The quotations of

Anton Chekhov

Russian dramatist and author

1860–1904

32 quotes, most often on Writing, Beauty and Life & Death.

My life has been a failure. I am clever and brave and strong. If I had lived a normal life I might have become another Schopenhauer or Dostoieffski.
Uncle Vanya (1897), Act III, spoken by VoitskiIn context
- Failure
When real life is wanting one must create an illusion. It is better than nothing.
Uncle Vanya (1897), Act II, spoken by VoitskiIn context
- Life & Death
- Truth & Lies
The world is not destroyed by villains and conflagrations, but by hate and malice and all this spiteful tattling.
Uncle Vanya (1897), Act II, spoken by HelenaIn context
- Anger
- Good & Evil
Will our descendants two hundred years from now, for whom we are breaking the road, remember to give us a kind word? No, nurse, they will forget.
Uncle Vanya (1897), Act I, spoken by AstroffIn context
- Time
- Work
If only I could live the rest of my life in some new way! If I could only wake some still, bright morning and feel that life had begun again; that the past was forgotten and had vanished like smoke.
Uncle Vanya (1897), Act IV, spoken by VoitskiIn context
- Change
- Life & Death
I know now, I understand at last, Constantine, that for us, whether we write or act, it is not the honour and glory of which I have dreamt that is important, it is the strength to endure. One must know how to bear one’s cross, and one must have faith.
The Seagull (1896), Act IV, spoken by NinaIn context
- Faith
- Fame
For the bliss of being a writer or an actress I could endure want, and disillusionment, and the hatred of my friends, and the pangs of my own dissatisfaction with myself; but I should demand in return fame, real, resounding fame!
The Seagull (1896), Act II, spoken by NinaIn context
- Fame
Violent obsessions sometimes lay hold of a man: he may, for instance, think day and night of nothing but the moon. I have such a moon. Day and night I am held in the grip of one besetting thought, to write, write, write!
The Seagull (1896), Act II, spoken by TrigorinIn context
- Writing
To my dying day I shall hear people say: “Clever and pretty; clever and pretty,” and nothing more; and when I am gone, those that knew me will say as they pass my grave: “Here lies Trigorin, a clever writer, but he was not as good as Turgenieff.”
The Seagull (1896), Act II, spoken by TrigorinIn context
- Fame
- Writing
The conviction is gradually forcing itself upon me that good literature is not a question of forms new or old, but of ideas that must pour freely from the author’s heart, without his bothering his head about any forms whatsoever.
The Seagull (1896), Act IV, spoken by TreplieffIn context
- Writing
Life’s gone on as if I’d never lived.
The Cherry Orchard (1904), Act Four, spoken by FiersIn context
- Life & Death
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.”
The Cherry Orchard (1904), Act Two, spoken by LopakhinIn context
- Character
- Nature
There is happiness, there it comes; it comes nearer and nearer; I hear its steps already. And if we do not see it we shall not know it, but what does that matter? Others will see it!
The Cherry Orchard (1904), Act Two, spoken by TrofimovIn context
- Happiness
- Hope
The human race progresses, perfecting its powers. Everything that is unattainable now will some day be near at hand and comprehensible, but we must work, we must help with all our strength those who seek to know what fate will bring.
The Cherry Orchard (1904), Act Two, spoken by TrofimovIn context
- Hope
- Work
Oh, my childhood, days of my innocence! In this nursery I used to sleep; I used to look out from here into the orchard. Happiness used to wake with me every morning, and then it was just as it is now; nothing has changed.
The Cherry Orchard (1904), Act One, spoken by LubovIn context
- Happiness
- Youth

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