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In My Opinion It Is Harmful To Place Important Things In The Hands Of Philanthropy, Which In Russia Is Marked By A Chance Character. Nor Should Important Matters Depend On Leftovers, Which Are Never There. I Would Prefer That The Government Treasury Take Care Of It.

-Anton Chekhov

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In My Opinion It

Anton Chekhov

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In My Opinion It Is Harmful To Place Important Things In The Hands Of Philanthropy, Which In Russia Is Marked By A Chance Character. Nor Should Important Matters Depend On Leftovers, Which Are Never There. I Would Prefer That The Government Treasury Take Care Of It.

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It's Very Hard, Feeling That You're No More Than A Piece Of Unwanted Furniture In This World.

Oh, I Don't Object, Of Course, To Cutting Wood From Necessity, But Why Destroy The Forests? The Woods Of Russia Are Trembling Under The Blows Of The Axe. Millions Of Trees Have Perished. The Homes Of The Wild Animals And Birds Have Been Desolated; The Rivers Are Shrinking, And Many Beautiful Landscapes Are Gone Forever. And Why? Because Men Are Too Lazy And Stupid To Stoop Down And Pick Up Their Fuel From The Ground.

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I Long To Embrace, To Include In My Own Short Life, All That Is Accessible To Man. I Long To Speak, To Read, To Wield A Hammer In A Great Factory, To Keep Watch At Sea, To Plow. I Want To Be Walking Along The Nevsky Prospect, Or In The Open Fields, Or On The Ocean - Wherever My Imagination Ranges.

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If You Look At Anything Long Enough, Say Just That Wall In Front Of You - It Will Come Out Of That Wall.

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The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

Indeed, In Russia There Is A Terrible Poverty Of Facts, And A Terrible Abundance Of Reflections Of All Sorts.

We Learn About Life Not From Plusses Alone, But From Minuses As Well.

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I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

God's World Is A Good Place. The One Thing Not Good In It Is We. How Little Justice And Humility There Is In Us. How Little We Understand True Patriotism!

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The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

The World Perishes Not From Bandits And Fires, But From Hatred, Hostility, And All These Petty Squabbles.

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What Must Human Beings Be, To Destroy What They Can Never Create?

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Capital Punishment

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The Role Of The Artist Is To Ask Questions, Not Answer Them.

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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!

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

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Great Jove Angry Is No Longer Jove.

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It's Not A Matter Of Old Or New Forms; A Person Writes Without Thinking About Any Forms, He Writes Because It Flows Freely From His Soul.

If Only One Tooth Aches, Rejoice That Not All Of Them Ache.... If Your Wife Betrays You, Be Glad That She Betrayed Only You And Not The Nation.

That Can Not Possibly Be, Because It Could Never Possibly Be.

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.

While You're Playing Cards With A Regular Guy Or Having A Bite To Eat With Him, He Seems A Peaceable, Good-humoured And Not Entirely Dense Person. But Just Begin A Conversation With Him About Something Inedible, Politics Or Science, For Instance, And He Ends Up In A Deadend Or Starts In On Such An Obtuse And Base Philosophy That You Can Only Wave Your Hand And Leave.

I Would Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing Else, And I Regret God Has Not Given Me The Strength To Be One.

All The Great Sages Are As Despotic As Generals, And As Ignorant And As Indelicate As Generals, Because They Feel Secure Of Impunity.

In Short Stories It Is Better To Say Not Enough Than To Say Too Much, Because, Because--i Don't Know Why.

Nothing Lulls And Inebriates Like Money; When You Have A Lot, The World Seems A Better Place Than It Actually Is.

To Advise Is Not To Compel.

Write About This Man Who, Drop By Drop, Squeezes The Slave's Blood Out Of Himself Until He Wakes One Day To Find The Blood Of A Real Human Being--not A Slave's--coursing Through His Veins.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

Can Words Such As Orthodox, Jew, Or Catholic Really Express Some Sort Of Exclusive Personal Virtues Or Merits?

Man Has Been Endowed With Reason, With The Power To Create, So That He Can Add To What He's Been Given. But Up To Now He Hasn't Been A Creator, Only A Destroyer. Forests Keep Disappearing, Rivers Dry Up, Wild Life's Become Extinct, The Climate's Ruined And The Land Grows Poorer And Uglier Every Day.

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

Money, Like Vodka, Turns A Person Into An Eccentric.

Be Sure Not To Discuss Your Hero's State Of Mind. Make It Clear From His Actions.

