Quote

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

Anton Chekhov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Task
Tasks
Solve
Writer
State
Problem
States
Correctly

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

Image
Not everyone knows how to be silent or to leave in good time. It happens that even people of good breeding fail to notice that their presence provokes in the weary or preoccupied host a feeling akin to hatred, and that this feeling is tensely concealed and covered up with lies.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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.
Anton Chekhov
Image
The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness if it issuesnot from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.
Anton Chekhov
Image
When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life you won't intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual progress, not a monk. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Probably nature itself gave man the ability to lie so that in difficult and tense moments he could protect his nest, just as do the vixen and wild duck.
Anton Chekhov
Image
That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.
Anton Chekhov
Image
You confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for an artist.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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!
Anton Chekhov
Image
And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Writers are as jealous as pigeons.
Anton Chekhov
Image
It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich.
Anton Chekhov
Image
You've only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think: Oh Lord, you've given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.
Anton Chekhov
Image
In my opinion it is harmful to place important things in the hands of philanthropy, which in Russia is marked by a chance character. Nor should important matters depend on leftovers, which are never there. I would prefer that the government treasury take care of it.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I long to embrace, to include in my own short life, all that is accessible to man. I long to speak, to read, to wield a hammer in a great factory, to keep watch at sea, to plow. I want to be walking along the Nevsky Prospect, or in the open fields, or on the ocean - wherever my imagination ranges.
Anton Chekhov
Image
There is nothing new in art except talent.
Anton Chekhov
Image
People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.
Anton Chekhov
Image
For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.
Anton Chekhov
Image
The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.
Anton Chekhov