Quote

But if you had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone: My work is literature.

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
Literature
Soft
Eye
Bright
Look
Large
Lisping
Looks
Gold
Velvety
Work
Answer
Baritone
Would
Asked
Baritones
Answers
Candidly
Eyes
Openly

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You look boldly ahead isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future because life is still hidden from your young eyes.
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All the great sages are as despotic as generals, and as ignorant and as indelicate as generals, because they feel secure of impunity.
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Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.
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Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.
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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.
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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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There are in life conjunctions of circumstances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires is least of all appropriate.
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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.
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I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles.
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When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you if you go left, you’ll eat the wolves if you go straight, you’ll eat yourself.
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What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.
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Oh, dreams! In one night, lying with one's eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness.
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Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.
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A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.
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To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist he must abandon the subjective line he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.
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If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.
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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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The bourgeoisie is very fond of so-called practical types and novels with happy endings, since they soothe it with the idea that one can both accumulate capital and preserve innocence, be a beast and at the same time be happy...
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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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At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.
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