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

“No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. Learning for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy.”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from Lonesome Traveler

“Often he declined invitations, because to accept meant that he had to dust off his brogues, iron a shirt, brush down his best suit, take a bath, and splash on some cologne. He had also to be affable, to drink and be merry, to talk to strangers with whom he had no inclination to talk and with whom he was not being paid to talk. In other words, he resented having to play the part of a normal human animal.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“When I was very young I once saw a variety act on TV. A man put a bunch of plates on the end of a series of supple rods, and kept them up in the air by whipping the rods around to spin the plates. And if he slowed down or turned his back, even for a moment, one of the plates would wobble and then crash to the ground, followed by all the others in series.

That's a terrific metaphor for life, isn't it? We're all trying to keep our plates spinning in the air, and once you get them up there you can't take your eyes off them and you have to keep chugging along without the rest. Except that in life, somebody keeps adding more plates, hiding the rods, and changing the law of gravity when you're not looking. And so every time you think you have all your plates spinning nicely, suddenly you hear a hideous clattering crash behind you and a whole row of plates you didn't even know you had begins to hit the ground”
― Jeff Lindsay, quote from Dexter in the Dark

“Pascal was even convinced that he could use his theories to justify a belief in God. He stated that ‘the excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win multiplied by the probability of winning it’. He then argued that the possible prize of eternal happiness has an infinite value and that the probability of entering heaven by leading a virtuous life, no matter how small, is certainly finite. Therefore, according to Pascal’s definition, religion was a game of infinite excitement and one worth playing, because multiplying an infinite prize by a finite probability results in infinity.”
― Simon Singh, quote from Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem

“Let everyone see the blood,' he said. 'Don't clean it up. That's the only way people remember.'... I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Incantation

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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.