Frases de Antón Chéjov

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“Los infelices son egoístas, injustos, crueles e incapaces de comprender al otro. Los infelices no unen a las personas, las separan.”

“La felicidad no existe. Lo único que existe es el deseo de ser feliz.”

“El gobierno no es Dios. No tiene derecho a quitar lo que no puede regresar.”

“No hay nada más terrible, insultante y deprimente que la banalidad.”

“Si realmente reflexionas, todo es maravilloso en este mundo, todo, excepto nuestros pensamientos y acciones cuando nos olvidamos de reflexionar.”

“A la gente le encanta hablar de sus enfermedades, a pesar de que son las cosas menos interesantes de sus vidas.”

“Hay algo hermoso, poético y conmovedor cuando una persona ama más que el otro, y el otro es indiferente.”

“La fe es una aptitud del espíritu. Es, de hecho, un talento: se tiene que nacer con ella.”

“Cuando pienso en mi vocación no temo a la vida.”

“Si lo que uno hace desagrada a otro, eso no significa que la acción sea mala. Así son las cosas. Cualquier paso serio de uno debe desagradar forzosamente a algún otro. Si tú fueras a combatir por la libertad, también esto haría sufrir a tu madre ¡Qué le vamos a hacer! Quien coloca por encima de todo la tranquilidad de sus allegados debe renunciar por completo a una vida guiada por las ideas.”

“El mar no tiene ni sentido ni piedad.”

“Es fácil conquistar al que piensa que está conquistado.”

“Los hipócritas pretenden ser palomas, políticos, literarios, águilas… Pero no se deje engañar por su apariencia, no son águilas, son ratas.”

“Cualquiera que sea el tema de la conversación, un viejo soldado hablará siempre de guerra.”

“El arte de escribir consiste en decir mucho con pocas palabras.”

“Hay que hablar de cosas serias en serio.”

“Los hombres inteligentes quieren aprender; los demás, enseñar.”

“Del mismo modo que estaré solo en mi tumba, vivo esencialmente solo.”

“El amor es un escándalo de tipo personal.”

“Encontraremos paz. Escucharemos ángeles. Veremos el cielo centelleando con diamantes.”

“He observado que después del matrimonio las personas dejan de ser curiosas.”

“La obras de arte se dividen en dos categorías: las que me gustan y las que no me gustan. No conozco ningún otro criterio.”

“Aislarse en el trabajo creativo es mejor que las críticas negativas que no hacen nada en absoluto.”

“Confieso que enterrar a gente como Belikov constituye un gran placer.”

“Cuando se sugieren muchos remedios para un solo mal, quiere decir que no se puede curar.”

“El hombre vulgar espera lo bueno o lo malo del exterior, el hombre que piensa lo espera de sí mismo.”

“El mundo no perece por los bandidos y los incendios, sino por el odio, la hostilidad, y todas estas pequeñas rencillas.”

“El que nada constantemente en el mar ama la tierra firme.”

“En la naturaleza, una repugnante oruga se transforma en una mariposa encantadora; en cambio, entre los hombres ocurre lo contrario: una encantadora mariposa se transforma en una oruga repugnante.”

“Es algo malo para el escritor asumir lo que no entiende.”

“La brevedad es la hermana del talento.”

“La literatura es mi esposa legítima y la medicina mi amante. Cuando me canso de una, paso la noche con la otra.”

“Las personas que viven solas siempre tienen algo en sus mentes que comparten voluntariamente.”

“Más vale un canario perverso que un piadoso lobo.”

“No puede ser hermoso lo que es grave.”

“La medicina es mi esposa y la literatura mi amante. Cuando me canso de una, paso la noche con la otra. Y sé que es desordenado, pero no es aburrido, y ninguna de ellas pierde nada por mi infidelidad.”

“The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.”

“To regard one’s immortality as an exchange of matter is as strange as predicting the future of a violin case once the expensive violin it held has broken and lost its worth.”

“Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and only in the summer. In the city in winter they lose half of their appeal.”

“Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds.”

“Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a bad time of it.”

“"Why did you marry me into this family, mother?" said Lipa.
"One has to be married, daughter. It was not us who ordained it."”

“Everything is good in due measure and strong sensations know not measure.”

“And I thought that were we now to obtain political liberty, of which we talk so much, while engaged in biting one another, we should not know what to do with it, we should waste it in accusing one another in the newspapers of being spies and money-grubbers, we should frighten society with the assurance that we have neither men, nor science, nor literature, nothing! Nothing!”

“When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.”

“Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.”

“One can only call that youth healthful which refuses to be reconciled to old ways and which, foolishly or shrewdly, combats the old. This is nature’s charge and all progress hinges upon it.”

“The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist.”

“You look at any poetic creature: muslin, ether, demigoddess, millions of delights; then you look into the soul and find the most ordinary crocodile!”

“There are people whom even children’s literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.”

“I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it’s tobacco, then let it be tobacco.”

“How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything.”

“He who doesn’t know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others’ successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.”

“It doesn’t matter that your painting is small. Kopecks are also small, but when a lot are put together they make a ruble. Each painting displayed in a gallery and each good book that makes it into a library, no matter how small they may be, serve a great cause: accretion of the national wealth.”

“One must speak about serious things seriously.”

“Eyes—the head’s chief of police. They watch and make mental notes. A blind person is like a city abandoned by the authorities. On sad days they cry. In these carefree times they weep only from tender emotions.”

“At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.”

“Ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves; political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles. But don't be disconcerted by their aquiline appearance. They are not eagles, but rats or dogs.”

“Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.”

“As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone.”

“All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.”

“I can’t accept “our nervous age,” since mankind has been nervous during every age. Whoever fears nervousness should turn into a sturgeon or smelt; if a sturgeon makes a stupid mistake, it can only be one: to end up on a hook, and then in a pan in a pastry shell.”

“By poeticizing love, we imagine in those we love virtues that they often do not possess; this then becomes the source of constant mistakes and constant distress.”

“It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others’ expense.”

“When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.”