The Complete Short Novels Quotes

“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, The Complete Short Novels

“They say, tell me what you've read and I'll tell you who you are.”
― Anton Chekhov, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, The Complete Short Novels

“The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“sank hopelessly in the mire of vulgar, petty bourgeois existence.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are worse still—mere waste of time and nothing more.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“For a crippled man like me, personal happiness was possible only in dreams.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“to begin a new life of toil,”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“a rapid, skilful, and habitual movement he slapped me twice in the face.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“I shall renounce it all beforehand.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are worse still,29 merely a waste of time and nothing more.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“Knowledge and evidence. The consumptive and the scrofulous are recognized by their ailments, and the immoral and mad by their acts.”
― Anton Chekhov, 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, The Complete Short Novels

“There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“with anguish at the restless, dark sea. ‘‘The boat is thrown back,’’ he thought, ‘‘it makes two steps forward and one step back, but the oarsmen are stubborn, they work the oars tirelessly and do not fear the high waves. The boat goes on and on, now it can no longer be seen, and in half an hour the oarsmen will clearly see the steamer’s lights, and in an hour they’ll already be by the steamer’s ladder. 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...’’ ‘‘Good-by-y-ye!’’ shouted Samoilenko. ‘‘No sight or sound of them,’’ said the deacon. ‘‘Safe journey!’’ It began to drizzle. 1891”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“Two heads are better than one. To one man God gives one brain, to another two brains, and to some even three... To some even three, that's for sure... One brain you're born with, another you get from studies, the third from a good life. So you see, little brother, it's good if somebody has three brains. It's easier for such a man not only to live but even to die. To die, yes... And die we all will.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“To marry without love is as mean and unworthy of a human being as to serve a liturgy without believing.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“I know perfectly well that you can't help me," he said, "but I'm talking to you because, for our kind, luckless fellows and superfluous men, talk is the only salvation. I should generalize my every act, I should find an explanation and a justification of my absurd life in somebody's theories, in literary types, in the fact, for instance, that we noblemen are degenerating, and so on... Last night, for instance, I comforted myself by thinking all the time: ah, how right Tolstoy is, how pitilessly right! And that made it easier for me. The fact is, brother, he's a great writer! Whatever they say.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful . . . full of despair. . . .”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels

“Ivan Ivanyches,’’ sighed the”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels