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
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.
In practice
In a speech about resilience during economic hardships.
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?
What is poor? We had food. We dressed well. We didn't have a lot, but what we had fit, and it was always neat.
You're getting well,' Samuel said. 'Some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around.
Life should be lived to the point of tears
The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.
Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.
Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.
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