Uncle Vanya Quotes…
Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898.
The play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle.
Over the years, Uncle Vanya has been adapted for film several times.
Uncle Vanya Quotes
Men may forget, but God will remember.
The geese all squawk, and then they stop.
You must trust people, or life becomes impossible.
The world will end not because of war, or disasters, but because of hate.
I am of the opinion that eccentricity is the normal state of human affairs.
“What must human beings be, to destroy what they can never create?”
Uncle Vanya Quotes
Uncle Vanya
“..when one has no real life, one lives by mirages. It’s still better than nothing.”
“There is no greater sorrow than to know another’s secret when you cannot help them.”
“When a woman is plain, people say, ‘What beautiful eyes you have, beautiful hair.”
Anyone who betrays a wife or husband could easily be unreliable enough to betray his country as well.
I’ve never been in love. I’ve dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.
“My life has been a failure. I am clever and brave and strong. If I’d had a normal life I might have been a Schopenhauer or a Dostoevsky.I am losing my head!”
“One hundred years from now, the people who come after us, for whom our lives are showing the way–will they think of us kindly? Will they remember us with a kind word? I wish to God I could think so.”
“Why cannot you look calmly at a woman unless she is yours? Because, the doctor was right, you are all possessed by a devil of destruction; you have no mercy on the woods or the birds or on women or on one another.”
“He is a man of genius. Do you know what that means? It means he is brave, profound, and of clear insight. He plants a tree and his mind travels a thousand years into the future, and he sees visions of the happiness of the human race. People like him are rare and should be loved.”
“Who but a stupid barbarian could burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make? Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may increase that which has been given him, but until now he has not created, but demolished. The forests are disappearing, the rivers are running dry, the game is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the earth becomes poorer and uglier every day.”
“This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people’s ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don’t want to know–which means that for twenty-five years he’s been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!”
Uncle Vanya Quotes
Astrov (to Sonya): You know, when you walk through a forest on a dark night and you see a small light gleaming in the distance, you don’t notice your tiredness, nor the darkness, nor the prickly branches lashing you in the face… Fate batters me continuously, at times I suffer unbearably — but there’s no small light in the distance. I’m not expecting anything for myself any longer, I don’t love human beings… I have cared for anyone for years… The peasants are all too much alike, undeveloped, living in squalor. As for the educated people — it’s hard to get on with them. They tire me so.
“SONIA: What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile—and—we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice] We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar] We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [She wipes away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! [Weeping] You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. Uncle Vanya Quotes
