I long to embrace, to include in my own short life, all that is accessible to man. I long to speak, to read, to wield a hammer in a great factory, to keep watch at...

You don’t understand, you fool’ says Yegor, looking dreamily up at the sky. ‘You’ve never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years… You just think I’m a mad...

If only you would go to the university,” he said. “Only enlightened and holy people are interesting, it’s only they who are wanted. The more of such people there are, the sooner the Kingdom of...

Borkin: Ladies and gentlemen, why are you so glum? Sitting there like a jury after it’s been sworn in! … Let’s think up something. What would you like? Forfeits, tug of war, catch, dancing, fireworks?

Nadya Zelenin and her mother had returned from a performance of Eugene Onegin at the theatre. Going into her room, the girl swiftly threw off her dress and let her hair down. Then she quickly...

Even in Siberia there is happiness.

Anna Petrovna: Do you know what, Kolya? Try and sing, laugh, get angry, as you once did… You stay in, we’ll laugh and drink fruit liqueur and we’ll drive away your depression in a flash....

These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left...

For God’s sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.

Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I’m tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night,...

The sufferings which may be observed nowadays – they are so widespread and so vast – but people speak nevertheless about a certain moral improvement which society has achieved…

Ivanov: And this whole romance of ours is commonplace and trite: he lost heart, and he lost his way. She came along, strong and brave in spirit, and gave him an helping hand. That’s all...

Every personal existence was upheld by a secret.

Three o’clock in the morning. The soft April night is looking at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can’t sleep, I am so happy.

Ivanov: With a heavy head, with a slothful spirit, exhausted, overstretched, broken, without faith, without love, without a goal, I roam like a shadow among men and I don’t know who I am, why I’m...

The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.

In this town to know three languages is an unnecessary luxury. It’s not even a luxury, but a sort of unnecessary addition, like a sixth finger. We have a great deal of superfluous knowledge.

Going to see plays isn’t what you people should do. Try looking at yourselves a little more often and see what gray lives you all lead. How much of what you say is unnecessary.

When asked, “Why do you always wear black?”, he said, “I am mourning for my life.

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

Lebedev: …There’ll be a scandal, the tongues of the whole district will buzz with gossip, but it’s better to go through a scandal, isn’t it, than to destroy yourself for your whole life.

Lice consume grass, rust consumes iron, and lying the soul!

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...