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I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual progress, not a monk. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more.

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
Freedom
Free
Artist
Gradual
Nothing
Monk
Like
Liberal
Believer
Conservative
Progress

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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If you cry ''Forward'' you must be sure to make clear the direction in which to go. Don't you see that if you fail to do that and simply call out the word to a monk and a revolutionary, they will go in precisely opposite directions?
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The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
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A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.
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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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If I had listened to the critics I'd have died drunk in the gutter
Anton Chekhov
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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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You look at any poetic creature: muslin, ether, demigoddess, millions of delights then you look into the soul and find the most ordinary crocodile!
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.
Anton Chekhov
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In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to portray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she.
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Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.
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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Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher's stone.
Anton Chekhov
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A woman is fascinated not by art but by the noise made by those in the field.
Anton Chekhov
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It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
Anton Chekhov
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Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning.
Anton Chekhov
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Life is a vexatious trap when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape.
Anton Chekhov
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Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.
Anton Chekhov
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And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
Anton Chekhov
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You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more to know.
Anton Chekhov
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Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.
Anton Chekhov