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Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov Quotes

Physician

Anton Chekhov, born on January 29, 1860, was a prominent Russian physician and short story writer. His works are renowned for their profound psychological insights and critical portrayal of social realities. Chekhov's short stories have had a profound impact on literature both in Russia and around the world.

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All People Ifs Men Writing Knows Literature Should Two Thinking Persons Years Artist Life Lying Doe Firsts Happiness Looks Seems Want

Famous Anton Chekhov Quotes

“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

“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.”

Men Years Change Five Men And Women Prejudice Twenties Clouds Blow Storm Every Man Indifference Thirty Thunder Going To Work Idleness Terrific Thirty Years Advancing Twenty Five

Author:Anton Chekhov

“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.”

Years Mean Two Happiness Our Lives Generations Hundred Happy Despise

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

“Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?”

Years Doe Courses Minutes Lifetime Punishment Humane Imprisonment Capital Punishment Executioners

Author:Anton Chekhov

“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!”

People World Years Looks Two Reality Today Used Three Differences Strange Horror Laughter Hundred Used To Be More Time Passages World Today Present Day Clumsy Day Life

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.”

Years Justice Existence Goodness Hundred Ideals Dear Welcome Devoted Radiant Bookcases

Author:Anton Chekhov

“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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“Every coming year is as bad as the previous one, the only difference being that in most cases it is even worse.”

Years Differences Cases

Author:Anton Chekhov

“You don't understand, you fool' says Yegor, looking dreamily up at the sky. 'You've never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years... You just think I'm a mad person who has thrown his life away... Once the free spirit has taken hold of a man, there's no way of getting it out of him.”

Thinking Men Way Years Kind Persons Spirit Millions Taken Sky Fool Understood Mad Thrown Free Spirit Mad Person

Author:Anton Chekhov

“Not only after two or three centuries, but in a million years, life will still be as it was; life does not change, it remains for ever, following its own laws which do not concern us, or which, at any rate, you will never find out. Migrant birds, cranes for example, fly and fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to life among them; they may philosophize as much as they like, only they will fly.”

Knows Years May Doe Stills Two Law Three Millions Century Example Lows Bird Concern Remains Rate Philosopher Following Migrants Cranes

Book:The Three Sisters

Source: The Three Sisters

“Oh, dreams! In one night, lying with one's eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness.”

Years May Sometimes Dream Eye Happiness Lying Night Ten One Night

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)

“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

“[In] death at least there would be one profit; it would no longer be necessary to eat, to drink, to pay taxes, or to [offend] others; and as a man lies in his grave not one year, but hundreds and thousands of years, the profit was enormous. The life of man was, in short, a loss, and only his death a profit.”

Men Years Would Be Science Death Lying Loss Pay Drink Taxes Profit Graves Enormous Lying Men

Book:The Works of Anton Chekhov

Source: The Works of Anton Chekhov

“I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and can't remember a single useful point in any of them, or the slightest good advice. The only reviewer who ever made an impression on me was Skabichevsky, who prophesied that I would die drunk in the bottom of a ditch.”

Years Made Stories Remember Dies Reading Five Advice Twenties Critics Bottom Impression Drunk Rejection Five Years Editors Reviews Good Advice Twenty Five Reviewers

Author:Anton Chekhov

“"Do you know," Ivan Bunin recalls Anton Chekhov saying to him in 1899, near the end of his too-short life, "for how many years I shall be read? Seven." "Why seven?" Bunin asked. "Well," Chekhov answered, "seven and a half then."”

Knows Life Years Wells Ends Half Seven Do You Know Recalls Too Short Short Life Chekhov

Author:Anton Chekhov

“An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.”

Years Felt Honest Talent Sorry Dinner Actresses Forty Sensible Forty Years Old

Author:Anton Chekhov