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Love Is A Great Thing. It Is Not By Chance That In All Times And Practically Among All Cultured Peoples Love In The General Senseand The Love Of A Man For His Wife Are Both Called Love. If Love Is Often Cruel Or Destructive, The Reasons Lie Not In Love Itself, But In The Inequality Between People.

-Anton Chekhov

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Love Is A Great

Anton Chekhov

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Love Is A Great Thing. It Is Not By Chance That In All Times And Practically Among All Cultured Peoples Love In The General Senseand The Love Of A Man For His Wife Are Both Called Love. If Love Is Often Cruel Or Destructive, The Reasons Lie Not In Love Itself, But In The Inequality Between People.

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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.

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.

By Poeticizing Love, We Imagine In Those We Love Virtues That They Often Do Not Possess; This Then Becomes The Source Of Constant Mistakes And Constant Distress.

This Man, Who For Twenty-five Years Has Been Reading And Writing About Art, And In All That Time Has Never Understood Anything About Art, Has For Twenty-five Years Been Hashing Over Other People's Ideas About Realism, Naturalism And All That Nonsense; For Twenty-five Years He Has Been Reading And Writing About What Intelligent People Already Know And About What Stupid People Don't Want To Know--which Means That For Twenty-five Years He's Been Taking Nothing And Making Nothing Out Of It. And With It All, What Conceit! What Pretension!

Man Is What He Believes.

When One Longs For A Drink, It Seems As Though One Could Drink A Whole Ocean-that Is Faith; But When One Begins To Drink, One Can Only Drink Altogether Two Glasses-that Is Science.

The Bourgeoisie Is Very Fond Of So-called Practical Types And Novels With Happy Endings, Since They Soothe It With The Idea That One Can Both Accumulate Capital And Preserve Innocence, Be A Beast And At The Same Time Be Happy...

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.

The Time's Come: There's A Terrific Thunder-cloud Advancing Upon Us, A Mighty Storm Is Coming To Freshen Us Up....it's Going To Blow Away All This Idleness And Indifference, And Prejudice Against Work....i'm Going To Work, And In Twenty-five Or Thirty Years' Time Every Man And Woman Will Be Working.

He Who Doesn't Know How To Be A Servant Should Never Be Allowed To Be A Master; The Interests Of Public Life Are Alien To Anyone Who Is Unable To Enjoy Others' Successes, And Such A Person Should Never Be Entrusted With Public Affairs.

He Is An Emancipated Thinker Who Is Not Afraid To Write Foolish Things.

And It Is The Way With Us That You May Express Disapproval Of The Sun Or The Moon, Or Anything You Like, But God Preserve You From Touching The Liberals! Heaven Forbid!

Reason And Justice Tell Me There's More Love For Humanity In Electricity And Steam Than In Chastity And Vegetarianism.

What A Fine Weather Today! Can’t Choose Whether To Drink Tea Or To Hang Myself.

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.

When A Woman Isn't Beautiful, People Always Say, 'you Have Lovely Eyes, You Have Lovely Hair.'

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.

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body, Health, Intelligence, Talent, Inspiration, Love, And Absolute Freedom--freedom From Violence And Falsehood, No Matter How The Last Two Manifest Themselves.

If You Ever Have Need Of My Life, Come And Take It.

Medicine Is My Lawful Wife And Literature My Mistress; When I Get Tired Of One, I Spend The Night With The Other.

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

One Must Not Put A Loaded Rifle On The Stage If No One Is Thinking Of Firing It.

It Is Easy To Be A Philosopher In Academia, But It Is Very Difficult To Be A Philosopher In Life.

Life Is Difficult For Those Who Have The Daring To First Set Out On An Unknown Road. The Avant-garde Always Has A Bad Time Of It.

Solomon Made A Big Mistake When He Asked For Wisdom.

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.

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

You Look At Any Poetic Creature: Muslin, Ether, Demigoddess, Millions Of Delights; Then You Look Into The Soul And Find The Most Ordinary Crocodile!

It Is Uncomfortable To Ask Condemned People About Their Sentences Just As It Is Awkward To Ask Wealthy People Why They Need So Much Money, Why They Use Their Wealth So Poorly, And Why They Don't Just Get Rid Of It When They Recognize That It Is The Cause Of Their Unhappiness.

One Usually Dislikes A Play While Writing It, But Afterward It Grows On One. Let Others Judge And Make Decisions.

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

The Snow Has Not Yet Left The Earth But Spring Is Already Asking To Enter Your Heart.

You Confuse Two Things: Solving A Problem And Stating A Problem Correctly. It Is Only The Second That Is Obligatory For An Artist.

