There is nothing more dangerous than man. “There is nothing more dangerous than a person who is alien to humanity, who is indifferent to the fate of his native country, to the fate of his neighbor, to everything except the fate of the altyn he has put into circulation.”

There is no more dangerous person than a person who is alien to humanity, who is indifferent to the fate of his native country, to the fate of his neighbor." (M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin)

Don't do evil - it will come back like a boomerang,
Don't spit in the well - you will drink the water,
Don't insult someone of lower rank
What if you have to ask for something?
Don't betray your friends, you can't replace them,
And don’t lose your loved ones - you won’t get them back,

Don't lie to yourself - you'll find out over time

That you are betraying yourself with this lie...

Each of us, I think, has asked this question: what is the measure of a person’s value as an individual? What qualities must a person have to confirm his title of “crown of creation”? What makes a person a HUMAN?

Difficult questions... I thought for a long time and decided to turn to the statements of the wise, those who walked their thorny path in search of answers to the questions posed and found them... The rubai of the Persian poet of the ancient East Omar Khayam, which I presented in epigraph to your thoughts... What thoughts can be seen in these verses? What does the poet draw our attention to? And everything, if you look at it, is very simple and understandable...

Do not do evil... All our actions and deeds are subject to a boomerang... Do not insult someone who is inferior... Do not betray friends... Do not lose loved ones... Do not lie... first of all, to yourself...

Please note that all thoughts contain a verb. Accidentally? Hardly... All actions, all our actions, expressed by a verb, speak ofWhat we are...

Do we know how to value friendship and what do we do to preserve it for many years? Are we capable of doing good to someone who hurts us? Do we know how not to offend someone who is smaller than us, who is better than us? Can we do everything to avoid losing our closest and dearest people? If we can give a positive answer to at least a few questions, we have a chance to be human. What if everything is much worse? What to do? Where to begin?

And here literature comes to the rescue - the greatest of arts, designed to remind a person that he is human... And for some reason, the first such work I would like to call the story of K. Paustovsky “Telegram”, which raises the eternal problem of “prodigal children” who left their native places in search of a better life, forgetting that everyone has not just a duty to their parents, but also a Testament, a commandment left by the Lord himself: “Honor your father and your mother”...

Something obviously began to happen to young people, to values, to priorities, if the author is forced to tell this old story once again... What does he want to remind us of? Protect from what? So that we don’t be like Nastya, the main character, who arranges the fate of other people, helping them in difficult times, including for the sake of pleasant words addressed to her, words about sensitivity, love for one’s neighbor, compassion, responsiveness...

At a time when her mother, abandoned and abandoned, old, almost blind, dies all alone, without waiting for her daughter...

And we sincerely feel sorry for Nastya, who did not have time to tell her mother the most important words in life: words of tenderness, gratitude, love...

“Don’t lose your loved ones,” reminds Omar Khayyam, “you won’t get them back.” This is scary... How easy it is sometimes to help your neighbor, but it’s also easy to forget about your father and mother, the most dear people on earth...

Maybe this is exactly what Saltykov-Shchedrin meant when he wrote that "there is nothing more dangerous than a person who is alien to humanity, who is indifferent... to the fate of his neighbor"? Having lost and wasted humanity, a person becomes dangerous, the writer asserts. And it is difficult to disagree with him... Society is dangerous, people who do not follow the golden rule are dangerous : “Treat people the way you would like people to treat you.”

To prove my thoughts, I will give another literary example - the story “The Fate of a Man.” A great work about how, having gone through all the circles of wartime hell, Andrei Sokolov, like millions of Russian people, who lost everything, still retained the ability to feel someone else’s misfortune as keenly as his own; he did not deprive the homeless Vanya of love, family happiness, tenderness, supported faith in people... in humanity...

But that’s not what I want to talk about: in this work there is an episode when a fellow Russian, in order to save his life, intends to hand over the commander to the Germans...

