The secret for Life

"Man's true vocation is the life of the spirit, the constant search for truth, for the meaning of life."- Anton Chekhov, The House with the Mezzanine, pg. 15

Big government and big corporations serve to enslave

"'To my mind, with things as they are, clinics, schools,  libraries,  dispensaries only serve to enslave people. The peasants are weighed down by a great chain and instead of breaking this chain you're only adding new links - that's what I think.'" - Anton Chekhov, The House with Mezzanine, pg. 13

Love based on Kindred Spirit

"Now I had the chance to meet Luganovich's wife, Anna Alekseyevna. She was still very young then, not more than twenty-two, and her first child had been born six months before. It's all finished now and it's hard for me to say exactly what it was I found so unusual about her, what attracted me so much,but at the time, over dinner, it was all so clear, without a shadow of doubt: here was a young, beautiful, kind, intelligent, enchanting woman, unlike any I'd met before. Immediately I sensed that she was a kindred spirit, someone I knew already, and that her face, with its warm clever eyes, was just like one I had seen before when I was a little boy, in an album lying on my mother's chest of drawers." -Anton Chekhov, About Love, pg. 88

On Suicide

"Sasha. What can you say? That you're an honest man? That's hardly a secret! You'd better tell me frankly whether you know what you're doing or not. You come in here with honest man written all over you, terribly insult him and nearly kill me. Before that you've dogged his footsteps and made his life a misery, quite convinced you were doing your duty as an honest man. You've meddled in his private life, made his name dirt and set yourself up to judge him. You took every chance to bombard me and all his friends with anonymous letters - thinking all the time what a very honest man you were. In the name of honesty you, a doctor, didn't spare even his sick wife, you pestered her with your suspicions. There's no outrageous, rotten, cruel trick you couldn't play while still thinking yourself an unusually honest and progressive man.

Ivanov [Laughing]. This isn't a wedding, it's a public debate. Loud cheers!

Sasha [to LVOV]. Now think for a moment. Do you know what you're doing or don't you? Stupid, callous people. [Takes IVANOV by the hand.] Come away, Nicholas. Come on, Father!

Ivanov. What do yo mean, come on? I'll put an end to all this here and now. I feel like a young man again, it's my old self that's speaking. [Takes out his revolver.]

Sasha [Shrieks]. I know what he wants to do. Nicholas, for God's sake!

Ivanov. I've rolled downhill long enough, it's time to call a halt. I've outstayed my welcome. Go away. Thank you, Sasha.

Sasha [Shouts]. Nicholas, for God's sake! Stop him!

Ivanov. Leave me alone! [Runs to one side and shoots himself.]

Curtain"

- Anton Chekhov, Ivanov, Pg. 62 - 63

Would rather be free than a slave

"Lopakhin. I put nearly three thousand acres down to poppy in the spring and made a clewr forty thousand roubles. And when my poppues were in flower, that was a sight to see. What I'm trying to say is, I've made forty thousand and I'd like to lend it you because I can afford to. So why turn it down? I'm a peasant, I put it to you straight.

 Trofimov. Your father was a peasant and mine worked in a chemist's shop, all of which proves precisely nothing. [Lopakhin takes out his wallet.] Oh, put it away, for heaven's sake. If you offered me two hundred thousand I still wouldn't take it. I'm a free man. And all the things that mean such a lot to you all, whether you're rich or poor - why, they have no more power over me than a but of thistledown floating on the breeze. I can get on without you, I can pass you by. I'm strong and proud. Mankind is marching towards a higher truth, towards the greatest possible happiness on earth, and I'm in the vanguard." - Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, in the Five Plays, pg. 286 I take this to mean that nothing is worth the price of freedom.

Removing Those Things That Hold Us Ensnaired

"Trofimov. ... To rid ourselves of the pettiness and the illusions which stop us being free and happy, that's the whole meaning and purpose of our lives...." - Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Act Two, pg. 269

Kind of reminds me of Plato's Cave analogy from The Republic. But in America we certainly have a lot of illusions that are thrown our way to keep us blinded from the fact that we are not free like we think we are.

On Living, and Others

"Nina. What are you writing?
Trigorin. Nothing, just a note. An idea for a plot. [Putting his book away.] A plot for a short story. A young girl like you has lived all her life by a lake. Like a seagull, she loves the lake, and she's happy and free like a seagull. But a man happens to come along and wrecks her life for want of anything better to do. As happened to this seagull." - Anton Chekhov, The Seagull, Act 2, pg. 91

On the toils of life

"Ivanov. That's how things are, Sasha. I used to work hard and think hard, I never got tired. Now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired, body and soul. I feel so conscience-stricken all the time. I feel terribly guilty, but just where I went wrong I can't see. Now there's my wife's illness, my money troubles, this non-stop back-biting, gossip and idle chit-chat -- and that ass Borkin. I'm sick and tired of my home, and living there's sheer hell. Frankly, Sasha, I can't even stand having my loving wife about. You're an old friend and won't be annoyed if I speak my mind. I came here to enjoy myself, but I'm bored here too, and feel like going back. Excuse me, I'll just slip away." - Anton Chekhov, Ivanov, Scene 6, pg. 29