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The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.

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
States
Correctly
Task
Tasks
Solve
Writer
State
Problem

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Brevity - the sister of talent.
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When asked, Why do you always wear black?, he said, I am mourning for my life.
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If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.
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I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.
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God's world is a good place. The one thing not good in it is we. How little justice and humility there is in us. How little we understand true patriotism!
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I've never been in love. I've dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.
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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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Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let's have a philosophical conversation.
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People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.
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Oh, dreams! In one night, lying with one's eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness.
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A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.
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To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.
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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.
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I don't like being successful the subjects which sit in my head are annoyed and jealous of what has already been written.
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My holy of holies is the human body.
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Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.
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When you're thirsty and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean that's faith when you start to drink and finish only a glass or two that's science.
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One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they'll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.
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And what does it mean -- dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.
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If our life has a meaning, an aim, it has nothing to do with our personal happiness, but something wiser and greater.
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