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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
Like
Criteria
Divide
Divides
Categories
Literary
Exists
Works
Two
Criterion

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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Oh, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read - my own or other people's works - it all seems to me not short enough.
Anton Chekhov
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I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.
Anton Chekhov
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[In] death at least there would be one profit it would no longer be necessary to eat, to drink, to pay taxes, or to [offend] others and as a man lies in his grave not one year, but hundreds and thousands of years, the profit was enormous. The life of man was, in short, a loss, and only his death a profit.
Anton Chekhov
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One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they'll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.
Anton Chekhov
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Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let's have a philosophical conversation.
Anton Chekhov
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And what does it mean -- dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.
Anton Chekhov
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Great Jove angry is no longer Jove.
Anton Chekhov
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The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
Anton Chekhov
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All saints have past and all sinners have a future.
Anton Chekhov
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If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.
Anton Chekhov
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Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
Anton Chekhov
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I still lack a political, religious and philosophical world view - I change it every month - and so I'll have to limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.
Anton Chekhov
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It is a bad thing if a writer tackles a subject he does not understand.
Anton Chekhov
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It's even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.
Anton Chekhov
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To Moscow, to Moscow, to Moscow!
Anton Chekhov
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What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won't seem important at all.
Anton Chekhov
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Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
Anton Chekhov
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I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.
Anton Chekhov
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In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
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