Quotes by Anton Chekhov

“A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.”

“There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.”

“You will not become a saint through other people's sins.”

“When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you'll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you'll eat yourself.”

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.”

“Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.”

“Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.”

“Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.”

“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”

“[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.”

“If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it.”

“It's easier to ask for money from the poor than from the wealthy.”