Background Image

...

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.

-Anton Chekhov

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Should Be More

Anton Chekhov

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Anton Chekhov

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.

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

Brevity - The Sister Of Talent.

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.

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

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

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.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

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

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

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.

Writers Are As Jealous As Pigeons.

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.

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?

Sometimes We Go To A Play And After The Curtain Has Been Up Five Minutes We Have A Sense Of Being Able To Settle Back In The Arms Of The Playwright. Instinctively We Know That The Playwright Knows His Business.

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

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.

Everyone Has The Same God; Only People Differ.

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.

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

Everyone Judges Plays As If They Were Very Easy To Write. They Don't Know That It Is Hard To Write A Good Play, And Twice As Hardand Tortuous To Write A Bad One.

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

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!

I've Noticed That People Who Get Married Cease To Be Curious.

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.

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

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.

There Is Nothing New In Art Except Talent.

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.

One Can Prove Or Refute Anything At All With Words. Soon People Will Perfect Language Technology To Such An Extent That They'll Be Proving With Mathematical Precision That Twice Two Is Seven.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

These People Have Learned Not From Books, But In The Fields, In The Wood, On The River Bank. Their Teachers Have Been The Birds Themselves, When They Sang To Them, The Sun When It Left A Glow Of Crimson Behind It At Setting, The Very Trees, And Wild Herbs.

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.

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.

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.

If I Wanted To Order A Ring For Myself, The Inscription I Should Choose Would Be: "nothing Passes Away." I Believe That Nothing Passes Away Without Leaving A Trace, And That Every Step We Take, However Small, Has Significance For Our Present And Our Future Existence.

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

Country Acquaintances Are Charming Only In The Country And Only In The Summer. In The City In Winter They Lose Half Of Their Appeal.

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

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.

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.

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

In Order To Cultivate Yourself And To Drop No Lower Than The Level Of The Milieu In Which You Have Landed, It Is Not Enough To Read Pickwick And Memorize A Monologue From Faust... You Need To Work Continually Day And Night, To Read Ceaselessly, To Study, To Exercise Your Will... Each Hour Is Precious.

We Go To Great Pains To Alter Life For The Happiness Of Our Descendants And Our Descendants Will Say As Usual: Things Used To Be So Much Better, Life Today Is Worse Than It Used To Be.

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.

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.

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

The Time Has Come For Writers, Especially Those Who Are Artists, To Admit That In This World One Cannot Make Anything Out, Just As Socrates Once Admitted It, Just As Voltaire Admitted It.

How Unbearable At Times Are People Who Are Happy, People For Whom Everything Works Out.

"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 Thirst For Powerful Sensations Takes The Upper Hand Both Over Fear And Over Compassion For The Grief Of Others.

Not Only After Two Or Three Centuries, But In A Million Years, Life Will Still Be As It Was; Life Does Not Change, It Remains For Ever, Following Its Own Laws Which Do Not Concern Us, Or Which, At Any Rate, You Will Never Find Out. Migrant Birds, Cranes For Example, Fly And Fly, And Whatever Thoughts, High Or Low, Enter Their Heads, They Will Still Fly And Not Know Why Or Where. They Fly And Will Continue To Fly, Whatever Philosophers Come To Life Among Them; They May Philosophize As Much As They Like, Only They Will Fly.

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

When You Want To Touch The Reader's Heart, Try To Be Colder. It Gives Their Grief As It Were, A Background, Against Which It Stands Out In Greater Relief.

I'm In Mourning For My Life.

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

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

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

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

The Problem Is That We Attempt To Solve The Simplest Questions Cleverly, Thereby Rendering Them Unusually Complex. One Should Seekthe Simple Solution.

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

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

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

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.

And Only Now, When He Was Gray-haired, Had He Fallen In Love Properly, Thoroughly, For The First Time In His Life.

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.

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

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

A Person Loves To Talk About His Illnesses Although That Is The Least Interesting Part Of His Life.

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.

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

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.

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

There Are Plenty Of Good People, But Only A Very, Very Few Are Precise And Disciplined.

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.

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

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

If You Cry 'forward', You Must Without Fail Make Plain In What Direction To Go.

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

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

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

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.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood!

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

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

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

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.

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

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

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.

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.

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

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

People Should Be Beautiful In Every Way - In Their Faces, In The Way They Dress, In Their Thoughts, And In Their Innermost Selves.

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.

