Anton Chekhov
Master of the short story and modern drama
Most quoted
"Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he has been given. But up to now he has not created, but only destroyed. Forests are disappearing, rivers are drying up, wildlife is becoming extinct, the climate is spoiled, and every day the earth is growing poorer and uglier."
— from Uncle Vanya, 1897
"If you want to be a pessimist and write a novel, you must be a pessimist and write a novel. If you want to be an optimist and write a novel, you must be an optimist and write a novel. But if you want to be a realist and write a novel, you must be a realist and write a novel."
— from Letters
"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 not a liberal, not a conservative... I should have liked to be a free artist and that's all."
— from Letter to A.S. Suvorin, 1888
All quotes by Anton Chekhov (291)
The task of the writer is not to solve the problem of God, but to write truthfully about how people talk about God or think about God.
The more cultivated a person is, the more he is able to feel the pain of others.
Man is a creature who can get used to anything.
The most important thing in life is to be happy. It's the only thing that matters.
The world is full of suffering, but it is also full of people who are trying to make it better.
The artist must be a free man, not a slave to his ideas or his characters.
The truth is always simple, but it is not always easy to understand.
The most important thing is to live your life to the fullest.
Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.
The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.
The more refined one is, the more unhappy.
When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured.
We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
To advise is not to compel.
If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.
Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.
The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
There is nothing new in art except talent.
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness and only the useless is pleasurable.
Contemporaries of Anton Chekhov
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Anton Chekhov (1860–1904).