In Countries Where There Is A Mild Climate, Less Effort Is Expended On The Struggle With Nature And Man Is Kinder And More Gentle.

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

The Unhappy Are Egotistical, Base, Unjust, Cruel, And Even Less Capable Of Understanding One Another Than Are Idiots. Unhappinessdoes Not Unite People, But Separates Them.

People Understand God As The Expression Of The Most Lofty Morality. Maybe He Needs Only Perfect People.

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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.

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I Have The Feeling That I've Seen Everything, But Failed To Notice The Elephants.

Any Idiot Can Face A Crisis - It's Day To Day Living That Wears You Out.

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The Teacher Must Be An Actor, An Artist,passionately In Love With His Work.

Fine. Since The Tea Is Not Forthcoming, Let's Have A Philosophical Conversation.

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It Is Easier To Ask Of The Poor Than Of The Rich.

Lying Is The Same As Alcoholism. Liars Prevaricate Even On Their Deathbeds.

The More Elevated A Culture, The Richer Its Language. The Number Of Words And Their Combinations Depends Directly On A Sum Of Conceptions And Ideas; Without The Latter There Can Be No Understandings, No Definitions, And, As A Result, No Reason To Enrich A Language.

Everything I Have Written Up To Now Is Trifling Compared To That Which I Would Like To Write And Would Write With Great Pleasureeither I Am A Fool And A Self-conceited Person, Or I Am A Being Capable Of Becoming A Good Writer; I Am Displeased And Bored With Everything Now Being Written, While Everything In My Head Interests, Moves, And Excites Me-whence I Draw The Conclusion That No One Is Doing What Is Needed, And I Alone Know The Secret Of How It Should Be Done. In All Likelihood Everyone Who Writes Thinks That. In Fact, The Devil Himself Will Be Brought To His Knees By These Questions.

I Myself Smoke, But My Wife Asked Me To Speak Today On The Harmfulness Of Tobacco, So What Can I Do? If It's Tobacco, Then Let It Be Tobacco.

He Who Desires Nothing, Hopes For Nothing, And Is Afraid Of Nothing, Cannot Be An Artist.

You Only Have To Start A Job Of Work To Realize How Few Decent, Honest Folk There Are About.

In A Century Or Two, Or In A Millennium, People Will Live In A New Way, A Happier Way. We Won"t Be There To See It - But It"s Why We Live, Why We Work. It"s Why We Suffer. We"re Creating It. That"s The Purpose Of Our Existence. The Only Happiness We Can Know Is To Work Toward That Goal.

You Look Boldly Ahead; Isn't It Only That You Don't See Or Divine Anything Terrible In The Future; Because Life Is Still Hidden From Your Young Eyes.

A Hungry Dog Believes In Nothing But Meat.

I Should Think I'm Going To Be A Perpetual Student.

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

Faith Is A Capacity Of The Spirit. It Is Like Talent: You Have To Be Born With It

I Don't Like Being Successful; The Subjects Which Sit In My Head Are Annoyed And Jealous Of What Has Already Been Written.

No Psychologist Should Pretend To Understand What He Does Not Understand... Only Fools And Charlatans Know Everything And Understand Nothing.

Pharisaism, Obtuseness And Tyranny Reign Not Only In The Homes Of Merchants And In Jails; I See It In Science, In Literature, And Among Youth. I Consider Any Emblem Or Label A Prejudice.... My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body, Health, Intellect, Talent, Inspiration, Love And The Most Absolute Of Freedoms, The Freedom From Force And Falsity In Whatever Forms They Might Appear.

Narrative Prose Is A Legal Wife, While Drama Is A Posturing, Boisterous, Cheeky And Wearisome Mistress.

If In The First Act You Have Hung A Pistol On The Wall, Then In The Following One It Should Be Fired. Otherwise Don't Put It There.

If There's A Gun On The Wall In Act One, Scene One, You Must Fire The Gun By Act Three, Scene Two. If You Fire A Gun In Act Three, Scene Two, You Must See The Gun On The Wall In Act One, Scene One.

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.

Humankind Has Understood History As A Series Of Battles Because, To This Day, It Regards Conflict As The Central Facet Of Life.

When Performing An Autopsy, Even The Most Inveterate Spiritualist Would Have To Question Where The Soul Is.

People Who Lead A Lonely Existence Always Have Something On Their Minds That They Are Eager To Talk About.

This Life Of Ours...human Life Is Like A Flower Gloriously Blooming In A Meadow: Along Comes A Goat, Eats It Up---no More Flower.

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

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

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Arthur Rubinstein

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