Quotes from The Cherry Orchard

“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“I should think I'm going to be a perpetual student.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“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 with it forever. And the only way we can redeem our past is by suffering and by giving ourselves over to exceptional labor, to steadfast and endless labor.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“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.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“They are all very serious people with stern expressions on their faces. They discuss nothing but important matters and like to philosophize a great deal, while at the same time everyone can see that the workers are detestably fed, sleep without suitable bedding, thirty to forty in a room with bedbugs everywhere, the stench, the dampness, and the moral corruption... Obviously all our fine talk has gone on simply to hoodwink ourselves and other people as well. Show me the day nurseries that they're talking about so much about. And where are the libraries? Why, they just write about nurseries and libraries in novels, while in fact not a single one even exists. What does exist is nothing but dirt, vulgarity, and a barbarian way of life... I dislike these terribly serious faces, they frighten me, and I'm afraid of serious conversations, too. We'd be better off if we all would just shut up for a while!”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“What she can't get into her narrow mind is that we're above such things as love. Our whole aim - the whole sense of our life - is to avoid petty illusions that stop us being free and happy. On, on, on!”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“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 poorly put together as a physiological type and if the enormous majority of the human race is brutal, stupid, and profoundly unhappy?”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“I am a man of cultivation; I have studied various remarkable books, but I cannot fathom the direction of my preferences; do I want to live or do I want to shoot myself, so to speak? But in order to be ready for all contingencies, I always carry a revolver in my pocket.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“LUBOV. I'm quite sure there wasn't anything at all funny. You oughtn't to go and see plays, you ought to go and look at yourself. What a grey life you lead, what a lot you talk unnecessarily.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“There is something mystical in the proud man in the sense in which you use the words. You may be right from your point of view, but, if we look at it simple-mindedly, what room is there for pride? Is there any sense in it, when man is so poorly constructed from the physiological point of view, when the vast majority of us are so gross and stupid and profoundly unhappy? We must give up admiring ourselves. The only thing to do is to work.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“We shall die all the same.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“I know exactly the potential of the people around here. They have the potential to lie. They have the potential to deceive. They have the potential to inveigle. They’ll change nothing. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I lie awake thinking, my God! We have so much. We have these huge forests. We have boundless open fields. We can see the deepest, furthest horizons. Look around you. Look. We should be giants. We really, really aren’t.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Life’s all done, just as if I never even lived it ...”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Daca pentru o boala se prescriu multe leacuri, sa stii ca boala e de nelecuit.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Dã-mi, Doamne, ce n-am gîndit, sã mã mir ce m-a gãsit... Aşa şi cu mine. De îmbogãţit m-am îmbogãţit, am parale cu carul... Dar cînd stau sã chibzuiesc şi sã judec mai bine, tot ţãran am rãmas...”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Cîteodatã, cînd nu pot s-adorm, mã gîndesc: «Doamne, tu ne-ai dat pãduri nesfîrsite, cîmpii cît vezi cu ochii, zãri fãrã de margini, si trãind în ele, ar fi trebuit sã fim si noi niste uriasi...»”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Rãsare luna. (Pauzã.) latã fericirea! Uite-o, vine, se apropie tot mai mult, tot mai mult, îi aud pasii. Si chiar dacã noi n-o vom vedea, n-o vom cunoaste, n-are nici o importanþã... Vor vedea-o altii!”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Tot ceea ce ne depăşeşte azi într-o zi va fi un lucru pe înţelesul tuturor, obişnuit.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“E ca o piatră care-mi stă legată de gat şi mă trage la fund, dar vezi, eu iubesc piatra asta şi nu pot fără ea.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Noi filozofãm doar, ne plîngem de plictisealã si bem vodcã. Vezi, e atît de limpede cã pentru a începe sã trãiesti cu adevãrat trebuie mai întîi sã-þi rãscumperi trecutul, sã isprãveºti cu el! Si nu poþi sã-l rãscumperi decît prin suferinþã, printr-o muncã uriasã si neîntreruptã!”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Dar cîti oameni sînt, frate, în Rusia, care nici nu stiu de ce sînt pe pãmînt!”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Dulapul a fost făcut exact acum o sută de ani. Ce spui? Am putea să-i serbăm jubileul! Fără îndoială, e un lucru neînsufletit, totusi, oricum ar fi, e un dulap de cărti. (…) (Pipãind dulapul.) Dulap scump si stimat! Salut existenta ta, care de o sutã de ani e destinatã idealului luminos al binelui si dreptãtii! Chemarea ta tãcutã pentru o muncã rodnicã n-a slãbit de-alungul unui veac întreg, susþinînd (printre lacrimi) în familia noastrã, din tatã în fiu, curajul si credina generatiilor într-un viitor mai bun, crescîndu-ne în spiritul idealurilor de bine si ale constiinþei sociale...”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Varia se teme sã nu ne îndrãgostim unul de altul si se þine toatã ziua de noi. Cu mintea ei strîmtã, ea nu poate înþelege cã noi suntem mai presus de dragoste, cã nãzuim sã ne ridicãm peste tot ce e meschin si trecãtor, peste tot ceea ce ne împiedicã sã fim liberi si fericiþi. Iatã adevãratul înþeles si þelul vieþii noastre: înainte! Nimic nu ne va opri sã ne urmãm calea spre steaua ce strãluceste aprinsã în depãrtare. Inainte, deci! Sã nu rãmîneti în urmã, prieteni...”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“I love him, love him. He's a millstone round my neck - he'll take me to the bottom with him. But I love this millstone of mine - I can't live without it.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“أنا أخاف السحنات الجدية جدا ولا أحبها ، أخاف الأحاديث الجدية ، الأفضل أن نصمت !”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Varia a peur que nous ne tombions amoureux l'un de l'autre. Elle ne peut pas comprendre, avec son esprit étroit, que nous sommes au-dessus de l'amour.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“О, мои грехи... Я всегда сорила деньгами без удержу, как сумасшедшая,”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

“Надо перестать восхищаться собой. Надо бы только работать.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Cherry Orchard

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Popular quotes

“What do you do when your dreams are about to come true?" she asks. "No one ever tells you. They tell you to chase them, but what happens when you actually catch one?"
"You enjoy it. Do your best, try not to be a dick.”
― Patrick Ness, quote from The Rest of Us Just Live Here

“It was my father who called the city the Mansion on the River. He was talking about Charleston, South Carolina, and he was a native son, peacock proud of a town so pretty it makes your eyes ache with pleasure just to walk down its spellbinding, narrow streets. Charleston was my father’s ministry, his hobbyhorse, his quiet obsession, and the great love of his life. His bloodstream lit up my own with a passion for the city that I’ve never lost nor ever will. I’m Charleston-born, and bred. The city’s two rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper, have flooded and shaped all the days of my life on this storied peninsula. I carry the delicate porcelain beauty of Charleston like the hinged shell of some soft-tissued mollusk. My soul is peninsula-shaped and sun-hardened and river-swollen. The high tides of the city flood my consciousness each day, subject to the whims and harmonies of full moons rising out of the Atlantic. I grow calm when I see the ranks of palmetto trees pulling guard duty on the banks of Colonial Lake or hear the bells of St. Michael’s calling cadence in the cicada-filled trees along Meeting Street. Deep in my bones, I knew early that I was one of those incorrigible creatures known as Charlestonians. It comes to me as a surprising form of knowledge that my time in the city is more vocation than gift; it is my destiny, not my choice. I consider it a high privilege to be a native of one of the loveliest American cities, not a high-kicking, glossy, or lipsticked city, not a city with bells on its fingers or brightly painted toenails, but a ruffled, low-slung city, understated and tolerant of nothing mismade or ostentatious. Though Charleston feels a seersuckered, tuxedoed view of itself, it approves of restraint far more than vainglory. As a boy, in my own backyard I could catch a basket of blue crabs, a string of flounder, a dozen redfish, or a net full of white shrimp. All this I could do in a city enchanting enough to charm cobras out of baskets, one so corniced and filigreed and elaborate that it leaves strangers awed and natives self-satisfied. In its shadows you can find metalwork as delicate as lace and spiral staircases as elaborate as yachts. In the secrecy of its gardens you can discover jasmine and camellias and hundreds of other plants that look embroidered and stolen from the Garden of Eden for the sheer love of richness and the joy of stealing from the gods. In its kitchens, the stoves are lit up in happiness as the lamb is marinating in red wine sauce, vinaigrette is prepared for the salad, crabmeat is anointed with sherry, custards are baked in the oven, and buttermilk biscuits cool on the counter.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from South of Broad

“In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be close to God”
― Raymond Carver, quote from Cathedral

“I can be by myself because I'm never lonely; I'm simply alone, living in my heavily populated solitude, a harum-scarum of infinity and eternity, and Infinity and Eternity seem to take a liking to the likes of me.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, quote from Too Loud a Solitude

“If you lose your ego, you lose the thread of that narrative you call your Self. Humans, however, can't live very long without some sense of a continuing story. Such stories go beyond the limited rational system (or the systematic rationality) with which you surround yourself; they are crucial keys to sharing time-experience with others.

Now a narrative is a story, not a logic, nor ethics, nor philosophy. It is a dream you keep having, whether you realize it or not. Just as surely as you breathe, you go on ceaselessly dreaming your story. And in these stories you wear two faces. You are simultaneously subject and object. You are a whole and you are a part. You are real and you are shadow. "Storyteller" and at the same time "character". It is through such multilayering of roles in our stories that we heal the loneliness of being an isolated individual in the world.

Yet without a proper ego nobody can create a personal narrative, any more than you can drive a car without an engine, or cast a shadow without a real physical object. But once you've consigned your ego to someone else, where on earth do you go from there?

At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego.

Just what kind of narrative?

It needn't be anything particularly fancy, nothing complicated or refined. You don't need to have literary ambitions. In fact, the sketchier and simpler the better. Junk, a leftover rehash will do. Anyway, most people are tired of complex, multilayered scenarios-they are a potential letdown. It's precisely because people can't find any fixed point within their own multilayered schemes that they're tossing aside their own self-identity.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.