If You Cry ''forward'' You Must Be Sure To Make Clear The Direction In Which To Go. Don't You See That If You Fail To Do That And Simply Call Out The Word To A Monk And A Revolutionary, They Will Go In Precisely Opposite Directions?

You Must Trust And Believe In People Or Life Becomes Impossible.

The Personal Life Of Every Individual Is Based On Secrecy, And Perhaps It Is Partly For That Reason That Civilized Man Is So Nervously Anxious That Personal Privacy Should Be Respected.

To Judge Between Good Or Bad, Between Successful And Unsuccessful Would Take The Eye Of A God.

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.

Everything On Earth Is Beautiful, Everything -- Except What We Ourselves Think And Do When We Forget The Higher Purposes Of Life And Our Own Human Dignity.

There Are People Whom Even Children's Literature Would Corrupt. They Read With Particular Enjoyment The Piquant Passages In The Psalter And In The Wisdom Of Solomon.

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.

Cross Out As Many Adjectives And Adverbs As You Can. ... It Is Comprehensible When I Write: "the Man Sat On The Grass," Because It Is Clear And Does Not Detain One's Attention. On The Other Hand, It Is Difficult To Figure Out And Hard On The Brain If I Write: "the Tall, Narrow-chested Man Of Medium Height And With A Red Beard Sat Down On The Green Grass That Had Already Been Trampled Down By The Pedestrians, Sat Down Silently, Looking Around Timidly And Fearfully." The Brain Can't Grasp All That At Once, And Art Must Be Grasped At Once, Instantaneously.

Anna Petrovna: Never Talk To Women About Your Own Good Qualities. Let Them Find Out For Themselves.

It Is Always "youth, Youth," When There Is Nothing Else To Be Said.

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

Don't Tell Me The Moon Is Shining; Show Me The Glint Of Light On Broken Glass.

We Are Accustomed To Live In Hopes Of Good Weather, A Good Harvest, A Nice Love-affair, Hopes Of Becoming Rich Or Getting The Office Of Chief Of Police, But I've Never Noticed Anyone Hoping To Get Wiser. We Say To Ourselves: It'll Be Better Under A New Tsar, And In Two Hundred Years It'll Still Be Better, And Nobody Tries To Make This Good Time Come Tomorrow. On The Whole, Life Gets More And More Complex Every Day And Moves On Its Own Sweet Will, And People Get More And More Stupid, And Get Isolated From Life In Ever-increasing Numbers.

In One-act Pieces There Should Be Only Rubbish - That Is Their Strength.

Only During Hard Times Do People Come To Understand How Difficult It Is To Be Master Of Their Feelings And Thoughts.

To Advise Is Not To Compel.

You Will Not Become A Saint Through Other People's Sins.

Perhaps Man Has A Hundred Senses, And When He Dies The Five Senses That We Know Perish With Him, And The Other Ninety-five Remain Alive... Everything That Is Unattainable For Us Now Will One Day Be Near And Clear... But We Must Work.

Not One Of Our Mortal Gauges Is Suitable For Evaluating Non-existence, For Making Judgments About That Which Is Not A Person.

Ah, Caviar! I Keep On Eating It, But Can Never Get My Fill. Like Olives. It's A Lucky Thing It's Not Salty.

People Are Far More Sincere And Good-humored At Speeding Their Parting Guests Than On Meeting Them.

It's Worth Living Abroad To Study Up On Genteel And Delicate Manners. The Maid Smiles Continuously; She Smiles Like A Duchess On A Stage, While At The Same Time It Is Clear From Her Face That She Is Exhausted From Overwork.

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

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.

Dear And Most Respected Bookcase! I Welcome Your Existence, Which Has For Over One Hundred Years Been Devoted To The Radiant Ideals Of Goodness And Justice.

Who Keeps The Tavern And Serves Up The Drinks? The Peasant. Who Squanders And Drinks Up Money Belonging To The Peasant Commune, The School, The Church? The Peasant. Who Would Steal From His Neighbor, Commit Arson, And Falsely Denounce Another For A Bottle Of Vodka? The Peasant.

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

There Are In Life Conjunctions Of Circumstances When The Reproach That We Are Not Voltaires Is Least Of All Appropriate.

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

Of Course Politics Is An Interesting And Engrossing Thing. It Offers No Immutable Laws, Nearly Always Prevaricates, But As Far Asblather And Sharpening The Mind Go, It Provides Inexhaustible Material.

Neither I Nor Anyone Else Knows What A Standard Is. We All Recognize A Dishonorable Act, But Have No Idea What Honor Is.

