To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!

And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.

Man is what he believes.

It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporeal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.

Being in love shows a person how he ought to be.

But if we reason it out simply and not try to be one bit fancy, then what sort of pride can you possibly take or what’s the sense of ever having it, if man is...

Ivanov: Gentlemen, you’ve again set up a drinking shop in my study… I have asked each and every one of you a thousand times not to do that… Look now, you’ve spilt vodka on a...

They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.

In my opinion it is not the writer’s job to solve such problems as God, pessimism, etc; his job is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what about God or pessimism....

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...

After us they’ll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy....

Only one who loves can remember so well.

The snow has not yet left the earth, but spring is already asking to enter your heart. If you have ever recovered from a serious illness, you will be familiar with the blessed state when...

A woman can become a man’s friend only in the following stages – first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.

MASHA: Isn’t there some meaning?TOOZENBACH: Meaning? … Look out there, it’s snowing. What’s the meaning of that?

A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.

Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other

Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory.

Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption,...

Lebedev: A time has come of sorrow and sadness for you. Man, my dear friend, is like a samovar. It doesn’t always stand on a shelf in the chill but sometimes they put hot coals...

Ivanov: No, my clever young thing, it’s not a question of romance. I say as before God that I will endure everything – depression and mental illness and ruin and the loss of my wife...

Lebedev: France has a clear and defined policy… The French know what they want. They just want to wipe out the Krauts, finish, but Germany, my friend, is playing a very different tune. Germany has...

True happiness is impossible without solitude. The fallen angel probably betrayed God because he longed for solitude, which angels do not know.

Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable … They do not create scenes over a hammer or a...

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.

MASHA. Just think, I am already beginning to forget her face. People will not remember us either. They will forget.VERSHININ. Yes. They will forget. That is our fate, you can’t do anything about it. The...

Flies purify the air, and plays–the morals.

There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.

Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.

But then there’s loneliness. However you might philosophise about it, loneliness is a terrible thing, my dear fellow… Although in reality, of course, it’s absolutely of no importance!

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

Shabelsky: O mind of genius, you think up things for everyone and teach everyone, but why not for once teach me… Teach me, great brain, show me the way out…

Podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not — and decides to take offence.

You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly...

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...

He keeps going, going, going on; his people groan and fall one after the other, but he keeps on going, going and in the end, perishes himself, but still remains the despot and tsar of...

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

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;...

I’ve never been in love. I’ve dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.

His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another.

On dit que les philosophes et les vrais sages sont indifférents. C’est faux, l’indifférence est une paralysie de l’ me, une mort anticipée.

Existence is tedious, anyway.

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.

We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It’s so clear, you see, that if we’re to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done...

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...

Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.”(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)

The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak different languages but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels now from being able...

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...

When a woman is plain, people say, ‘What beautiful eyes you have, beautiful hair.

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,...