If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.
Anton ChekhovRead
Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses appreciation for literature's role in promoting values of goodness and justice.
In this quote, Anton Chekhov personifies a bookcase, celebrating its long-standing commitment to upholding the ideals of goodness and justice through the books it holds. This reflects a deep respect for literature as a means of conveying moral principles and inspiring its readers towards virtuous behavior.
Themes
BooksLiteratureGoodnessJusticeValues
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on the importance of education, one might say this quote to highlight the value of books.
More from Anton Chekhov
All quotes βThere are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments , but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.
Anton ChekhovRead
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Anton ChekhovRead
To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.
Anton ChekhovRead
When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.
Anton ChekhovRead
Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?
Anton ChekhovRead
Similar quotes
If little else, the brain is an educational toy. Why it may be a frustrating play thing - one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them - it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled. [...] Alas! the brain is a toy that plays games of its own. Its very most favorite game is the one-thing-leads-to-another game.
Tom RobbinsRead
I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools. My main concern is that an over-emphasis on testing and league tables has led to a lack of time and freedom for a true, imaginative and humane engagement with literature.
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I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words.
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The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
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If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.
Galileo GalileiRead
I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry.
Robert GreeneRead