3
" In short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable impulse to wrap himself in a covering, to make himself, so to speak, a case which would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to justify his timidity, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life. "
― Anton Chekhov , Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
6
" They were tough and sour, but as Pushkin said, 'Dearer to us than a host of truths is an exalting illusion.' I saw a happy man, whose cherished dream had so obviously come true, who had attained his goal in life, had gotten what he wanted, who was content with his fate and with himself. For some reason there had always been something sad mixed with my thoughts about human happiness, but now, at the sight of a happy man, I was overcome by an oppressive feeling close to despair.
- Gooseberries "
― Anton Chekhov , Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
9
" You're not content in your position as a factory owner and a rich heiress, you don't believe in your right to it, and now you can't sleep, which, of course, is certainly better than if you were content, slept soundly, and thought everything was fine. Your insomnia is respectable; in any event, it's a good sign. In fact, for our parents such a conversation as we're having now would have been unthinkable; they didn't talk at night, they slept soundly, but we, our generation, sleep badly, are anguished, talk a lot, and keep trying to decide if we're right or not.
- A Medical Case "
― Anton Chekhov , Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
12
" Oh, why is man not immortal? he thinks. Why brain centers and convolutions, why sight, speech, self-awareness, genius, if it is all doomed to sink into the ground and in the final end to cool down along with the earth’s crust and then whirl without sense or purpose, for millions of years, with the earth around the sun? For that cooling down and whirling around there was no need at all to bring man out of non-being, along to other his lofty, almost divine reason, and then, as if in mockery, turn him into clay. The life cycle! But what cowardice to comfort oneself with this surrogate of immortality! The unconscious processes that occur in nature are even lower than human stupidity, for in stupidity there is still consciousness and will, while in these processes there is nothing. Only a coward whose fear of death is greater than his dignity can comfort himself with the thought that in time his body will live in grass, a stone, a toad... To see one's own immortality in the life cycle is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future to the case after the costly violin has been broken and made useless. "
― Anton Chekhov , Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
19
" The proudest, the most independent of women, if I can but succeed in communicating my passion to her, will follow me unreasoningly, unquestioningly, doing all I desire. Out of a nun I once made a nihilist who, I heard later, shot a policeman. In all my wanderings my wife never left me for an instant, and, like a weathercock, changed her faith with each of my changing passions.
- On the Way "
― Anton Chekhov , Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
