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.”

“How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their marvelous works.”

“Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.”

“Hypocrisy is a revolting, psychopathic state.”

“Yes, that's how it is, child. He who works, he who is patient is the superior.”

“Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the author’s own conscience.”

“In one-act pieces there should be only rubbish—that is their strength.”

“There are in life such confluences of circumstances that render the reproach that we are not Voltaires most inopportune.”

“The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.”

“By all means I will be married if you wish it. But on these conditions: everything must be as it has been hitherto—that is, she must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see her. … I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.”

“Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.”

“All Russia is our orchard.”

“Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don’t know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hard and tortuous to write a bad one.”

“"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb, but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing, he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."”

“While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”

“Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.”

“Between "there is a God" and "there is no God" lies a whole vast tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. A Russian knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or very little.”

“There are no lower or higher or median moralities. There is only one morality, and it is precisely the one that was given to us during the time of Jesus Christ and that stops me, you and Barantsevich from stealing, offending others, lying etc.”

“One had better not rush, otherwise dung comes out rather than creative work.”

“Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?”

“If you really think about it, everything is wonderful in this world, everything except for our thoughts and deeds when we forget about the loftier goals of existence, about our human dignity.”

“Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.”

“[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.”

“Children are holy and pure. Even those of bandits and crocodiles belong among the angels…. They must not be turned into a plaything of one’s mood, first to be tenderly kissed, then rabidly stomped at.”

“"Grigory Petrovitch, let us weep, let us weep with joy!" he said in a thin voice, and then at once burst out laughing in a loud bass guffaw. "Ho-ho-ho! This is a fine daughter-in-law for you too! Everything is in its place in her; all runs smoothly, no creaking, the mechanism works well, lots of screws in it."”

“When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams.”

“My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.”

“He who constantly swims in the ocean loves dry land.”

“She read a lot, wrote letters without the letter ъ, …”

“Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they’ll find a means to be happy.”