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There Are No Small Number Of People In This World Who, Solitary By Nature, Always Try To Go Back Into Their Shell Like A Hermit Crab Or A Snail.

-Anton Chekhov

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There Are No Small

Anton Chekhov

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There Are No Small Number Of People In This World Who, Solitary By Nature, Always Try To Go Back Into Their Shell Like A Hermit Crab Or A Snail.

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There Will Come A Time When Everybody Will Know Why, For What Purpose, There Is All This Suffering, And There Will Be No More Mysteries. But Now We Must Live ... We Must Work, Just Work!

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

My Business Is To Be Talented, That Is, To Be Capable Of Selecting The Important Moments From The Trivial Ones. . . . It's About Time For Writers - Particularly Those Who Are Genuine Artists - To Recognize That In This World You Cannot Figure Out Everything. Just Have A Writer Who The Crowds Trust Be Courageous Enough And Declare That He Does Not Understand Everything, And That Alone Will Represent A Major Contribution To The Way People Think, A Long Leap Forward.

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.

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

I Divide All Literary Works Into Two Categories: Those I Like And Those I Don't Like. No Other Criterion Exists For Me.

"do You Know," Ivan Bunin Recalls Anton Chekhov Saying To Him In 1899, Near The End Of His Too-short Life, "for How Many Years I Shall Be Read? Seven." "why Seven?" Bunin Asked. "well," Chekhov Answered, "seven And A Half Then."

The More Cultured A Man, The Less Fortunate He Is.

Once A Man Gets A Fixed Idea, There's Nothing To Be Done.

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

Art, Especially The Stage, Is An Area Where It Is Impossible To Walk Without Stumbling. There Are In Store For You Many Unsuccessful Days And Whole Unsuccessful Seasons: There Will Be Great Misunderstandings And Deep Disappointments… You Must Be Prepared For All This, Expect It And Nevertheless, Stubbornly, Fanatically Follow Your Own Way.

A Sweet Lie Is More Gracious For Us Than A Virulent But Real Truth.

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

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

A Tree Is Beautiful, But What's More, It Has A Right To Life; Like Water, The Sun And The Stars, It Is Essential. Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees. Forests Create Climate, Climate Influences Peoples' Character, And So On And So Forth. There Can Be Neither Civilization Nor Happiness If Forests Crash Down Under The Axe, If The Climate Is Harsh And Severe, If People Are Also Harsh And Severe. ... What A Terrible Future!

I Should Like To Meet A Philosopher Like Nietzsche Somewhere In A Train Or A Steamer, And To Spend The Whole Night Talking To Him. I Consider His Philosophy Won't Last Long, However. It's More Showy Than Convincing.

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

Perhaps The Feelings That We Experience When We Are In Love Represent A Normal State. Being In Love Shows A Person Who He Should Be.

Self Improvement

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

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.

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

Common Hypocrites Pass Themselves Off As Doves; Political And Literary Hypocrites Pose As Eagles. But Don't Be Fooled By Their Eagle-like Appearance. These Are Not Eagles, But Rats Or Dogs.

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.

It's Easier To Ask For Money From The Poor Than From The Wealthy.

If Our Life Has A Meaning, An Aim, It Has Nothing To Do With Our Personal Happiness, But Something Wiser And Greater.

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

To Advise Is Not To Compel.

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.

I Still Lack A Political, Religious And Philosophical World View - I Change It Every Month - And So I'll Have To Limit Myself To Descriptions Of How My Heroes Love, Marry, Give Birth, Die, And How They Speak.

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.

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.

My Love Is Like A Stone Tied Round My Neck; It's Dragging Me Down To The Bottom; But I Love My Stone. I Can't Live Without It.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

It Is As Acceptable Now To Love The Wives Of Others As It Is To Smoke Their Cigars And Read Their Books.

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.

I Expect I Shall Be A Student To The End Of My Days.

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

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

A Writer Should Not So Much Write As Embroider On Paper; The Work Should Be Painstaking, Laborious.

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.

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

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

Only Those Young People Can Be Accepted As Healthy Who Refuse To Be Reconciled With The Old Order And Foolishly Or Wisely Struggle Against It - Such Is The Will Of Nature...

The More Refined One Is, The More Unhappy.

Great Jove Angry Is No Longer Jove.

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

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.

Watching A Woman Make Russian Pancakes, You Might Think That She Was Calling On The Spirits Or Extracting From The Batter The Philosopher's Stone.

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.

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

Then I Feel So Happy And At The Same Time So Sad, It's Unimaginable.

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

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

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

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood! Why Does This Irrevocable Time, Forever Departed, Seem Brighter, More Festive And Richer Than It Actually Was?

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

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.

