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I Feel More Confident And More Satisfied When I Reflect That I Have Two Professions And Not One. Medicine Is My Lawful Wife And Literature Is My Mistress. When I Get Tired Of One I Spend The Night With The Other. Though It's Disorderly It's Not So Dull, And Besides, Neither Really Loses Anything, Through My Infidelity.

-Anton Chekhov

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I Feel More Confident

Anton Chekhov

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I Feel More Confident And More Satisfied When I Reflect That I Have Two Professions And Not One. Medicine Is My Lawful Wife And Literature Is My Mistress. When I Get Tired Of One I Spend The Night With The Other. Though It's Disorderly It's Not So Dull, And Besides, Neither Really Loses Anything, Through My Infidelity.

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Probably Nature Itself Gave Man The Ability To Lie So That In Difficult And Tense Moments He Could Protect His Nest, Just As Do The Vixen And Wild Duck.

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Love Is A Scandal Of The Personal Sort.

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To Live Simply To Die Is By No Means Amusing, But To Live With The Knowledge That You Will Die Before Your Time, That's Really Is Idiotic

What Truth? You See Where Truth Is, And Where Untruth Is, But I Seem To Have Lost My Sight And See Nothing. You Boldly Settle All Important Questions, But Tell Me, Dear, Isn't It Because You're Young, Because You Haven't Had Time To Suffer Till You Settled A Single One Of Your Questions? You Boldly Look Forward, Isn't It Because You Cannot Foresee Or Expect Anything Terrible, Because So Far Life Has Been Hidden From Your Young Eyes? You Are Bolder, More Honest, Deeper Than We Are, But Think Only, Be Just A Little Magnanimous, And Have Mercy On Me.

I Was So Drunk The Whole Time That I Took Bottles For Girls And Girls For Bottles.

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I'm In Mourning For My Life.

Wisdom.... Comes Not From Age, But From Education And Learning.

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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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If There Is A Gun Hanging On The Wall In The First Act, It Must Fire In The Last.

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Eyes - The Head's Chief Of Police. They Watch And Make Mental Notes.

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Time Will Pass, And We Shall Go Away For Ever, And We Shall Be Forgotten, Our Faces Will Be Forgotten, Our Voices, And How Many There Were Of Us; But Our Sufferings Will Pass Into Joy For Those Who Will Live After Us, Happiness And Peace Will Be Established Upon Earth, And They Will Remember Kindly And Bless Those Who Have Lived Before.

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To Advise Is Not To Compel.

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Losing A Loved One

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No Matter How Corrupt And Unjust A Convict May Be, He Loves Fairness More Than Anything Else. If The People Placed Over Him Are Unfair, From Year To Year He Lapses Into An Embittered State Characterized By An Extreme Lack Of Faith.

I Abide By A Rule Concerning Reviews: I Will Never Ask, Neither In Writing Nor In Person, That A Word Be Put In About My Book.... One Feels Cleaner This Way. When Someone Asks That His Book Be Reviewed He Risks Running Up Against A Vulgarity Offensive To Authorial Sensibilities.

What's The Use Of Talking? You Can See For Yourself That This Is A Barbarous Country; The People Have No Morals; And The Boredom!

Just As I Shall Lie Alone In The Grave, So, In Essence, Do I Live Alone.

If You Can't Distinguish People From Lap-dogs, You Shouldn't Undertake Philanthropic Work.

Do You Remember You Shot A Seagull? A Man Came By Chance, Saw It And Destroyed It, Just To Pass The Time.

Do Silly Things. Foolishness Is A Great Deal More Vital And Healthy Than Our Straining And Striving After A Meaningful Life.

It Always Seems To The Brothers And The Father That Their Brother Or Son Didn't Marry The Right Person.

To Make A Face From Marble Means To Remove From The Slab Everything That Is Not The Face

Everything Is Good In Due Measure And Strong Sensations Know Not Measure.

Love, Respect, And Friendship Do Unite A People As Well As A Common Hatred Does.