Finding himself in captivity and realizing that tomorrow the officers will be shot first, the platoon commander asks the traitor not to hand him over, and he laughed in response: "Don't ask me, I'll point you out anyway. Your own shirt is closer to your body." Hearing this conversation, for the first time in his life, Sokolov makes a terrible decision - to kill a person. : “Before that, I felt unwell after that, and I really wanted to wash my hands, as if I was not a person, but some kind of creeping reptile... For the first time in my life I killed, and then my own... But what kind of one is he? worse than a stranger, traitor."

How did it happen that a normal Soviet guy, who went to school like everyone else, lives in the joys and victories of the country, who left with his peers to defend his homeland, suddenly becomes a nonentity, a traitor, a “trembling creature”, ready to save his own skin at the cost of another person’s life? ??

It is difficult to answer immediately and unequivocally, but it is absolutely clear that everything human is alien to this person, nothing is sacred to him, if in order to save his life, he must necessarily subject another person to death... Living next to such people is scary.. and dangerous: you can expect anything from them...

Concluding my thoughts, I want to say once again that I absolutely agree with both Omar Khayyam and Saltykov-Shchedrin that only in observing the universal laws of life and norms, in following the biblical truths about the ability to show love for one’s neighbor, about respectful attitude in parents, about the presence of conscience, about the ability to remain human in situations where it would seem impossible to be so, about mercy, about sensitivity, about sacrifice and self-sacrifice - every person should know and remember this, because this is what The main mission of man on earth is to be human every moment and every second.... To be human, and not to seem...

(Shchedrin is a pseudonym)
(15/27.01.1826–28.04/10.05.1889)
Writer.

Born in the village of Spas-Ugol, Tver province, into an old noble family. Having received a good education at home, at the age of 10 he was accepted as a boarder at the Moscow Noble Institute, and in 1838 he was transferred to the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. The first stories “Contradictions” (1847) and “A Confused Affair” (1848) attracted the attention of the authorities with their acute social issues. The writer was exiled to Vyatka, where he worked as an adviser to the provincial government, which made it possible to often go on business trips and observe the bureaucratic world and peasant life.

In 1855 he returned to St. Petersburg and resumed literary work. In 1856–57 wrote “Provincial Sketches,” published on behalf of “court councilor N. Shchedrin,” who became known throughout reading Russia, which named him N.V.’s heir. Gogol. In 1856–58 was an official for special assignments in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1858–62 served as vice-governor in Ryazan, Tver, published “Innocent Stories”, “Satires in Prose”. In 1865–68 headed the State Chambers in Penza, Tula, Ryazan; observations of the life of these cities formed the basis of “Letters about the Province” (1869). In 1870 he wrote “The History of a City.” In the 1880s his satire culminated in its anger and grotesquery: Modern Idylls (1877); “Gentlemen Golovlevs” (1880); “Poshekhonsky Stories” (1883). In the last years of his life he created his masterpieces: “Fairy Tales” (1886); "Little Things in Life" (1887); “Poshekhon Antiquity” (1889). Died in St. Petersburg.

