Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, 1860 - 1904
Oil on canvas by Osip Braz (1898)
Born: 29 January 1860 (OS: 17 January 1860), Taganrog, Ukraine, Russian Empire
Died: 15 July 1904, Badenweiler, Baden-W
When Chekhov was born, Russian society was in flux: The serfs were all freed the next year. His father's business failed and the family moved to Moscow where Chekhov was educated. He originally wrote short stories to help pay for medical school, but he became even more serious about his writing after his career as a physician started. For health reasons he spent several years in France, indulging his appetite for farce in the theater. His most important work was written in the last decade of his life, plays that he considered comedies with tragic incidents. He was frustrated at the number of productions that presented them as tragedies with light moments. I'm with Chekhov, we're much healthier to look around us and see life as a farce with some bad times to overcome than to see life as a series of problems.
Biography from Wikipedia and Authors' Calendar
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Anton Chekhov quotes:
Quotes found : 39 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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- 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. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - A grimy fly can soil the entire wall and a small, dirty little act can ruin the entire proceedings. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - A man who doesn't drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - 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? permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Comfort and convenience possess a magical power; little by little they suck in even people with strong wills. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their plowing of the soil. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - 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. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up — no more flower. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - If you cry Forward! you must without fail make plain in what direction to go. Don't you see that if, without doing so, you call out the word to both a monk and a revolutionary, they will go in directions precisely opposite? permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - If you want to work on your art, work on your life. permalink
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Quotes found : 39 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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