Capital Punishment Kills Immediately, Whereas Lifetime Imprisonment Does So Slowly. Which Executioner Is More Humane? The One Who Kills You In A Few Minutes, Or The One Who Wrests Your Life From You In The Course Of Many Years?

He Had Two Lives: One, Open, Seen And Known By All Who Cared To Know, Full Of Relative Truth And Of Relative Falsehood, Exactly Like The Lives Of His Friends And Acquaintances; And Another Life Running Its Course In Secret. And Through Some Strange, Perhaps Accidental, Conjunction Of Circumstances, Everything That Was Essential, Of Interest And Of Value To Him, Everything In Which He Was Sincere And Did Not Deceive Himself, Everything That Made The Kernel Of His Life, Was Hidden From Other People.

Knowledge Is Of No Value Unless You Put It Into Practice.

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

An Artist Observes, Selects, Guesses, And Synthesizes.

A Hungry Dog Believes In Nothing But Meat.

Anna Petrovna (to Shabelsky): You Can't Make A Simple Joke Without An Injection Of Venom. You Are A Poisonous Man. Joking Apart, Count, You're Very Poisonous. It's Hideously Boring To Live With You. You're Always Grumpy, Complaining, You Find Everyone Bad, Good For Nothing. Tell Me Frankly, Count, Did You Ever Speak Well Of Anyone?

There Is Nothing New In Art Except Talent.

A Naive Man Is Nothing Better Than A Fool. But You Women Contrive To Be Naive In Such A Way That In You It Seems Sweet, And Gentle, And Proper, And Not As Silly As It Really Is.

When A Person Hasn't In Him That Which Is Higher And Stronger Than All External Influences, It Is Enough For Him To Catch A Good Cold In Order To Lose His Equilibrium And Begin To See An Owl In Every Bird, To Hear A Dog's Bark In Every Sound.

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

Moscow Is A City That Has Much Suffering Ahead Of It.

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

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

Better A Debauched Canary Than A Pious Wolf.

There Are Still Many More Days Of Failure Ahead, Whole Seasons Of Failure, Things Will Go Terribly Wrong, You Will Have Huge Disappointments , But You Have To Prepare For That, You Have To Expect It And Be Resolute And Follow Your Own Path.

Is It Our Job To Judge? The Gendarme, Policemen And Bureaucrats Have Been Especially Prepared By Fate For That Job. Our Job Is Towrite, And Only To Write.

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

If You Want To Work On Your Art, Work On Your Life.

I Do Not Know Why One Should Not Hunt Two Hares Even In The Literal Sense....

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.

By Nature Servile, People Attempt At First Glance To Find Signs Of Good Breeding In The Appearance Of Those Who Occupy More Exalted Stations.

When An Actor Has Money He Doesn't Send Letters, He Sends Telegrams.

To Describe Drunkenness For The Colorful Vocabulary Is Rather Cynical. There Is Nothing Easier Than To Capitalize On Drunkards.

I've Been Reading Reviews Of My Stories For Twenty-five Years, And Can't Remember A Single Useful Point In Any Of Them, Or The Slightest Good Advice. The Only Reviewer Who Ever Made An Impression On Me Was Skabichevsky, Who Prophesied That I Would Die Drunk In The Bottom Of A Ditch.

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

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.

It Is Not Only The Prisoners Who Grow Coarse And Hardened From Corporal Punishment, But Those As Well Who Perpetrate The Act Or Are Present To Witness It.

When A Lot Of Remedies Are Suggested For A Disease, That Means It Can't Be Cured.

I Think That It Would Be Less Difficult To Live Eternally Than To Be Deprived Of Sleep Throughout Life.

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!

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

It Is Depressing To Hear The Unfortunate Or Dying Man Jest.

My Mistress Has Come Home; At Last I've Seen Her. Now I'm Ready To Die.

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

When A Man Fails To Understand Something He Is Conscious Of A Discord, And Seeks For The Cause Of It Not In Himself, As He Should, But Outside Himself - Hence The War With What He Does Not Understand.

Doctors Are Just The Same As Lawyers; The Only Difference Is That Lawyers Merely Rob You, Whereas Doctors Rob You And Kill You Too.

What A Delight It Is To Respect People!

Write, Write, Write-till Your Fingers Break.

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

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

Never Bring A Cannon On Stage In Act I Unless You Intend To Fire It By The Last Act.

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.

Happiness Does Not Await Us All. One Needn't Be A Prophet To Say That There Will Be More Grief And Pain Than Serenity And Money. That Is Why We Must Hang On To One Another.

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

Brevity - The Sister Of Talent.

When You Live On Cash, You Understand The Limits Of The World Around Which You Navigate Each Day. Credit Leads Into A Desert With Invisible Boundaries.

