Quote

He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.

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
Artist
Art
Cannot
Sarcastic
Nothing
Hopes
Desires
Afraid
Funny
Desire

More quotes by 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
No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
Anton Chekhov
Image
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
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.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Eyes - the head's chief of police. They watch and make mental notes.
Anton Chekhov
Image
The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Man will become better when you show him what he is like.
Anton Chekhov
Image
The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
Anton Chekhov
Image
We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Do you know, Ivan Bunin recalls Anton Chekhov saying to him in 1899, near the end of his too-short life, for how many years I shall be read? Seven. Why seven? Bunin asked. Well, Chekhov answered, seven and a half then.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I have no will of my own. Never did. Limp and lily-livered, I always obey - is it possible that's attractive to women?
Anton Chekhov
Image
A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.
Anton Chekhov
Image
One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Moscow is a city that has much suffering ahead of it.
Anton Chekhov
Image
It's not a matter of old or new forms a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.
Anton Chekhov
Image
It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Satiation, like any state of vitality, always contains a degree of impudence, and that impudence emerges first and foremost when the sated man instructs the hungry one.
Anton Chekhov