Aphorisms of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

• Trustworthiness is a mark, to acquire which you need to do some dirty tricks.
• Talkativeness conceals a lie, and lies, as we know, are the mother of all vices.
• Everywhere literature is valued not on the basis of its most vile examples, but on the basis of those of its figures who truly lead society forward.
• In all countries, railways are used for transportation, and in our case, they are also used for theft.
• The mayor should never act otherwise than through events.
• Every action of his is not an action, but an event.
• Enormous strength is the persistence of stupidity.
• If in Holy Rus' a person begins to be surprised, then he will be dumbfounded in surprise and so stand like a pillar until death.
• There are legions of tomboys who have “the state” on their tongues, but in their thoughts a pie with government filling.
• There are many ways to make human existence hateful, but perhaps the surest of all is to force a person to devote himself to the cult of self-preservation, to overcome all violence of the spirit in himself and to recognize his life as reduced to the level of aimless flickering for as long as the temptation of love of life lasts .
• Women constitute a true treasure for talented natures, who in the family love to play primarily the role of drones.
• The idea that warms patriotism is the idea of ​​the common good... The educational significance of patriotism is enormous: it is a school in which a person develops to perceive the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhumanity.
• The history of human societies is nothing more than the history of the disintegration of the masses under the influence of conscious thought.
• Literature is a shortened universe.
• Hypocrisy is a real damsel; but whether it really exists, even the devil himself can’t figure it out.
• Many people tend to confuse the concepts: “Fatherland” and “Your Excellency.”
• Be prepared not to do this or that, but to endure.
• No, apparently, there are corners in God’s world where all times are transitional.
• There is no more dangerous person than a person who is alien to humanity, who is indifferent to the fate of his native country, to the fate of his neighbor.
• Unlimited imagination creates an imaginary reality.
• Nothing stimulates mental activity to such an extent, forces one to discover new aspects of objects and phenomena, as conscious sympathies or antipathies.
• Nothing discourages a vice more than the consciousness that it has been guessed and that laughter has already been heard about it.
• Literature alone is exempt from the laws of decay; it alone does not recognize death.
• The monotony of views, especially if it has a tinge of forcedness, creates uniformity of needs and aspirations, and then gloominess and savagery.
• The Fatherland is that mysterious but living organism, the outlines of which you cannot clearly define for yourself, but whose touch you constantly feel, because you are connected to this organism by a continuous umbilical cord.
• The political wisdom of all centuries and peoples convinces that the immediate and immediate goals are at the same time the most desirable.
• With open discussion, not only errors, but even the most absurdities are easily eliminated through polemics.
• A friendly appearance, a favorable glance are the same measures of internal policy as execution.
• The Russian government must keep its people in a constant state of amazement.
• A Russian woman is always the same: both in the city and in the countryside, she is always looking for something, some lost pin, and she can’t keep silent about the fact that finding this pin can save the world.
• Even the most inveterate scoundrels understand that there is something in a person who is ashamed that sets him apart from the mass of slackers and fools.
• The system is very simple: never directly allow anything and never directly prohibit anything.
• The severity of Russian laws is mitigated by the optionality of their implementation.
• Shame is a person’s most precious ability to put his actions in accordance with the requirements of that highest conscience, which is bequeathed by the history of mankind.
• Talent in itself is priceless and acquires color only in application.
• Tradition is the accumulation of ignorance.
• We have no middle ground: either the snout or the hand!
• I wanted something: either a constitution, or stellate sturgeon with horseradish, or to rip someone off.
• A man without a mind soon becomes a playground of passions.
• Man is already structured in such a way that he seems to be reluctant and distrustful of happiness, so happiness must be imposed on him.
• What is better - leniency without indulgence, or severity coupled with indifference?
• It’s nothing that in Europe they give one fifty dollars for our ruble; it will be worse if they start punching us in the face for our ruble.