A Writer Is Not A Confectioner, A Cosmetic Dealer, Or An Entertainer.

An Actress Without Talent, Forty Years Old, Ate A Partridge For Dinner, And I Felt Sorry For The Partridge, For It Occurred To Me That In Its Life It Had Been More Talented, More Sensible, And More Honest Than The Actress.

If You Fear Loneliness, Then Don't Get Married.

Every Person Lives His Real, Most Interesting Life Under The Cover Of Secrecy.

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.

Our Pride And Self-importance Are European, While Our Development And Actions Are Asiatic.

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

I Observed That After Marriage People Cease To Be Curious.

Man Will Become Better When You Show Him What He Is Like.

Not Everyone Knows How To Be Silent Or To Leave In Good Time. It Happens That Even People Of Good Breeding Fail To Notice That Their Presence Provokes In The Weary Or Preoccupied Host A Feeling Akin To Hatred, And That This Feeling Is Tensely Concealed And Covered Up With Lies.

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

Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees.

Instructing In Cures, Therapists Always Recommend That "each Case Be Individualized." If This Advice Is Followed, One Becomes Persuaded That Those Means Recommended In Textbooks As The Best, Means Perfectly Appropriate For The Template Case, Turn Out To Be Completely Unsuitable In Individual Cases.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood!

When You're Thirsty And It Seems That You Could Drink The Entire Ocean That's Faith; When You Start To Drink And Finish Only A Glass Or Two That's Science.

To A Chemist, Nothing On Earth Is Unclean. A Writer Must Be As Objective As A Chemist; He Must Abandon The Subjective Line; He Must Know That Dungheaps Play A Very Respectable Part In A Landscape, And That Evil Passions Are As Inherent In Life As Good Ones.

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

And I Despise Your Books, I Despise Wisdom And The Blessings Of This World. It Is All Worthless, Fleeting, Illusory, And Deceptive, Like A Mirage. You May Be Proud, Wise, And Fine, But Death Will Wipe You Off The Face Of The Earth As Though You Were No More Than Mice Burrowing Under The Floor, And Your Posterity, Your History, Your Immortal Geniuses Will Burn Or Freeze Together With The Earthly Globe.

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

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.

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

One Must Never Place A Loaded Rifle On The Stage If It Isn't Going To Go Off. It's Wrong To Make Promises You Don't Mean To Keep.

Your Talent Sets You Apart: If You Were A Toad Or A Tarantula, Even Then, People Would Respect You, For To Talent All Things Are Forgiven.

If I Were Asked To Chose Between Execution And Life In Prison I Would, Of Course, Chose The Latter. It's Better To Live Somehow Than Not At All.

Capital Punishment

All Of Life And Human Relations Have Become So Incomprehensibly Complex That, When You Think About It, It Becomes Terrifying And Your Heart Stands Still.

Silence Accompanies The Most Significant Expressions Of Happiness And Unhappiness: Those In Love Understand One Another Best When Silent, While The Most Heated And Impassioned Speech At A Graveside Touches Only Outsiders, But Seems Cold And Inconsequential To The Widow And Children Of The Deceased.

Art, Especially The Stage, Is An Area Where It Is Impossible To Walk Without Stumbling.

One Must Be A God To Be Able To Tell Successes From Failures Without Making A Mistake.

Revolting Means For Good Ends Make The Ends Of Themselves Revolting.

It's Even Pleasant To Be Sick When You Know That There Are People Who Await Your Recovery As They Might Await A Holiday.

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

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.

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.

Wherever There Is Degeneration And Apathy, There Also Is Sexual Perversion, Cold Depravity, Miscarriage, Premature Old Age, Grumbling Youth, There Is A Decline In The Arts, Indifference To Science, And Injustice In All Its Forms.

Thought And Beauty, Like A Hurricane Or Waves, Should Not Know Conventional, Delimited Forms.

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

Russian Forests Crash Down Under The Axe, Billions Of Trees Are Dying, The Habitations Of Animals And Birds Are Laid Waste, Rivers Grow Shallow And Dry Up, Marvelous Landscapes Are Disappearing Forever.... Man Is Endowed With Creativity In Order To Multiply That Which Has Been Given Him; He Has Not Created, But Destroyed. There Are Fewer And Fewer Forests, Rivers Are Drying Up, Wildlife Has Become Extinct, The Climate Is Ruined, And The Earth Is Becoming Ever Poorer And Uglier.

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.

A Grimy Fly Can Soil The Entire Wall And A Small, Dirty Little Act Can Ruin The Entire Proceedings.

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.

