A Life in Letters Quotes

“Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:

1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)

2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)

3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.

4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)

5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)

6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)

7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)

8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.

And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.

[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

“He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.”
― Anton Chekhov, Letters of Anton Chekhov

“there are things in life which one can confide
in one person only, whom one trusts. It is because
of this that I write to my mother without the knowl-
edge of the others, for whom my secrets are quite
uninteresting, or, rather, . unnecessary.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Letters of Anton Chekhov

“All my friends and relatives have always taken a condescending tone to my writing, and never ceased urging me in a friendly way not to give up real work for the sake of scribbling.”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

“why do you style yourself "your worth-
less and insignificant brother"? You recognize
your insignificance? . . . Recognize it before
God; perhaps, too, in the presence of beauty, intel-
ligence, nature, but not before men. Among men
you must be conscious of your dignity. Why, you
are not a rascal, you are an honest man, aren't you?
Well, respect yourself as an honest man and know
that an honest man is not something worthless.
Don't confound "being humble" with "recognizing
one's worthlessness." . . .”
― Anton Chekhov, The Letters of Anton Chekhov

“What aristocratic writers are given by nature for nothing, commoners acquire at the cost of their youth”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

“You really need to be alone when you are travelling. It's much more interesting to sit in a coach or in your room with your own thoughts than it is to be with people.”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

“A journal like a poem or a painting must be the product of a single mind and reflect a single will.”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

“You are right in demand­ing that an artist should take an intel­li­gent atti­tude to his work, but you con­fuse two things: solv­ing a prob­lem and stat­ing a prob­lem cor­rectly. It is only the sec­ond that is oblig­a­tory for the artist.”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters

“I am neither gay nor bored, but there is a sort of numbness in my soul. I like to sit without moving or speaking. To-day, for instance, I have scarcely uttered five words.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Letters of Anton Chekhov