Quotes

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.

From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

“The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence."

“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress."

“Living characters! Life must be represented not as it is, but as it ought to be; as it appears in dreams.”

“If I had listened to the critics I'd have died drunk in the gutter.”

“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”

“I understand that in our work - doesn't matter whether it's acting or writing ."

“He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.”

“He dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”

“Anyone who says that the artist's field is all answers and no questions has neither.”

"After a cigar or a glass of vodka you are no longer Peter Sorin, but Peter Sorin plus somebody else."

 “We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”

 “The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.”

“I am for her an indispensable, integral part of her boudoir.”

“I am a zoologist or a sociologist, which is the same thing;”

“How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life!”

“How does Chekhov’s artistic “programme” comment on the message of The Duel, and vice versa? I should like to be a free artist and nothing more, and I regret that God has not given me the power to be one. I hate lying and violence in all their forms. . . . Pharisaism, stupidity and despotism reign not in merchants’ houses and prisons alone. I see them in science, in literature, in the younger generation. . . . That is why I have no preference either for gendarmes, or for butchers, or for scientists, or for writers, or for the younger generation. I regard trade-marks and labels as a superstition. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom— freedom from violence and lying, whatever forms they may take. This is the programme I would follow if I were a great artist.*”