Reason - aphorisms, sayings, quotes. Help me write an essay on the topic “Reason is an incomparably higher ability, but it is acquired only by victory over the passions.” based on the story "What to do?"

Reason and passions are two opposites that do not exist without each other, because one can give rise to the other. In some cases that require a reasonable decision, you need to drown out your emotions and passions, that is, feelings that interfere with making such a decision and lead to a reckless choice that is not suitable in a given situation. There are many examples in Russian literature illustrating this idea. In them literary heroes you have to master your feelings and do right choice so that actions are based only on a reasonable decision, and are not generated by passions that blind the mind. So in L. N. Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace,” in the episode telling about Prince Andrei’s farewell to the war, readers see the old Count Bolkonsky, who, it would seem, is stingy with words and cold; the farewell of son and father is restrained, but the reader in every movement and word of the count feels great love for his son, and sees only how old Bolkonsky, turning away from everyone, wipes away a tear. In this episode, the author showed how Count Nikolai Andreevich overcomes his feelings when saying goodbye to his son, so as not to show his weakness, because of which he could change his son’s mood for further service. The old count overcame his feelings and acted wisely, which was undoubtedly the right decision. The second example of the victory of reason over passions can be seen in V. G. Rasputin’s work “Farewell to Matera.” There comes a time in the lives of the characters Grandma Nastasya and Grandfather Yegor when they have to choose between moving to the city and staying in their native land, Matera. They choose to move. Their feelings did not allow them to leave Matera, the place where their whole life had passed, where they had “grown their roots.” Reason said that one way or another, this motherland will disappear under the water, disappear as if it never existed, and they will disappear with it. Having chosen to move, they suppressed strong feeling, stopping them, thereby acting as reason dictates. Another shining example We see manifestations of the highest ability of the mind in M.I. Sholokhov in the novel " Quiet Don"on the pages telling about when Grigory Melekhov saves Stepan Astakhov in battle, despite their enmity. Grigory understands that he and Stepan are on the same side of the opposing forces and the battle is not the time to clarify their personal relationship. Thus, the rescue of Stepan Gregory - his victory over his passions, which means the acquisition of reason. Reason is victory over feelings, which is the highest ability to understand one’s behavior, solve a problem without the interference of unnecessary passions.

Reason does not oppress anyone's heart. He never praises or slander out of greed.

Faith questions, reason discovers.

Reason is the gaze of the soul, with which it, by itself, without the mediation of the body, contemplates the true.

My reason allowed me to understand the powerlessness of reason.

Reason is given to man so that he can live wisely, and not just so that he can see that he is living unwisely.

Reason and feeling are two forces that equally need each other; they are dead and insignificant without the other.

The human mind is limited, but the human mind, that is, the mind of humanity, is unlimited.

Reason is a complex instinct that has not yet had time to form.

The victory of reason can only be the victory of the reasonable.

The human mind should not be given wings, but rather lead and weights, so that they restrain its every jump and flight.

Our minds are discerning rather than consistent, and embrace more than we can comprehend.

The mind cannot comprehend the needs of the heart.

The most equitably distributed mind is - no one complains that he was deprived.

The triumph of reason lies in living in peace with those who have no reason.

The Persian king drives the sea through the system, understanding the absurdity of the act as little as his enemies the Athenians, who wanted to cure the mind and consciousness with hemlock.

Where stupidity is a model, there reason is madness.

Reason is incomparably highest ability, but it is acquired only by victory over passions.

The sleep of reason gives birth to monsters.

A mind that is not organized by an idea is not yet the force that enters life creatively.

The human mind has three keys that open everything: a number, a letter, a note. Know, think, dream. That's all there is to it.

The mind is a burning glass, which, while ignited, itself remains cold.

A living person, devoid of reason, is worse than a dead person.

With all my heart, with all my will, I would like to raise my mind to the highest high peak and bow to him.

Genuine reason is always moral, always based on genuine human sensuality.

