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)
We learn more from sorrow than from joy.
The thirst for powerful impressions is the same as the thirst for life.
All great literatures are great because they are the image of life.
You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.
The past is lost but the future is always with us.
If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.
A good upbringing means not that you don't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you don't notice that your opposite number has spilled some.
The only thing that can save us is the power of art.
Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
It is easier to ask of a poor man than of a rich one.
The crowd is always wrong.
To despise art is to despise life.
I am a doctor, not a writer.
The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than a host of truths.
What a fine, disgusting thing is man!
Reason and love are the two main poles of human existence.
An actor must work all his life.
The world is full of beautiful things, but they are useless.
One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.
Moscow is not interested in miracles.
Contemporaries of Anton Chekhov
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Anton Chekhov (1860–1904).