727 Quotes by Anton Chekhov

  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    Eyes – the head’s chief of police. They watch and make mental notes.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    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.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    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.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    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.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don’t like. No other criterion exists for me.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    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.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    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.

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  • Author Anton Chekhov
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    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.

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