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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.

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
Divides
Categories
Literary
Exists
Works
Two
Criterion
Like
Criteria
Divide

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Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.
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You've only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think: Oh Lord, you've given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.
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The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings.
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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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Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
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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!
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Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
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Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.
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Whoever sincerely believes that elevated and distant goals are as little use to man as a cow, that all of our problems come fromsuch goals, is left to eat, drink, sleep, or, when he gets sick of that, to run up to a chest and smash his forehead on its corner.
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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.
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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.
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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You will not become a saint through other people's sins.
Anton Chekhov
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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
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What must human beings be, to destroy what they can never create?
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.
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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To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
Anton Chekhov
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It's been a long time since I've had champagne.
Anton Chekhov
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My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
Anton Chekhov