If An Intelligent, Educated, And Healthy Man Begins To Complain Of His Lot And Go Down-hill, There Is Nothing For Him To Do But To Go On Down Until He Reaches The Bottom--there Is No Hope For Him. Where Could My Salvation Come From? How Can I Save Myself? I Cannot Drink, Because It Makes My Head Ache. I Never Could Write Bad Poetry. I Cannot Pray For Strength And See Anything Lofty In The Languor Of My Soul. Laziness Is Laziness And Weakness Weakness. I Can Find No Other Names For Them. I Am Lost, I Am Lost; There Is No Doubt Of That.

I Am Now And Have Always Been A Stranger To The Realm Of Practical Matters.

A Man Who Doesn't Drink Is Not, In My Opinion, Fully A Man.

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.

I Agree That One Can't Dispense With The Reins And The Whip Altogether, For Knaves Find Their Way Even Into Literature, But No Thinking Will Discover A Better Police For Literature Than The Critics And The Author's Own Conscience.

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I Have No Will Of My Own. Never Did. Limp And Lily-livered, I Always Obey - Is It Possible That's Attractive To Women?

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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.

First Impression

I Will Begin With What In My Opinion Is Your Lack Of Restraint. You Are Like A Spectator In A Theatre Who Expresses His Enthusiasm So Unrestrainedly That He Prevents Himself And Others From Hearing. That Lack Of Restraint Is Particularly Noticeable In The Descriptions Of Nature With Which You Interrupt Dialogues; When One Reads Them, These Descriptions, One Wishes They Were More Compact, Shorter, Say Two Or Three Lines.

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

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.

The Wealthy Man Is Not He Who Has Money, But He Who Has The Means To Live In The Luxurious State Of Early Spring.

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 . . . One Must Ruthlessly Suppress Everything That Is Not Concerned With The Subject. If, In The First Chapter, You Say There Is A Gun Hanging On The Wall, You Should Make Quite Sure That It Is Going To Be Used Further On In The Story.

Without A Knowledge Of Languages You Feel As If You Don't Have A Passport.

We Live Not In Order To Eat, But In Order Not To Know What We Feel Like Eating.

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.

In Descriptions Of Nature One Must Seize On Small Details, Grouping Them So That When The Reader Closes His Eyes He Gets A Picture. For Instance, You'll Have A Moonlit Night If You Write That On The Mill Dam A Piece Of Glass From A Broken Bottle Glittered Like A Bright Little Star, And That The Black Shadow Of A Dog Or A Wolf Rolled Past Like A Ball.

Nothing Better Forges A Bond Of Love, Friendship Or Respect Than Common Hatred Toward Something.

When Describing Nature, A Writer Should Seize Upon Small Details, Arranging Them So That The Reader Will See An Image In His Mind After He Closes His Eyes. For Instance: You Will Capture The Truth Of A Moonlit Night If You'll Write That A Gleam Like Starlight Shone From The Pieces Of A Broken Bottle, And Then The Dark, Plump Shadow Of A Dog Or Wolf Appeared. You Will Bring Life To Nature Only If You Don't Shrink From Similes That Liken Its Activities To Those Of Humankind.

I Think Human Beings Must Have Faith Or Must Look For Faith, Otherwise Our Life Is Empty, Empty. To Live And Not To Know Why The Cranes Fly, Why Children Are Born, Why There Are Stars In The Sky. You Must Know Why You Are Alive, Or Else Everything Is Nonsense, Just Blowing In The Wind.

There Is Nothing More Awful, Insulting, And Depressing Than Banality.

There Isn't A Monday That Would Not Cede Its Place To Tuesday.

For God's Sake, Have Some Self-respect And Do Not Run Off At The Mouth If Your Brain Is Out To Lunch.

Tsars And Slaves, The Intelligent And The Obtuse, Publicans And Pharisees All Have An Identical Legal And Moral Right To Honor The Memory Of The Deceased As They See Fit, Without Regard For Anyone Else's Opinion And Without The Fear Of Hindering One Another.

He Always Seemed To Women Different From What He Was, And They Loved In Him Not Himself, But The Man Created By Their Imagination, Whom They Had Been Eagerly Seeking All Their Lives; And Afterwards, When They Noticed Their Mistake, They Loved Him All The Same.

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.

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Claude Levi-Strauss

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