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"Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture."
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"To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!I dare damnation."

"It is probable that the most inhuman monsters, even the Himmlers and the Mengeles, convince themselves that they are engaged in noble and courageous acts."

"We discover part of our true self only by conspicuous inspection of the depths of our conscience."

"Conscience is not white, black or brown. Conscience is human. It is beyond race " it is beyond religion " it is beyond all sectarianism."

"Self-serving biases and self-centered agendas are cotton jammed in the ears of our conscience. Even if truth shouts, we can't hear it."

"I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity."

"When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it."

"Every day the choice is presented to us, in a thousand different ways, to live up to the spirit which is in us or to deny it. Whenever we talk about right and wrong we are turning the light of scrutiny upon our neighbors instead of upon ourselves. We judge in order not to be judged. We uphold the law, because it is easier than to defy it. We are all lawbreakers, all criminals, all murderers, at heart. It is not our business to get after the murderers, but to get after the murderer which exists in each and every one of us. And I mean by murder the supreme kind which consists in murdering the spirit."

"Good...if you've done things you aren't proud of. It means you have a conscience."

"Lives are changed by a moment's listening to conscience, by a single and quiet inclination of the mind."
Explore more quotes by Anton Chekhov

"No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing."

"LUBOV. I'm quite sure there wasn't anything at all funny. You oughtn't to go and see plays, you ought to go and look at yourself. What a grey life you lead, what a lot you talk unnecessarily."

"Lebedev: ...There'll be a scandal, the tongues of the whole district will buzz with gossip, but it's better to go through a scandal, isn't it, than to destroy yourself for your whole life."

"Anna Petrovna: Do you know what, Kolya? Try and sing, laugh, get angry, as you once did... You stay in, we'll laugh and drink fruit liqueur and we'll drive away your depression in a flash. I'll sing if you like. Or else let's go and sit in the dark in your study as we used to, and you'll tell me about your depression... You have such suffering eyes. I'll look into them and cry, and we'll both feel better."

"Lebedev: A time has come of sorrow and sadness for you. Man, my dear friend, is like a samovar. It doesn't always stand on a shelf in the chill but sometimes they put hot coals in it and it goes psh... psh! This comparison is worthless but you won't think up a cleverer one."

"Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too."

"Country life has its advantages,' he used to say. 'You sit on the veranda drinking tea and your ducklings swim on the pond, and everything smells good. . . and there are gooseberries."
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