The greatest shortcoming of human beings is the inability to detach themselves from mental inventory. But the mind is not able to consider a person as energy. The mind deals with instruments that create energy. However, he never seriously thinks about the fact that we are more than tools. We are energy producing organisms. We are bubbles of energy.

What praises are not given to prudence! However, it is not able to protect us even from the most insignificant vicissitudes of fate.

Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.

Reason, without a doubt, belongs exclusively to man; intelligence means known beginnings judgments in which the first active causes of the universe seem to be imprinted and which thus agree all our conclusions with phenomena in nature, where contradictions cannot exist.

Our mind makes its way along a narrow path between the abysses that beckon and call it.

When the heart starts beating, the mind becomes silent.

Prudence enlightens, but passion blinds.

Whenever prudence says, “Don’t do this, it will be misinterpreted,” I always act contrary to it.

The final conclusion of reason is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things superior to it. He is weak if he does not come to admit it. Where necessary, you should doubt, where necessary, speak with confidence, where necessary, admit your powerlessness. Anyone who does not do this does not understand the power of the mind.

The dictates of reason are much more powerful than the orders of any ruler: disobedience to the latter makes a person unhappy, and disobedience to the former makes a fool.

Nothing contributes so much to the triumph of reason as the peace of those who serve it.

Reason is the ability to generalize and exchange generalizations.

A man's mind is stronger than his fists.

In an unreasonable age, reason set free is destructive for its owner.

If you want to subjugate everything to yourself, then subordinate yourself to reason.

Reasonable and moral always coincide.

Every creature has organs that indicate its place in the world. For humans, this organ is the mind.

If your mind does not show you your place in the world and your purpose, then know that it is not the bad structure of the world that is to blame for this, not your mind, but the false direction that you gave it.

A wise fool is better than a stupid sage.

A reasonable person adapts to the world, an unreasonable person adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends only on unreasonable people.

Reason gains value only when it serves love.

The will of fate is such that rationality is inherent in all creatures.

Chapter 265. Three states of mind according to Gogol.

