Anton Chekhov

"Science has already provided the answers; it is we who have not yet learned to listen."

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

"The fundamental principle of human nature is to work, to create."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and imprisonment, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"I feel more confident and cheerful when I have accomplished something."

"The rich and the poor are not enemies, but rather creatures of habit."

"Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how great and precious it is."

"To avoid being cheated, don't make assumptions about human nature."

"Only a person who is constantly working is truly happy."

"We are not given a short time on earth; we waste much of it."

"The same old song—how we need the sun, how we are drawn to it."

"Mules are patient animals, but even they have limits."

"Great God, do I really look as tired as all that?"

"The absurd is only too necessary on earth; all is absurd."

"If you fear something, that means it has power over you."

"A writer should not be a judge of his characters or of what they say, but merely a dispassionate observer."

"Marriage is either a tomb or a paradise; there is no middle ground."

"Conscious or unconscious, we are all bound by family ties."

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong in the broken places."

"Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious."

"Talent can only be created by long effort, patience, and sacrifice."

"A doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient."

"Familiarity breeds not contempt but indifference."

"The more refined one's tastes, the more one suffers."

"Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them."

"Real courage consists of enduring the unbearable patiently."

"When a man is in the company of a fool, even his words become foolish."

"The scream is the last attempt to express something when words fail."

"We learn to love not when we find a perfect person, but when we learn to see an imperfect person perfectly."

"The most important thing is not what you are, but what you wish to become."