"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

Experience

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on experience by Anton Chekhov resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in experience is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer. Widely considered one of the greatest writers of all time, his career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

More quotes by Anton Chekhov  ’
Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Anton Chekhov

"When you're thirsty and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean that's faith when you start to drink and finish only a glass or two that's science."

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"The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected."

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More about Experience

"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared."

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"We would like to get to a point in our society where people really are colorblind and this message would not have to be told anymore. Unfortunately, we're not there yet."

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold."

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