"THOUGHT AND CHARACTER" Excerpt from the book. (James Allen) .. The Book of Proverbs (23:7) says: “As he thinks in his heart, so is he.” This saying is true under any circumstances and under any conditions of human existence. . Our life is the result of our thoughts about it, and our character is formed solely under the influence of what thoughts wander through our heads. . Just as a plant emerges from a seed, so the reason for any of our actions lies in the hidden “seeds” of our thoughts and simply cannot be born without their participation. This applies equally to spontaneous and unintentional actions, as well as to those that we carry out intentionally, preparing for them in advance. An action is a “flower”, and joy or suffering are already “berries”, that is, we reap a sweet or bitter fruit depending on what we sow. We are what we imagine ourselves to be. If we have sinful thoughts on our minds, pain and disappointment await us, but if our thoughts are pure, then we will be joyful and happy. The formation of man is a natural process, not God's providence. The cause and effect of this process are unconditional and inevitable - both in the material world and in the world of our hidden thoughts. A noble and benevolent character is not a gift from above and not an accident, it is a natural result of the continuous efforts of the person himself, his correct thinking, a consequence of a long process of familiarization with Divine thought, while a quarrelsome and cruel character is formed in a person due to the constant indulgence of vicious inclinations and own egoism. ** ** ** We create and destroy ourselves. With our thoughts we can launch deadly weapons that can simply destroy us. In the same way, a mechanism is put into action that can create for us a heavenly palace, a stronghold of our strength and peace. Through the right choice and the power of our thoughts, we can approach Divine perfection, while a reprehensible or misdirected thought can reduce a person to the level of an animal. Between these two extremes lies the entire range of human character traits. We are both our own creators and teachers. Of all the beautiful truths that are revealed to us over the years, none brings so much joy and is not so amazingly reassuring and trustworthy as the absolute truth - that we ourselves are the masters of our thoughts, the creators of our character and circumstances, our environment and our own fate. Man is a powerful and intelligent creature. We are able to experience and give love, we are subject to our own thoughts, and in our hands is the key to any situations in which we find ourselves. We are capable of transforming ourselves, reviving ourselves and becoming whatever we want. Even in moments of greatest mental weakness or lack of restraint, we are still masters of the situation, although at these moments not everything works out for us the way we would like. But when we begin to reflect on the current situation and try hard to find an explanation for why this is happening to us, we gain wisdom. We become able to apply our energy properly, and also to organize our thoughts and direct them towards finding fruitful solutions. This is what a wise master does, and we can become one if we are able to discover the laws of controlling our thoughts, using introspection and existing life experience. “What are we and what are we?” We can find the answer to this question only by turning to our soul. And if we are not lazy and diligently search for the treasures hidden within us, we will certainly be rewarded. Only in this way can we become the creators of our character and the masters of our lives and destiny. If we control and direct our thoughts, tracking their impact on ourselves and on other people, on the course of our lives and on circumstances, connecting cause and effect, carefully analyzing and using any experience from everyday life, even the most insignificant in our opinion, then the knowledge we gain about ourselves will give us understanding, wisdom and power. The road to the temple of knowledge will open to us only if we constantly and persistently move in this direction.

Indifference is a negative quality of a person’s character. According to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, it makes a person dangerous to society, since he treats with indifference both the fate of his native country and the fate of the people around him.

Indifference does not allow a person to develop and become spiritually richer, and prevents the disclosure of his positive personal qualities.

Let us recall the famous novel by A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”. The main character, an intelligent, educated person, cannot cope with the apathy that has gripped him. Everything that surrounds him seems boring and uninteresting to him. He cannot appreciate the people with whom his fate encounters them. That is why Onegin so harshly reprimands Tatyana, who confessed her love to him. He does not try to get closer to Vladimir Lensky, who could become his true friend. He has aptitude for science, but he does not want to develop it. The hero places false life values ​​above true ones, since he does not realize their real value. Refuses Tatyana's true love, kills for fear of being branded a coward, Vladimir Lensky.

Aimless existence, indifference to the fate of the people around him leads the hero to loneliness.

Indifference often becomes the basis of many misdeeds and crimes of a person who puts the satisfaction of his desires and needs first. In the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky we meet a similar hero. Rodion Raskolnikov comes up with an unusual theory and decides to test it by committing murder. His plan succeeds, but the theory is not confirmed. Because of his own vanity and selfishness, Raskolnikov becomes a dangerous person for society.

Indifference can also lead a person to betrayal. After all, if he treats others with indifference, then he will not care about the fate of his country. In the story by V.G. Rasputin “Live and Remember” we are talking about Andrei Guskov, who deserts from the army during the war. He returns to his native village, to his wife Nastya, and thereby exposes her to a mortal threat. She soon realizes that she is expecting a child, but Guskov is not going to go out to people. He only cares about preserving his own life. After some time, fellow villagers begin to suspect the heroine of helping her deserter husband, and begin to follow her. In order not to give away her loved one, Nastya drowns herself in the Hangar. In this work, Rasputin wanted to show that indifference to one’s own country and loved ones leads to the destruction of a person’s personality and breaks his moral guidelines.

Thus, indifference always negatively affects a person and interferes with his harmonious existence and spiritual development.

