Quotes by Anton Chekhov

• Advertising is the very essence of democracy.
• A fiance is neither this nor that: he's left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
• 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 writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.
• Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.
• If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.
• It's easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook.
• Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
• The more refined one is, the more unhappy.
• 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.
• Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.
• I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.
• Man is what he believes.
• How unbearable at times are people who are happy, people for whom everything works out.
• Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
• 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.
• No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
• One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.
• Only entropy comes easy.
• People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.
• People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.
• Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.
• To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.
• You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.
• 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.
• Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
• The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
• We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.
• The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.
• We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
• When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured.
• If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.
• 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.
• There is nothing new in art except talent.
• When an actor has money he doesn't send letters, he sends telegrams.
• The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
• The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.
• The sea has neither meaning nor pity.
• Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
• To advise is not to compel.
• Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.