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

[ognev] Recalled Endless, Heated, Purely Russian Arguments, When The Wranglers, Spraying Spittle And Banging Their Fists On The Table, Fail To Understand Yet Interrupt One Another, Themselves Not Even Noticing It, Contradict Themselves With Every Phrase, Change The Subject, Then, Having Argued For Two Or Three Hours, Begin To Laugh.

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.

Once You've Married, Be Strict But Just With Your Wife, Don't Allow Her To Forget Herself, And When A Misunderstanding Arises, Say: "don't Forget That I Made You Happy.

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

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

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.

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

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

It Seems To Me That All Of The Evil In Life Comes From Idleness, Boredom, And Psychic Emptiness, But All Of That Is Inevitable When You Become Accustomed To Living At Others' Expense.

Those Who Come A Hundred Or Two Hundred Years After Us Will Despise Us For Having Lived Our Lives So Stupidly And Tastelessly. Perhaps They'll Find A Means To Be Happy.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

From Here, Far Away, People Seem Very Good, And That Is Natural, For In Going Away Into The Country We Are Not Hiding From People But From Our Vanity, Which In Town Among People Is Unjust And Active Beyond Measure.

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

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

We Old Bachelors Smell Like Dogs, Do We? So Be It. But I Must Take Issue With Your Claim That Doctors Who Treat Female Illnesses Are Womanizers And Cynics At Heart. Gynecologists Deal With Savage Prose The Likes Of Which You Have Never Dreamed Of.

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

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

There Are No Small Number Of People In This World Who, Solitary By Nature, Always Try To Go Back Into Their Shell Like A Hermit Crab Or A Snail.

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

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.

But If You Had Asked Him What His Work Was, He Would Look Candidly And Openly At You With His Large Bright Eyes Through His Gold Pincenez, And Would Answer In A Soft, Velvety, Lisping Baritone: "my Work Is Literature."

Critics Are Like Horse-flies Which Hinder The Horses In Their Plowing Of The Soil. The Horse Works, All Its Muscles Drawn Tight Like The Strings On A Double-bass, And A Fly Settles On His Flanks And Tickles And Buzzes. And What Does The Fly Buzz About? It Scarcely Knows Itself; Simply Because It Is Restless And Wants To Proclaim: 'look, I Too Am Living On The Earth. See, I Can Buzz, Too, Buzz About Anything.'

If Ever My Life Can Be Of Any Use To You, Come And Claim It.

If You Say In The First Chapter That There Is A Rifle Hanging On The Wall, In The Second Or Third Chapter It Absolutely Must Go Off. If It's Not Going To Be Fired, It Shouldn't Be Hanging There.

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.

Love, Friendship And Respect Do Not Unite People As Much As Common Hatred For Something.

In Displaying The Psychology Of Your Characters, Minute Particulars Are Essential. God Save Us From Vague Generalizations! Be Sure Not To Discuss Your Hero's State Of Mind. Make It Clear From His Actions. Nor Is It Necessary To Portray Many Main Characters. Let Two People Be The Center Of Gravity In Your Story: He And She.

In All My Life I Never Met Anyone So Frivolous As You Two, So Crazy And Unbusinesslike. I Tell You In Plain Russian Your Property Is Going To Be Sold And You Don't Seem To Understand What I Say.

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

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

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

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

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

In All The Universe Nothing Remains Permanent And Unchanged But The Spirit.

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?

Formerly, When I Would Feel A Desire To Understand Someone, Or Myself, I Would Take Into Consideration Not Actions, In Which Everything Is Relative, But Wishes. Tell Me What You Want And I'll Tell You Who You Are.

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.

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

Write, Write, Write-till Your Fingers Break.

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?

Life Does Not Agree With Philosophy: There Is No Happiness That Is Not Idleness, And Only What Is Useless Is Pleasurable.

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.

It's Immoral To Steal, But You Can Take Things.

When A Person Is Born, He Can Embark On Only One Of Three Roads Of Life: If You Go Right, The Wolves Will Eat You; If You Go Left, You’ll Eat The Wolves; If You Go Straight, You’ll Eat Yourself.

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

Desription Should Be Very Brief And Have An Incidental Nature.

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.

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.

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

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

The University Brings Out All Abilities, Including Incapability.

Anyone Who Says The Artist's Field Is All Answers And No Questions Has Never Done Any Writing Or Had Any Dealings With Imageryyou Are Confusing Two Concepts: Answering The Questions And Formulating Them Correctly. Only The Latter Is Required Of An Author.

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.

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.

Isolation In Creative Work Is An Onerous Thing. Better To Have Negative Criticism Than Nothing At All.

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!

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

Try To Be Original In Your Play And As Clever As Possible; But Don't Be Afraid To Show Yourself Foolish; We Must Have Freedom Of Thinking, And Only He Is An Emancipated Thinker Who Is Not Afraid To Write Foolish Things.