Updated: 2017-12-16

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Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

We have no middle ground: either the snout or the hand.

I wanted something: either a constitution, or stellate sturgeon with horseradish, or to rip someone off.

Even opposition is considered harmless if it does not harm.

No, apparently, there are corners in God’s world where all times are transitional.

The system is very simple: never directly allow anything and never directly prohibit anything.

There is nothing more dangerous than a person who is alien to humanity, who is indifferent to the fate of his native country, to the fate of his neighbor, to everything except the fate of the altyn he has put into circulation.

Man is designed in such a way that he seems to be reluctant and distrustful of happiness, so happiness must be imposed on him.

A man without a mind soon becomes a playground of passions.

There is no sweeter human soul in the world.

Medical science popularizes diseases and makes them accessible to the public.

Implement education with moderation, avoiding bloodshed whenever possible.

Literature removed from the laws of friction. She alone does not recognize death.

Ancient wisdom bequeathed so many aphorisms that stone by stone they formed an entire indestructible wall.

A revolution broke out in France, and it became clear to everyone that “enlightenment” is useful only when it is of an unenlightened nature.

Everywhere literature is valued not on the basis of its most vile examples, but on the basis of those of its figures who truly lead society forward.

The guy is everywhere, you just have to look for him.

In all countries, railways are used for transportation, and in our case, they are also used for theft.

There are all kinds of creditors in the world: both reasonable and unreasonable. A reasonable creditor helps the debtor get out of difficult circumstances and receives his debt as a reward for his reasonableness. An unreasonable creditor puts the debtor in prison or continuously flogs him and receives nothing in reward.

The purpose of ordinary people is to unquestioningly and with all readiness carry out the instructions of their superiors! If these instructions are classical, then the execution must be classical, and if the instructions are real, then the execution must be real. That's all.

Be prepared not to do this or that, but to endure.

When meeting with superior persons, one is allowed to express polite amazement and an undoubted willingness to endure; when meeting with equals - hospitality and a desire to do a favor; when meeting with inferiors - condescension, but without concessions.

In order to pacify wretched people, you need to have a much greater reserve of courage than in order to shoot at people who do not have flaws.

What is better - leniency without indulgence, or severity coupled with indifference?

Shame is a person’s most precious ability to put his actions in accordance with the requirements of that highest conscience, which is bequeathed by the history of mankind.

Every ugliness has its decency.

Enormous strength is the persistence of stupidity.

Unlimited imagination creates an imaginary reality.

Talent in itself is priceless and acquires color only in application.

Talkativeness conceals a lie, and lies, as we know, are the mother of all vices.

With an open discussion, not only mistakes, but even the most absurdities are easily eliminated.

Trustworthiness is a mark, to acquire which you need to do some dirty tricks.

Nurture the ideals of the future; for these are a kind of sun rays, without the life-giving effect of which the globe would turn to stone.

I love Russia to the point of heartache and I can’t even imagine myself anywhere other than Russia.

The severity of Russian laws is mitigated by the optionality of their implementation.

The worst laws are in Russia, but this shortcoming is compensated by the fact that no one implements them.

But for Russia, in my opinion, an unlimited monarchy is more useful. What is an unlimited monarchy? - I ask you. This is the same republic, but brought to its simplest and, so to speak, clearest expression. This is a republic embodied in one person. And therefore, no government in the world is able to produce so much good... They say that in our country, thanks to the lack of publicity, bribery has become deeply rooted. But I ask you: where is it not? And where, in essence, can it be as easily eliminated as with us? Just remember this: everywhere a court is required for bribe-takers, but we only have the internal conviction of the authorities so that a harmful person will forever be deprived of the opportunity to cause harm.

The Russian government must keep its people in a constant state of amazement.

Although the Russian State has an abundance of laws, all of them scattered on various matters, and it is even very hopeful that most of them burned down in former fires.

To transform Russia, it was necessary for the scoundrels to be visible, so that they would not do shit in secret, but would do it if they had enough courage, in front of the entire public.

