“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, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“They say, tell me what you've read and I'll tell you who you are.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“There is something sad, dreamy, and in the highest degree poetic in a lonely grave ... You can hear its silence, and in this silence you sense the presence of the soul of the unknown person who lies under the cross. Is it good for this soul in the steppe? Does it languish”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“To leave town, and the struggle and the swim of life, and go and hide yourself in a farmhouse is not life -- it is egoism, laziness; it is a kind of monasticism, but monasticism without action. A man needs, not six feet of land, not a farm, but the whole earth, all Nature, where in full liberty he can display all the properties and qualities of the free spirit.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“When you look for a long time into the deep sky, without taking your eyes away, your thoughts and soul merge for some reason in an awareness of loneliness. You begin to feel yourself irremediably alone, and all that you once considered close and dear becomes infinitely distant and devoid of value.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“So it is in life... In search of the truth, people make two steps forward and one step back. Sufferings, mistakes, and the tedium of life throw them back, but the thirst for truth and a stubborn will drive them on and on. And who knows? Maybe they’ll row their way to the real truth...”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“And you know once a man has fished, or watched the thrushes hovering in flocks over the village in the bright, cool, autumn days, he can never really be a townsman, and to the day of his death he will be drawn to the country.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“Everything is quiet, peaceful, and against it all there is only the silent protest of statistics; so many go mad, so many gallons are drunk, so many children die of starvation. . . . And such a state of things is obviously what we want; apparently a happy man only feels so because the unhappy bear their burden in silence, but for which happiness would be impossible.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
“for a crippled man like me , personal happiness was possible only in dreams.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from The Complete Short Novels
Anton Chekhov
Born place: in Taganrog, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire
Born date January 29, 1860
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“Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.”
― Douglas Adams, quote from So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
“Our lives are crazy. When moments to remember happen, you have to pause a second to appreciate them. Otherwise none of this is worth it. And getting married to you is definitely a moment to remember." ~ Kellan Kyle”
― S.C. Stephens, quote from Reckless
“Nobody's happy. What's happy? Happiness is over when the lights come on."
The older woman poured herself a glass of sangria. "Screw that," she said quietly.
"What?"
"Screw that. Wash your mouth out. Who taught you that half-assed existential drivel?”
― Armistead Maupin, quote from Tales of the City
“The emptiness where I used pain to fill the hole no longer controls me, no longer calls me because of you.”
― Abbi Glines, quote from Existence
“The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil
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The Husband
The Marriage of Heav...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.
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