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Flies purify the air, and plays - the morals.

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
Purify
Flies
Morals
Plays
Air
Moral
Play

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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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.
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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?
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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.
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I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book.... One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.
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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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I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.
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Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
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Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.
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Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.
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It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others' expense.
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Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? Before God or, perhaps, before the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not before people. Among people, one must be conscious of one's dignity.
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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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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.
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..when one has no real life, one lives by mirages. It's still better than nothing.
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Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.
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To believe in God is not hard. Inquisitors, Byron and Arakcheev believed in Him. No, believe in man!
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The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.
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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.
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I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don't like. No other criterion exists for me.
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There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.
Anton Chekhov