Everywhere except your fatherland, you are a stranger.

If in Holy Rus' a person begins to be surprised, then he will be dumbfounded in surprise, and so will stand like a pillar until death.

There are legions of tomboys who have “the state” on their tongues, but in their thoughts a pie with government filling.

The Russians have lied so much in just five years that absolutely nothing can be understood in this general Khlestakovism. In public places there is no end to liberals of all stripes.

Many people tend to confuse two concepts: “Fatherland” and “Your Excellency.”

It has always seemed to me that our fatherland needs not so much abundance as efficient police officers.

We are not supposed to have good thoughts, because we haven’t come out yet. Even if we had good, serious thoughts, who would let us publish them?

... The words “slowly and little by little” should be written on the banner of truly reasonable Russian progress.

If we are currently aware that the desire to rule over our neighbors is a sign of mental and moral rudeness, then it seems that this consciousness came to us through only theoretical means, and our background is unlikely to have moved far from this rudeness. Every rumor mocks the urges of authority, but everyone keeps the following speech to himself: but if only they had let me in, what a racket I would have set!

There are a great many people in Rus' who, apparently, have abandoned any attempt to think and who, however, cannot be denied the title of thinking people. These are precisely those mystics whom the art of life condemned in advance to develop theses thrown from the outside, theses, so to speak, appearing in the arena fully armed with indisputable truth. They do not analyze these theses, do not delve into their essence, and do not know how to squeeze out of them all the logical consequences that they are capable of giving. These are undoubtedly smart people, but they are smart, so to speak, at the expense of others and they demonstrate the power of their thinking abilities only on things that have not the slightest connection to them personally.

It’s nothing that in Europe they give one fifty dollars for our ruble; it will be worse if they start punching us in the face for our ruble.

We will use the expression “ruble” in vain, since it costs half a ruble, but if the authorities find this correct, then their desire must be fulfilled unquestioningly.

... Reform ideas are happily combined with the smell of fusel and with that favorable attitude towards cheating, which proves that cheating is a force and that this force must be taken into account.

But, one wonders, is it possible to achieve our ideal of life in such an environment where not only we, but everyone else has the right to declare their desire to live? .. to live where everyone else has the right, like me, to live - I do not Can! I can’t, sir, I can stand it when I see a boor walking past me and wandering around!

And then there were people who suspected that such an impetuous transition from selfless cannibalism to no less selfless liberalism did not seem entirely natural.

A Russian woman is always the same: both in the city and in the countryside, she is always looking for something, some lost pin, and she can’t keep silent about the fact that finding this pin can save the world.

... I can’t imagine that any issue would not have a proper boss...

The only difference is that in Rome wickedness shone, and in ours it was piety, Rome was infected by violence, and us by meekness, in Rome the vile mob was raging, and here we were the bosses.

What is a state? Some confuse it with the fatherland, others with the law, others with the treasury, and still others - the vast majority - with the authorities.

But in essence, what is St. Petersburg? - the same son of Moscow, with the only peculiarity that it has the shape of a window to Europe, cut out with censorship scissors.

... If you see that a superior person has committed a fine, then keep in mind that he always has an answer: I, in my position, carried out experiments! And everything will be forgiven him, because he forgave himself for everything a long time ago. But he will never forgive you for causing him to doubt or make a mistake in front of his superiors.

Nowadays people are so weak that even at the sight of a hundred-ruble credit card they lose the thread of their actions - what will happen when they see... a whole million in the fog!

It’s somehow not in the nature of a Russian person to live a century without offending anyone. It is assumed that if you don’t offend anyone, it means that you are a weak, worthless piece of trash that anyone can offend.

The sycophants are a special breed that has appeared, whose banner says: lie and be free from limits.

No useful enterprise is unthinkable if it is not, from time to time, refreshed by a dinner with oysters... Even an archaeologist, defending an essay on “Yaroslavl the Silver,” thinks: now we’ll drink from the very urn in which Ovid’s ashes were kept!