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
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.
In practice
In a speech on the importance of education, one might say this quote to highlight the value of books.
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.
There 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.
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
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.
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.
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?
There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.
We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.
The man who never reads lives only one.
The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.
there is plenty to be learned even from a bad teacher: what not to do, how not to be
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