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

-Anton Chekhov

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Useless Pursuits And Conversations

Anton Chekhov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Observed That After Marriage People Cease To Be Curious.

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?

To Advise Is Not To Compel.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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.

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

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

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.

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

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.

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

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.

Love Is A Scandal Of The Personal Sort.

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

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 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.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

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.

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.

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

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

There Is Nothing New In Art Except Talent.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

In Two Or Three Hundred Years Life On Earth Will Be Unimaginably Beautiful, Astounding. Man Needs Such A Life And If It Hasn't Yetappeared, He Should Begin To Anticipate It, Wait For It, Dream About It, Prepare For It. To Achieve This, He Has To See And Know More Than Did His Grandfather And Father.

Brevity - The Sister Of Talent.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

What Truth? You See Where Truth Is, And Where Untruth Is, But I Seem To Have Lost My Sight And See Nothing. You Boldly Settle All Important Questions, But Tell Me, Dear, Isn't It Because You're Young, Because You Haven't Had Time To Suffer Till You Settled A Single One Of Your Questions? You Boldly Look Forward, Isn't It Because You Cannot Foresee Or Expect Anything Terrible, Because So Far Life Has Been Hidden From Your Young Eyes? You Are Bolder, More Honest, Deeper Than We Are, But Think Only, Be Just A Little Magnanimous, And Have Mercy On Me.

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

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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!

The Government Is Not God. It Does Not Have The Right To Take Away That Which It Can't Return Even If It Wants To.

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

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.

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

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

Losing A Loved One

Desription Should Be Very Brief And Have An Incidental Nature.

Great Jove Angry Is No Longer Jove.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

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.

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

Write, Write, Write-till Your Fingers Break.

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

In Moscow You Sit In A Huge Room At A Restaurant; You Know No One And No One Knows You, And At The Same Time You Don't Feel A Stranger. But Here You Know Everyone And Everyone Knows You, And Yet You Are A Stranger - A Stranger... A Stranger, And Lonely...

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.

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.

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

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

..when One Has No Real Life, One Lives By Mirages. It's Still Better Than Nothing.

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

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

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.

Death Can Only Be Profitable: There's No Need To Eat, Drink, Pay Taxes, Offend People, And Since A Person Lies In A Grave For Hundreds Or Thousands Of Years, If You Count It Up The Profit Turns Out To Be Enormous.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Man Is What He Believes.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Can't Accept "our Nervous Age," Since Mankind Has Been Nervous During Every Age. Whoever Fears Nervousness Should Turn Into A Sturgeon Or Smelt; If A Sturgeon Makes A Stupid Mistake, It Can Only Be One: To End Up On A Hook, And Then In A Pan In A Pastry Shell.

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

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

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

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.

Only Entropy Comes Easy.

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!

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

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.

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.

When One Sees One Of The Romantic Creatures Before Him He Imagines He Is Looking At Some Holy Being, So Wonderful That Its One Breath Could Dissolve Him In A Sea Of A Thousand Charms And Delights; But If One Looks Into The Soul -- It's Nothing But A Common Crocodile.

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.

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

A Litterateur Is Not A Confectioner, Not A Dealer In Cosmetics, Not An Entertainer. . . . He Is Just Like An Ordinary Reporter. What Would You Say If A Newspaper Reporter, Because Of His Fastidiousness Or From A Wish To Give Pleasure To His Readers, Were To Describe Only Honest Mayors, High-minded Ladies, And Virtuous Railroad Contractors.

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

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.

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

...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.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood!

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

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

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Writers Are As Jealous As Pigeons.

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

A Fiancé Is Neither This Nor That: He's Left One Shore, But Not Yet Reached The Other.

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

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

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.

If An Intelligent, Educated, And Healthy Man Begins To Complain Of His Lot And Go Down-hill, There Is Nothing For Him To Do But To Go On Down Until He Reaches The Bottom--there Is No Hope For Him. Where Could My Salvation Come From? How Can I Save Myself? I Cannot Drink, Because It Makes My Head Ache. I Never Could Write Bad Poetry. I Cannot Pray For Strength And See Anything Lofty In The Languor Of My Soul. Laziness Is Laziness And Weakness Weakness. I Can Find No Other Names For Them. I Am Lost, I Am Lost; There Is No Doubt Of That.

"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."

What A Delight It Is To Respect People!

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

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

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.

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

One Must Speak About Serious Things Seriously.

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

The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

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.

A Woman Can Become A Man's Friend Only In The Following Stages - First An Acquantaince, Next A Mistress, And Only Then A Friend.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

There Ought To Be A Man With A Hammer Behind The Door Of Every Happy Man.

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

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

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 Was Oppressed With A Sense Of Vague Discontent And Dissatisfaction With My Own Life, Which Was Passing So Quickly And Uninterestingly, And I Kept Thinking It Would Be A Good Thing If I Could Tear My Heart Out Of My Breast, That Heart Which Had Grown So Weary Of Life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

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

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

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

Oh, Dreams! In One Night, Lying With One's Eyes Shut, One May Sometimes Live Through More Than Ten Years Of Happiness.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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