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...

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...