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 Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

A Woman Is Fascinated Not By Art But By The Noise Made By Those In The Field.

I Confess I Seldom Commune With My Conscience When I Write.

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.

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

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

The Desire To Serve The Common Good Must Without Fail Be A Requisite Of The Soul, A Necessity For Personal Happiness; If It Issuesnot From There, But From Theoretical Or Other Considerations, It Is Not At All The Same Thing.

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

I Let Myself Go At The Beginning And Write With An Easy Mind, But By The Time I Get To The Middle I Begin To Grow Timid And To Fear My Story Will Be Too Long. . .that Is Why The Beginning Of My Stories Is Always Very Promising And Looks As Though I Were Starting On A Novel, And The Middle Is Huddled And Timid, And The End Is...like Fireworks.

The More Simply We Look At Ticklish Questions, The More Placid Will Be Our Lives And Relationships.

Man Has Been Endowed With Reason, With The Power To Create, So That He Can Add To What He's Been Given.

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

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.

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.

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

Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees.

When Asked, "why Do You Always Wear Black?", He Said, "i Am Mourning For My Life.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

When Men Ask Me How I Know So Much About Men, They Get A Simple Answer: Everything I Know About Men, I Learned From Me.

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.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

To Believe In God Is Not Hard. Inquisitors, Byron And Arakcheev Believed In Him. No, Believe In Man!

If One Wants To Lead A Good Life, A Human Life, One Must Work.

Here I Am With You & Yet Not For A Single Moment Do I Forget That There's An Unfinished Novel Waiting For Me.

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

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.

The Wealthy Are Always Surrounded By Hangers-on; Science And Art Are As Well.

Lermontov Died At Age Twenty-eight And Wrote More Than Have You And I Put Together. Talent Is Recognizable Not Only By Quality, But Also By The Quantity It Yields.

I'm The Seagull. No, That's Not It. I'm An Actress. That's It.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

In Descriptions Of Nature One Must Seize On Small Details, Grouping Them So That When The Reader Closes His Eyes He Gets A Picture.

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

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

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.

You Don't Understand, You Fool' Says Yegor, Looking Dreamily Up At The Sky. 'you've Never Understood What Kind Of Person I Am, Nor Will You In A Million Years... You Just Think I'm A Mad Person Who Has Thrown His Life Away... Once The Free Spirit Has Taken Hold Of A Man, There's No Way Of Getting It Out Of Him.

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 Russia There Is No Philosophy, But Philosophize Everything, Even The Small Fry.

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.

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

If You Wish Women To Love You Be Original; I Know A Man Who Used To Wear Felt Boots Summer And Winter & Women Fell In Love With Him.

For The Salvation Of His Soul The Muslim Digs A Well. It Would Be A Fine Thing If Each Of Us Were To Leave Behind A School, Or A Well, Or Something Of The Sort, So That Life Would Not Pass By And Retreat Into Eternity Without A Trace.

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

Let Us Learn To Appreciate There Will Be Times When The Trees Will Be Bare, And Look Forward To The Time When We May Pick The Fruit.

An Artist Observes, Selects, Guesses, And Synthesizes.

It Is Time For Writers To Admit That Nothing In This World Makes Sense. Only Fools And Charlatans Think They Know And Understand Everything. The Stupider They Are, The Wider They Conceive Their Horizons To Be. And If An Artist Decides To Declare That He Understands Nothing Of What He Sees - This In Itself Constitutes A Considerable Clarity In The Realm Of Thought, And A Great Step Forward.

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

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.

I Am Writing A Play Which I Probably Will Not Finish Until The End Of November. I Am Writing It With Considerable Pleasure, Though I Sin Frightfully Against The Conventions Of The Stage. It Is A Comedy With Three Female Parts, Six Male, Four Acts, A Landscape (view Of The Lake), Lots Of Talk On Literature, Little Action And Tons Of Love.

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!

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

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.

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

Life Is Given Only Once, And One Wants To Live It Boldly, With Full Conscious And Beauty.

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

I Often Wonder: Suppose We Could Begin Life Over Again, Knowing What We Were Doing? Suppose We Could Use One Life, Already Ended, As A Sort Of Rough Draft For Another? I Think That Every One Of Us Would Try, More Than Anything Else, Not To Repeat Himself, At The Very Least He Would Rearrange His Manner Of Life, He Would Make Sure Of Rooms Like These, With Flowers And Light ... I Have A Wife And Two Daughters, My Wife's Health Is Delicate And So On And So On, And If I Had To Begin Life All Over Again I Would Not Marry. ... No, No!

The Task Of A Writer Is Not To Solve The Problem But To State The Problem Correctly.

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.

First Impression

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Thomas A. Edison

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