Mona

“avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“When a person expends the least possible amount of energy on a certain act, that is grace.”
― Anton Chekhov, Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with Biographical Sketch

“Don't concern yourself about anybody. Just do what you think is right.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“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.*”
― Anton Chekhov, The Duel