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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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We Are Accustomed To

Anton Chekhov

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

To Live Simply To Die Is By No Means Amusing, But To Live With The Knowledge That You Will Die Before Your Time, That's Really Is Idiotic

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Self Improvement

In Nature A Repulsive Caterpillar Turns Into A Lovely Butterfly. But With Human Beings It Is The Other Way Round: A Lovely Butterfly Turns Into A Repulsive Caterpillar.

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

People Don't Notice Whether It's Winter Or Summer When They're Happy.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

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.

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.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

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

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

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

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

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

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

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

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.

Love Is A Scandal Of The Personal Sort.

Let The Things That Happen On The Stage Be Just As Complex And Yet Just As Simple As They Are In Life. For Instance, People Are Having A Meal, Just Having A Meal, But At The Same Time Their Happiness Is Being Created, Or Their Lives Are Being Smashed Up.

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

Desription Should Be Very Brief And Have An Incidental Nature.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The University Brings Out All Abilities, Including Incapability.

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.

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

Everything Should Be First-rate In A Person, His Face, Clothes, Soul And Thoughts.

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.

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

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

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.

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.

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

Great Jove Angry Is No Longer Jove.

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.

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.

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Leaves Did Not Stir On The Trees, Grasshoppers Chirruped, And The Monotonous Hollow Sound Of The Sea Rising Up From Below, Spoke Of The Peace, Of The Eternal Sleep Awaiting Us. So It Must Have Sounded When There Was No Yalta, No Oreanda Here; So It Sounds Now, And It Will Sound As Indifferently And Monotonously When We Are All No More. And In This Constancy, In This Complete Indifference To The Life And Death Of Each Of Us, There Lies Hid, Perhaps, A Pledge Of Our Eternal Salvation, Of The Unceasing Movement Of Life Upon Earth, Of Unceasing Progress Towards Perfection.

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

One Must Speak About Serious Things Seriously.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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

I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

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.

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.

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

...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 Observed That After Marriage People Cease To Be Curious.

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.

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

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

No Matter How Corrupt And Unjust A Convict May Be, He Loves Fairness More Than Anything Else. If The People Placed Over Him Are Unfair, From Year To Year He Lapses Into An Embittered State Characterized By An Extreme Lack Of Faith.

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

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

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.

If Only One Tooth Aches, Rejoice That Not All Of Them Ache.... If Your Wife Betrays You, Be Glad That She Betrayed Only You And Not The Nation.

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.

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

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!

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...

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Hypocrisy Is A Revolting, Psychopathic State.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

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

An Artist Observes, Selects, Guesses, And Synthesizes.

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

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

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!

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

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

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

[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.

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

I Would Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing Else, And I Regret God Has Not Given Me The Strength To Be One.

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...

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

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.

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Eva Gabrielsson

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