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It is the writer's business not to accuse and not to prosecute, but to champion the guilty, once they are condemned and suffer punishment.

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
Suffer
Writer
Suffering
Prosecute
Business
Accuse
Condemned
Champion
Punishment
Guilty

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Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.
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When asked, Why do you always wear black?, he said, I am mourning for my life.
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A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.
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we all have too many wheels, screws and valves to judge each other on first impressions or one or two pointers. I don't understand you, you don't understand me and we don't understand ourselves.
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No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
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People's destinies are so different. Some people drag along, unnoticed and boring—they're all alike, and they're all unhappy. Then there are others, like for instance you—you're one in a million. You're happy—
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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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I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.
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These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.
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Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.
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A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.
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When one sees one of the romantic creatures before him he imagines he is looking at some holy being, so wonderful that its one breath could dissolve him in a sea of a thousand charms and delights but if one looks into the soul -- it's nothing but a common crocodile.
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It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
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He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.
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In a century or two, or in a millennium, people will live in a new way, a happier way. We wont be there to see it - but its why we live, why we work. Its why we suffer. Were creating it. Thats the purpose of our existence. The only happiness we can know is to work toward that goal.
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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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If many remedies are prescribed for an illness you can be sure it has no cure
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[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature 2. total objectivity 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects 4. extreme brevity 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype 6. compassion.
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The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.
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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