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The Cherry Orchard

Anton Chekhov

Top 10 Best Quotes

“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”

“I should think I'm going to be a perpetual student.”

“And what does it mean -- dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.”

“We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It's so clear, you see, that if we're to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done with it forever. And the only way we can redeem our past is by suffering and by giving ourselves over to exceptional labor, to steadfast and endless labor.”

“A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.”

“Going to see plays isn't what you people should do. Try looking at yourselves a little more often and see what gray lives you all lead. How much of what you say is unnecessary.”

“They are all very serious people with stern expressions on their faces. They discuss nothing but important matters and like to philosophize a great deal, while at the same time everyone can see that the workers are detestably fed, sleep without suitable bedding, thirty to forty in a room with bedbugs everywhere, the stench, the dampness, and the moral corruption... Obviously all our fine talk has gone on simply to hoodwink ourselves and other people as well. Show me the day nurseries that they're talking about so much about. And where are the libraries? Why, they just write about nurseries and libraries in novels, while in fact not a single one even exists. What does exist is nothing but dirt, vulgarity, and a barbarian way of life... I dislike these terribly serious faces, they frighten me, and I'm afraid of serious conversations, too. We'd be better off if we all would just shut up for a while!”

“I am a man of cultivation; I have studied various remarkable books, but I cannot fathom the direction of my preferences; do I want to live or do I want to shoot myself, so to speak? But in order to be ready for all contingencies, I always carry a revolver in my pocket.”

“What she can't get into her narrow mind is that we're above such things as love. Our whole aim - the whole sense of our life - is to avoid petty illusions that stop us being free and happy. On, on, on!”

“But if we reason it out simply and not try to be one bit fancy, then what sort of pride can you possibly take or what's the sense of ever having it, if man is poorly put together as a physiological type and if the enormous majority of the human race is brutal, stupid, and profoundly unhappy?”

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Book Keywords:

beliefs, past, redemption, vanity, death, philosophical-musings, life, boredom, dog, self-awareness, work, moral-corruption, vulgarity, stupidity, unhappiness, pride

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