind but insignificant traces in the memory. (Verochka, 1887)”

PeopleLifeMemoriesImpact
Book:Late-Blooming Flowers and Other Stories
Create image

“Anna Sergeevna e lui si amavano come due esseri molto vicini, affini, come marito e moglie, come se il destino li avesse destinati l'uno all'altra e non capivano perché li aveva fatti sposare con altri; erano come due uccelli migratori, maschio e femmina, catturati insieme e messi in due gabbie separate.”

PeopleLoveLifeHumanityRelationshipsLove QuotesAmoreRelazioniTradimentoAmore Proibito
Book:The Lady with the Little Dog
Create image

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

PeopleIfsThinkingMayParticularOffersIllnessRemedy
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)
Create image

“I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.”

PeopleCeaseCurious
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
Create image

“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.”

PeopleBelieveSufferingIndividualI BelieveIntegritySalvationI Believe InComplainingRussiaOppressionLazyIndividualismPeasantsHystericalUneducatedHypocriticalDiscrete
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people's consciousness, the people's conscience, freedom andso forth while servants in tails are scurrying around your table, just like serfs, and out in the severe cold on the street await coachmen--this is the same as lying to the holy spirit.”

PeopleSpiritLyingConsciousnessStreetsColdDrinkHolySpeechConscienceRaisesTablesSlaveryServantHoly SpiritHypocrisyTailsSevereChampagneRacketDineSerfs
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to portray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she.”

PeopleMindTwoStatesCharacterStoriesActionClearPsychologyMinutesHeroEssentialsState Of MindGravityVagueGeneralizationMain CharactersCenter Of Gravity
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“But at the same time, in reality, what a difference there is between the world today, and what it used to be! And with the passage of more time, some two or three hundred years, say, people will look back at our own times with horror, or with sneering laughter, because all of our present day life will appear so clumsy, and burdensome, extraordinarily inept and strange. Yes, certainly, what a life it will be then, what a life!”

PeopleWorldYearsLooksTwoRealityTodayUsedThreeDifferencesStrangeHorrorLaughterHundredUsed To BeMore TimePassagesWorld TodayPresent DayClumsyDay Life
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”

PeopleHas BeensBookLeftBehindsSunTeacherTreeFieldsBirdRiversWoodsSettingSettingsHerbsCrimsonInspiring Nature
Book:Anton Chekhov Short Stories v2: Classic Russia Literature
Create image

“You've only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think: "Oh Lord, you've given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.”

PeopleThinkingI CanSometimesGivenSleepLordHonestFieldsHugeOughtInfiniteEndlessForestsGiantsHorizonCan't SleepI Can't Sleep
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)
Create image

“We are accustomed to live in hopes of good weather, a good harvest, a nice love-affair, hopes of becoming rich or getting the office of chief of police, but I've never noticed anyone hoping to get wiser. We say to ourselves: it'll be better under a new tsar, and in two hundred years it'll still be better, and nobody tries to make this good time come tomorrow. On the whole, life gets more and more complex every day and moves on its own sweet will, and people get more and more stupid, and get isolated from life in ever-increasing numbers.”

PeopleTryingYearsStillsTwoWholeMovingNumbersRichNiceStupidSweetBecomingTomorrowOfficeHundredPoliceComplexesAffairWhole LifeWeatherChiefsGood TimesIsolatedWiserHarvestAccustomedLove AffairGood Weather
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people.”

PeopleKnowsMadeTwoRunningValuesCoursesInterestSecretKnownStrangeCircumstancesEssentialsSincereRelativeFalsehoodDeceivingAcquaintanceAnother LifeKernelConjunctionsTwo LivesRelative Truth
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)
Create image

“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!”

PeopleKnowsMenWantWritingYearsMeanHas BeensArtIdeasReadingFiveStupidUnderstoodTwentiesIntelligentFive YearsNonsenseRealismConceitStupid PeopleTwenty FivePretensionNaturalismReading And Writing
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings.”

PeopleShouldDoeTogetherUnderstandingUnitedFoolSorrowCapableDrawsInjusticeUnhappyCrueltyFancyUnhappinessUnjustSurroundingsSimilarityPlacidSpitefulUnderstanding Each Other
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)
Create image

“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!”

PeopleIfsCharacterEarthBeautifulScienceStarsWaterSunTreeInfluenceTerribleCivilizationFutureEssentialsClimateForestsCrashHarshSeverePlant A TreeRight To LifeForests And TreesDeforestationBeautiful Trees
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life.”

PeopleShouldMayChildrenWholeHandsAgeMotherFatherDifficultAchievePlanetsHighestAbsolutesPraiseGreat ThingsShould ISplendidShortcomingsCloaksMother And FatherDifficult LifeAbsolute Love
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”

PeopleHappinessGratitudeSummerWinterHappyCheerBeing HappyJunePursuit Of HappinessTrue HappinessGreat HappinessSummertimeSelf HappinessArt Of HappinessSecret To HappinessEnd Of SummerLooking For HappinessSummer LoveWinter DaysWinter SeasonWinter SnowWinter ColdWinter TimeMake Others HappySummer And WinterSummer GardenFunny WinterWinter MonthsHot SummerSummer InspirationalCute SummerGreat SummerWinter LoveHappy SummerWinter SolsticePursuing Happiness
Author:Anton Chekhov
Create image

“The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.”

PeopleLooksArtistGivenLinesRegretConservativeDeterminedMonkI RegretBetween The Lines
Book:Selected Stories of Anton Chekov
Create image