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Write only of what is important and eternal.

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
Eternal
Write
Important
Writing

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'
Anton Chekhov
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Who keeps the tavern and serves up the drinks? The peasant. Who squanders and drinks up money belonging to the peasant commune, the school, the church? The peasant. Who would steal from his neighbor, commit arson, and falsely denounce another for a bottle of vodka? The peasant.
Anton Chekhov
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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
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I let myself go at the beginning and write with an easy mind, but by the time I get to the middle I begin to grow timid and to fear my story will be too long. . .That is why the beginning of my stories is always very promising and looks as though I were starting on a novel, and the middle is huddled and timid, and the end is...like fireworks.
Anton Chekhov
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What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.
Anton Chekhov
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Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.
Anton Chekhov
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Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.
Anton Chekhov
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In two or three hundred years life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astounding. Man needs such a life and if it hasn't yetappeared, he should begin to anticipate it, wait for it, dream about it, prepare for it. To achieve this, he has to see and know more than did his grandfather and father.
Anton Chekhov
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A litterateur is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer. . . . He is just like an ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter, because of his fastidiousness or from a wish to give pleasure to his readers, were to describe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroad contractors.
Anton Chekhov
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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
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Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.
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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Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs.
Anton Chekhov
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To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people's consciousness, the people's conscience, freedom andso forth while servants in tails are scurrying around your table, just like serfs, and out in the severe cold on the street await coachmen--this is the same as lying to the holy spirit.
Anton Chekhov
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I don't like being successful the subjects which sit in my head are annoyed and jealous of what has already been written.
Anton Chekhov
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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
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In all my life I never met anyone so frivolous as you two, so crazy and unbusinesslike. I tell you in plain Russian your property is going to be sold and you don't seem to understand what I say.
Anton Chekhov
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When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.
Anton Chekhov
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Let the things that happen on the stage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life. For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up.
Anton Chekhov
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I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days.
Anton Chekhov