Quotes by Anton Chekhov

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.

Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.

When youre thirsty and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean thats faith when you start to drink and finish only a glass or two thats science.

Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.

You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.

There is nothing new in art except talent.

Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.

People dont notice whether its winter or summer when theyre happy.

To advise is not to compel.

Any idiot can face a crisis - its day to day living that wears you out.

We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.

“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; that when he touched one end the other quivered.”

“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 grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I dont want to understand you.”

“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.”

“Even in Siberia there is happiness.”

“Science and art,... they seek the truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, [and] the soul, and when they are harnessed to passing needs and activities,... then they only complicate and encumber life.”

“After us theyll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps theyll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, Oh! Life is so hard! and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.”