Quote

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

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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
Mean
Loaded
Going
Promises
Make
Promise
Never
Stage
Wrong
Keep
Place
Rifle
Must
Rifles

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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He who doesn't know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others' successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.
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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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Brevity - the sister of talent.
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All saints have past and all sinners have a future.
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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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I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.
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Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
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When a person hasn't in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog's bark in every sound.
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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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The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.
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The time's come: there's a terrific thunder-cloud advancing upon us, a mighty storm is coming to freshen us up....It's going to blow away all this idleness and indifference, and prejudice against work....I'm going to work, and in twenty-five or thirty years' time every man and woman will be working.
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Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.
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It is as acceptable now to love the wives of others as it is to smoke their cigars and read their books.
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He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.
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I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.
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When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'
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To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
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Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.
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One usually dislikes a play while writing it, but afterward it grows on one. Let others judge and make decisions.
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This life of ours...human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up---no more flower.
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