“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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“Act is the blossom of thought; and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and biter fruitage of his own husbandry”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think
“Credinta, oricat de pasionata, de pura, de arzatoare, nu spune absolut nimic despre realitatea existentei lui Dumnezeu”
― Irvin D. Yalom, quote from Momma and the Meaning of Life: Tales of Psychotherapy
“বুঝছ না? আমাদের তো শুধু একটা চেহারা, সর্দারের চেহারা। কিন্তু ওর-যে এক পিঠে গোঁসাই, আর-এক পিঠে সর্দার। নামাবলিটা একটু ফেঁসে গেলেই সেটা ফাঁস হয়ে পড়ে। তাই সর্দারিধর্মটা নিজের অগোচরে পালন করতে হয়, তা হলে নামজপের বেলায় খুব বেশি বাধে না।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders
“For Persons are selves and, in one respect at least, I was now a Not-
self, simultaneously perceiving and being the Not-self of the things around me. To this new-born Not-
self, the behavior, the appearance, the very thought of the self it had momentarily ceased to be, and of
other selves, its one-time fellows, seemed not indeed distasteful (for distastefulness was not one of the
categories in terms of which I was thinking), but enormously irrelevant.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from The Doors of Perception
“Otherwise he’ll always be worrying about what she thinks of him. It’s her eyes on him that make him so afraid of his magic. He’d be much happier and less worried without her around. As would I, frankly. I don’t particularly like dragons who point sharp things at me.”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from Darkstalker
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First PersonBookQuoters 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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