A Man And A Woman Marry Because Both Of Them Do Not Know What To Do With Themselves.

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.

Sports Are Positively Essential. It Is Healthy To Engage In Sports, They Are Beautiful And Liberal, Liberal In The Sense That Nothing Serves Quite As Well To Integrate Social Classes, Etc., Than Street Or Public Games.

What Seems To Us Serious, Significant And Important Will, In Future Times, Be Forgotten Or Won't Seem Important At All.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

In Displaying The Psychology Of Your Characters, Minute Particulars Are Essential. God Save Us From Vague Generalizations!

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

Every Coming Year Is As Bad As The Previous One, The Only Difference Being That In Most Cases It Is Even Worse.

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.

My Mother And Father Are The Only People On The Whole Planet For Whom I Will Never Begrudge A Thing. Should I Achieve Great Things, It Is The Work Of Their Hands; They Are Splendid People And Their Absolute Love Of Their Children Places Them Above The Highest Praise. It Cloaks All Of Their Shortcomings, Shortcomings That May Have Resulted From A Difficult Life.

We Shall Find Peace. We Shall Hear Angels, We Shall See The Sky Sparkling With Diamonds.

Losing A Loved One

Idea For A Short Story. The Shore Of A Lake, A Young Girl Who's Spent Her Whole Life Beside It, A Girl Like You She Loves The Lake The Way A Seagull Does, And She's Happy And Free As A Seagull. Then A Man Comes Along, Sees Her, And Ruins Her Life Because He Has Nothing Better To Do. Destroys Her Like This Seagull Here.

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

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

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

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

Whoever Sincerely Believes That Elevated And Distant Goals Are As Little Use To Man As A Cow, That "all Of Our Problems" Come Fromsuch Goals, Is Left To Eat, Drink, Sleep, Or, When He Gets Sick Of That, To Run Up To A Chest And Smash His Forehead On Its Corner.

[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.

You Are Right In Demanding That An Artist Should Take An Intelligent Attitude To His Work, But You Confuse Two Things: Solving A Problem And Stating A Problem Correctly.

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.

Useless Pursuits And Conversations Always About The Same Things Absorb The Better Part Of One's Time, The Better Part Of One's Strength, And In The End There Is Left A Life Grovelling And Curtailed, Worthless And Trivial, And There Is No Escaping Or Getting Away From It—just As Though One Were In A Madhouse Or Prison.

You Ask Me What Life Is. That's Like Asking What A Carrot Is. A Carrot Is A Carrot, And There's Nothing More To Know.

Ivanov: Once I Worked Hard And Thought A Lot But I Never Got Tired; Now I Do Nothing And Think Of Nothing, But I'm Tired In Body And Spirit. My Conscience Aches Day And Night, I Feel Deeply Guilty But I Don't Understand Where I Am Actually At Fault. And Add To That My Wife's Illness, My Lack Of Money, The Constant Bickering, Gossip, Unnecessary Conversations, That Stupid Borkin... My Home Has Become Loathsome To Me And I Find Living There Worse Than Torture.

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.

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

Children Are Holy And Pure. Even Those Of Bandits And Crocodiles Belong Among The Angels.... They Must Not Be Turned Into A Plaything Of One's Mood, First To Be Tenderly Kissed, Then Rabidly Stomped At.

An Artist's Flair Is Sometimes Worth A Scientist's Brains.

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.

Life Is A Vexatious Trap; When A Thinking Man Reaches Maturity And Attains To Full Consciousness He Cannot Help Feeling That He Is In A Trap From Which There Is No Escape.

Better To Perish From Fools Than To Accept Praises From Them.

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

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.

I Promise To Be A Splendid Husband, But Give Me A Wife Who, Like The Moon, Won't In My Sky Every Day...

The University Brings Out All Abilities, Including Incapability.

Posterity Will Say As Usual: "in The Past Things Were Better, The Present Is Worse Than The Past.

Death Is Terrifying, But It Would Be Even More Terrifying To Find Out That You Are Going To Live Forever And Never Die.

Women Writers Should Write A Lot If They Want To Write. Take The English Women, For Example. What Amazing Workers.

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

If In The First Act You Introduce A Gun, By The Third Act You Have To Use It.

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.

The Stupider The Peasant, The Better The Horse Understands Him.

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

Try To Reason About Love, And You Will Lose Your Reason.

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.

I Am Not A Liberal, Not A Conservative, Not A Believer In Gradual Progress, Not A Monk. I Should Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing More.

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

The Air Of One's Native Country Is The Most Healthy Air.

It's Been A Long Time Since I've Had Champagne.

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Amos Bronson Alcott

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