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
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of appreciating difficult times and anticipating better days ahead.
Chekhov's quote invites us to recognize and embrace the cycles of life, acknowledging that just as trees endure barren seasons, we too will face challenges. However, it also encourages us to look forward with hope to the rewards that will eventually come, symbolized by the fruit that follows the barrenness. This perspective helps cultivate patience and resilience during tough times.
Themes
AppreciationPatienceHopeLife CyclesPerseverance
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about resilience during economic hardships.
More from Anton Chekhov
All quotes →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.
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
I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see you again.
James TaylorRead
Nevertheless, no matter how much they killed themselves with work, no matter how much money they eked out, and no matter how many schemes they thought of, their guardian angels were asleep with fatigue while they put in coins and took them out trying to get just enough to live with.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
Life is like cooking: before choosing what you love, try everything... ♥
Paulo CoelhoRead
The only thing he could do to stay alive was not to allow himself the anguish of that memory. He erased it from his mind, although from time to time in the years that were left to him he would feel it revive, with no warning and for no reason, like the sudden pang of an old scar.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.
Harper LeeRead
Tears are a river that takes you somewhere…Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better.
Clarissa Pinkola EstesRead