Quoting Chekov

It's like what Brando said: One cannot improve upon Shakespeare (or Tennessee Williams for that matter). I guess, the same goes with Chekov! I won't dare to add my comments on what Chekov said.

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The world is a fine place. The only thing wrong with it is us. How little justice and humility there is in us, how poorly we understand patriotism!

I have no faith in our hypocritical, false, hysterical, uneducated and lazy intelligentsia when they suffer and complain: their oppression comes from within. I believe in individual people. I see salvation in discrete individuals, intellectuals and peasants, strewn hither and yon throughout Russia. They have the strength, although there are few of them.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.

Solomon made a big mistake when he asked for wisdom.

Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? Before God or, perhaps, before the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not before people. Among people, one must be conscious of one's dignity.

Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?

It's not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.

Common hypocrites pass themselves off as doves; political and literary hypocrites pose as eagles. But don't be fooled by their eagle-like appearance. These are not eagles, but rats or dogs.

There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent.

I've thought about how, were we to suddenly receive the freedom about which we talk so much when we spar with one another, we would not know what to do with it at first. We would expend it on denouncing one another in the newspapers for spying, for love of the ruble, we would frighten society with protestations that we have no people, no science, no literature, nothing at all!

Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.