Anton Chekhov
Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.Collection: Fire
Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.Collection: Beautiful
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?Collection: Funny
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.Collection: Wife
We live not in order to eat, but in order not to know what we feel like eating.Collection: Order
It is always "Youth, youth," when there is nothing else to be said.Collection: Youth
[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.Collection: Two
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.Collection: Faith
I'm in mourning for my life.Collection: Mourning
In one-act pieces there should be only rubbish - that is their strength.Collection: Pieces
I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.Collection: Theatre
It's been a long time since I've had champagne.Collection: Long
Who keeps the tavern and serves up the drinks? The peasant. Who squanders and drinks up money belonging to the peasant commune, the school, the church? The peasant. Who would steal from his neighbor, commit arson, and falsely denounce another for a bottle of vodka? The peasant.Collection: Country
A man wants nothing so badly as a gooseberry farm.Collection: Food
There are in life conjunctions of circumstances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires is least of all appropriate.Collection: Circumstances
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.Collection: Mean
The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.Collection: Men
The snow has not yet left the earth but spring is already asking to enter your heart.Collection: Spring
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.Collection: Stars
Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.Collection: Lying
For God's sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Love
Try to reason about love, and you will lose your reason.Collection: Trying
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.Collection: Love Is
I have the feeling that I've seen everything, but failed to notice the elephants.Collection: Elephants
The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything.Collection: Lying
If I had listened to the critics I'd have died drunk in the gutterCollection: Inspirational
Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.Collection: Real
Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.Collection: Funny
Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.Collection: Tree
A man and a woman marry because both of them do not know what to do with themselves.Collection: Marriage
If you want to work on your art, work on your life.Collection: Art
All saints have past and all sinners have a future.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Inspirational
People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.Collection: Summer
When we retreat to the country, we are hiding not from people, but from our pride, which, in the city and among people, operates unfairly and immoderately.Collection: Country
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!Collection: Country
The air of one’s native country is the most healthy air.Collection: Country
In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because – I don’t know why.Collection: Stories