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

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

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

When You Describe The Miserable And Unfortunate, And Want To Make The Reader Feel Pity, Try To Be Somewhat Colder - That Seems To Give A Kind Of Background To Another's Grief, Against Which It Stands Out More Clearly. Whereas In Your Story The Characters Cry And You Sigh. Yes, Be More Cold. ... The More Objective You Are, The Stronger Will Be The Impression You Make.

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

If Many Remedies Are Prescribed For An Illness You Can Be Sure It Has No Cure

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

A Hungry Dog Believes In Nothing But Meat.

It Doesn't Matter That Your Painting Is Small. Kopecks Are Also Small, But When A Lot Are Put Together They Make A Ruble. Each Painting Displayed In A Gallery And Each Good Book That Makes It Into A Library, No Matter How Small They May Be, Serve A Great Cause: Accretion Of The National Wealth.

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?

In My Head There Is A Whole Army Of People Asking To Be Let Out And Waiting For The Word Of Command.

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

Only Entropy Comes Easy.

You Are Right In Demanding That An Artist Approach His Work Consciously, But You Are Confusing Two Concepts: The Solution Of A Problem And The Correct Formulation Of A Problem. Only The Second Is Required Of The Artist.

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

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

Love Is A Scandal Of The Personal Sort.

One Must Speak About Serious Things Seriously.

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.

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

But At The Same Time, In Reality, What A Difference There Is Between The World Today, And What It Used To Be! And With The Passage Of More Time, Some Two Or Three Hundred Years, Say, People Will Look Back At Our Own Times With Horror, Or With Sneering Laughter, Because All Of Our Present Day Life Will Appear So Clumsy, And Burdensome, Extraordinarily Inept And Strange. Yes, Certainly, What A Life It Will Be Then, What A Life!

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

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.

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

...and With A Burning Pain In My Heart I Realized How Unnecessary, How Petty, And How Deceptive All That Had Hindered Us From Loving Was. I Understood That When You Love You Must Either, In Your Reasonings About That Love, Start From What Is Highest, From What Is More Important Than Happiness Or Unhappiness, Sin Or Virtue In Their Accepted Meaning, Or You Must Not Reason At All.

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

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.

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

It Is The Writer's Business Not To Accuse And Not To Prosecute, But To Champion The Guilty, Once They Are Condemned And Suffer Punishment.

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

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.

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.

What A Delight It Is To Respect People!

Nature's Law Says That The Strong Must Prevent The Weak From Living, But Only In A Newspaper Article Or Textbook Can This Be Packaged Into A Comprehensible Thought. In The Soup Of Everyday Life, In The Mixture Of Minutia From Which Human Relations Are Woven, It Is Not A Law. It Is A Logical Incongruity When Both Strong And Weak Fall Victim To Their Mutual Relations, Unconsciously Subservient To Some Unknown Guiding Power That Stands Outside Of Life, Irrelevant To Man.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Exquisite Nature, Daydreams, And Music Say One Thing, Real Life Another.

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.

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

An Expansive Life, One Not Constrained By Four Walls, Requires As Well An Expansive Pocket.

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.

The More Refined One Is, The More Unhappy.

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.

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

The Critics Suppose That It Is Easy To Write A Play. They Aren't Aware That Writing A Good Play Is Difficult And Writing A Bad One Is Twice As Hard.

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.

It's Better To Live Down A Scandal Than To Ruin One's Life.

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.

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

[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.

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.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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 Am Dying. I Haven't Drunk Champagne For A Long Time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Even While Lying, You'll Be Believed If You Speak With Authority.

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

The Past,' He Thought, 'is Linked With The Present By An Unbroken Chain Of Events Flowing One Out Of Another.' And It Seemed To Him That He Had Just Seen Both Ends Of That Chain; That When He Touched One End The Other Quivered.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

A Good Upbringing Means Not That You Won't Spill Sauce On The Tablecloth, But That You Won't Notice It When Someone Else Does.

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.

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.

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

The Illusion Which Exalts Us Is Dearer To Us Than Ten Thousand Truths.

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

When All Is Said And Done, No Literature Can Outdo The Cynicism Of Real Life; You Won't Intoxicate With One Glass Someone Who Has Already Drunk Up A Whole Barrel.

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.

The People I Am Afraid Of Are The Ones Who Look For Tendentiousness Between The Lines And Are Determined To See Me As Either Liberal Or Conservative. I Am Neither Liberal, Nor Conservative, Nor Gradualist, Nor Monk, Nor Indifferentist. I Would Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing Else, And I Regret God Has Not Given Me The Strength To Be One.

Trending Author

Richard Dreyfuss

Paul Feyerabend

Category