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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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Tsars And Slaves, The

Anton Chekhov

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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.

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More From Anton Chekhov

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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

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?

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

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

A Hungry Dog Believes In Nothing But Meat.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Satiation, Like Any State Of Vitality, Always Contains A Degree Of Impudence, And That Impudence Emerges First And Foremost When The Sated Man Instructs The Hungry One.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

One Must Speak About Serious Things Seriously.

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

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

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

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

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.

I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

If I Had Listened To The Critics I'd Have Died Drunk In The Gutter

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.

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...

He Who Desires Nothing, Hopes For Nothing, And Is Afraid Of Nothing, Cannot Be 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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

It's Easier To Write About Socrates Than About A Young Woman Or A Cook.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

When A Person Expends The Least Amount Of Motion On One Action, That Is Grace.

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

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

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

[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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

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.

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

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

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

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.

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

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

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

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.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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 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.

An Artist Observes, Selects, Guesses, And Synthesizes.

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

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.

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

It Is A Bad Thing If A Writer Tackles A Subject He Does Not Understand.

Solomon Made A Big Mistake When He Asked For Wisdom.

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

He Is No Longer A City Dweller Who Has Even Once In His Life Caught A Ruff Or Seen How, On Clear And Cool Autumn Days, Flocks Of Migrating Thrushes Drift Over A Village. Until His Death He Will Be Drawn To Freedom.

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

Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees.

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

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

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.

The University Brings Out All Abilities, Including Incapability.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Desription Should Be Very Brief And Have An Incidental Nature.

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

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

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

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...

Do You Know When You May Concede Your Insignificance? Before God Or, Perhaps, Before The Intellect, Beauty, Or Nature, But Not Before People. Among People, One Must Be Conscious Of One's Dignity.

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

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

There Is No National Science, Just As There Is No National Multiplication Table; What Is National Is No Longer Science.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Better A Debauched Canary Than A Pious Wolf.

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.

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

In Western Europe People Perish From The Congestion And Stifling Closeness, But With Us It Is From The Spaciousness.... The Expanses Are So Great That The Little Man Hasn't The Resources To Orient Himself.... This Is What I Think About Russian Suicides.

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

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.

An Artist Must Only Judge Of What He Understands, His Field Is Just As Limited As That Of Any Other Specialist... That In His Sphere There Are No Questions, But Only Answers, Can Only Be Maintained By Those Who Have Never Written And Have Had No Experience Of Thinking In Images.

Everyone Has The Same God; Only People Differ.

Love Is A Scandal Of The Personal Sort.

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

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

[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.

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.

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.

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

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.

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

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

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.

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

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

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

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.

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

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.

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Miguel Angel Ruiz

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