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Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

Anton Chekhov

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Anton Chekhov
Age: 44 †
Born: 1860
Born: January 1
Died: 1904
Died: January 1
Author
Dramaturge
Journalist
Novelist
Physician
Playwright
Prosaist
Satirist
Writer
Tahanroh
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Antón Pávlovič Čéhov
Antón Pávlovich Chékhov
Chekhov
Tired
Spend
Wife
Literature
Lawful
Science
Mistress
Night
Medical
Profession
Medicine

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.
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[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.
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we all have too many wheels, screws and valves to judge each other on first impressions or one or two pointers. I don't understand you, you don't understand me and we don't understand ourselves.
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In all my life I never met anyone so frivolous as you two, so crazy and unbusinesslike. I tell you in plain Russian your property is going to be sold and you don't seem to understand what I say.
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Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.
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The bourgeoisie is very fond of so-called practical types and novels with happy endings, since they soothe it with the idea that one can both accumulate capital and preserve innocence, be a beast and at the same time be happy...
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Once you've married, be strict but just with your wife, don't allow her to forget herself, and when a misunderstanding arises, say: Don't forget that I made you happy.
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Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.
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Everything on earth is beautiful, everything -- except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.
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To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist he must abandon the subjective line he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.
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Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.
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Let the things that happen on the stage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life. For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up.
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Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.
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I let myself go at the beginning and write with an easy mind, but by the time I get to the middle I begin to grow timid and to fear my story will be too long. . .That is why the beginning of my stories is always very promising and looks as though I were starting on a novel, and the middle is huddled and timid, and the end is...like fireworks.
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If you want to work on your art, work on your life.
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Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.
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Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.
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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.
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When asked, Why do you always wear black?, he said, I am mourning for my life.
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You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly.
Anton Chekhov