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Brevity - the sister of talent.

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
Brevity
Sister
Talent

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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Great Jove angry is no longer Jove.
Anton Chekhov
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After us they'll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they'll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, Oh! Life is so hard! and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.
Anton Chekhov
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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.
Anton Chekhov
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Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.
Anton Chekhov
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People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.
Anton Chekhov
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In a century or two, or in a millennium, people will live in a new way, a happier way. We wont be there to see it - but its why we live, why we work. Its why we suffer. Were creating it. Thats the purpose of our existence. The only happiness we can know is to work toward that goal.
Anton Chekhov
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People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.
Anton Chekhov
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Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?
Anton Chekhov
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I can't accept our nervous age, since mankind has been nervous during every age. Whoever fears nervousness should turn into a sturgeon or smelt if a sturgeon makes a stupid mistake, it can only be one: to end up on a hook, and then in a pan in a pastry shell.
Anton Chekhov
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From here, far away, people seem very good, and that is natural, for in going away into the country we are not hiding from people but from our vanity, which in town among people is unjust and active beyond measure.
Anton Chekhov
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It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
Anton Chekhov
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Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.
Anton Chekhov
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Man is what he believes.
Anton Chekhov
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The critics suppose that it is easy to write a play. They aren't aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.
Anton Chekhov
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If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It's better to live somehow than not at all.
Anton Chekhov
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Indeed, in Russia there is a terrible poverty of facts, and a terrible abundance of reflections of all sorts.
Anton Chekhov
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And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
Anton Chekhov
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A fiancé is neither this nor that: he's left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
Anton Chekhov
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I am writing a play which I probably will not finish until the end of November. I am writing it with considerable pleasure, though I sin frightfully against the conventions of the stage. It is a comedy with three female parts, six male, four acts, a landscape (view of the lake), lots of talk on literature, little action and tons of love.
Anton Chekhov
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Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.
Anton Chekhov