N.V. Gogol speaks of three states of mind (Selected passages from correspondence with friends, “The Christian goes forward” in a letter to Sh......vu, M., “Russian Book”, 1992, “Spiritual Prose”) mind, reason and wisdom.
“MIND is not our highest ability. His position is no more than that of a police officer: he can only put in order and put in its place everything that we already have. He himself will not move forward until all the other abilities from which he grows smarter move in us... He is incomparably more dependent on states of mind: as soon as passion rages, he suddenly acts blindly and stupidly; If the soul is calm and no passion is boiling, he himself becomes clear and acts wisely. Reason is an incomparably higher ability, but it is acquired only by victory over passions. Only those people who did not neglect their inner education had it in themselves. But the mind does not give a person the full opportunity to strive forward. There is still a higher ability; its name is wisdom, and Christ alone can give it to us. It is not given to any of us at birth, it is not natural to any of us, but is a matter of the highest grace of heaven. Anyone who already has both mind and understanding can receive wisdom in no other way than by praying for it day and night, asking God both day and night for it, raising his soul to the level of dove-like kindness and removing everything within himself to the greatest possible purity, so that to accept this heavenly guest who is afraid of dwellings where the spiritual economy has not been put in order and there is no complete agreement in everything. If she enters the house, then it begins for a person heavenly life, and he comprehends all the wonderful sweetness of being a student. Everything becomes a teacher for him; the whole world is his teacher; the most insignificant of people can be a teacher for him. From the simplest advice he will extract the wisdom of advice; the stupidest object will turn to him with its wise side, and the whole universe will stand before him like one open book of learning.”
Quite accurately, Gogol was given the ability to divide the instrument of the human ability to think, the mind, into its three states. I agreed with Gogol almost completely in 1996, and now (2016-08-13) I will add that my, although partial, agreement was still conditioned by the state of my consciousness at that time (level of Faith). Now I will add what Gogol lacks and what makes significant adjustments to the understanding of the role of the mind in the cultivation of man in man. I will add to the mind, intelligence and wisdom that Gogol operates with, CONSCIOUSNESS, which, in principle, exists separately from the mind, and its role is so great that not knowing about its existence is like not knowing about the elephant in your china shop (in the Soul ), who is able to both break all the dishes, which often happens if CONSCIOUSNESS is a negative sign, and put them all in their places with the sensitive tip of the trunk, which can happen if CONSCIOUSNESS positive sign. Since there is no knowledge about consciousness, Gogol has to attribute all the functions of CONSCIOUSNESS to the Mind. In 1996, I also did not have a clear division of mind and CONSCIOUSNESS, just as there was no clear division of the ability to feel into feelings and passions. All these divisions do not exist at the level of Faith. It is thanks to the absence of clear dividing lines that the High Ones have misled and continue to mislead even the most intelligent people.
I repeat that it is imperative to separate, firstly, feeling from passion: up to 50% of the development of feeling, these are simply feelings, completely controllable, after 50%, these are passions that are not controllable. What is controlled or not controlled? The mind has the ability to fight and fights with feeling, since there is a demand from all institutions, including higher ones, to fight. The mind struggles with varying success until the moment when feelings reach a value of 50 in their development, turning into what is called passions. People also struggle with passions, since from above the requirement to fight is not removed, but here the struggle, if in general, becomes only an appearance of struggle, since passion is clearly stronger than that, the earlier the feeling was (partially) controlled, that is, stronger than the mind, which, on the verge of the feeling turning into passion, develops into reason and, accordingly, is born at the transitional boundary CONSCIOUSNESS of a given level (negative value).
I also divide CONSCIOUSNESS into three states. CONSCIOUSNESS born from the mind is consciousness of the first order. CONSCIOUSNESS born of the mind is consciousness of the second order. CONSCIOUSNESS born of wisdom is third-order consciousness. Real power in CONSCIOUSNESS, and not in the instruments of its birth - mind, intelligence or wisdom. CONSCIOUSNESS is an elephant that is born by a developed mind, one might say, on its own (mind) head, since Consciousness is not dependent on feelings (the mind, unlike CONSCIOUSNESS, is not just dependent, but acts in the interests of feelings, mainly, although, on the other hand hand, fights them).
The mind is like a clerk in a china shop, which belongs to the senses (the owner). The tools for the birth of CONSCIOUSNESS have their own power (the orderer has a certain independence), but this is the power given to the tools to fight (from the background) with feeling. At the very beginning, a person has no CONSCIOUSNESS in the Soul, except for the (abstract) consciousness from the base 0: it is born by the mind, which can give birth when it itself becomes an adult. A baby elephant in a china shop is born, I repeat, when the clerk gains a certain strength. Then (after birth) the baby elephant grows quite quickly, since its nature is such (elephant). The power of CONSCIOUSNESS becomes noticeable only at the level of the mind, and then only partially; its power is better noticed at the level of wisdom. In a state of wisdom, CONSCIOUSNESS has the power to pacify feelings and passions so much that they, like sleepy snakes, have almost no effect on human behavior. In the film “Hot Desert Sun,” the old people on the rubble have their hats blown off their heads by the shock wave of the explosion: blown off, they continue to sit calmly in their place. Such is the power of wise CONSCIOUSNESS that neither feelings nor passions have the opportunity to jump out of their place.
Gogol almost exactly says that at the first stage of the relationship between the mind and feeling, the mind has only the function of a policeman: it monitors feelings, sometimes telling them that, for example, it is not good to do this: it is possible to dream, but it is undesirable to do it. Gogol also correctly says that the decision to act depends on the mind, but a person acts not as the mind decided, but as the feelings need, since the owner china shop He can listen to the clerk, but only listen. This state of relationship between the mind and feelings corresponds to the pagan level of development, when it was necessary to teach a person to feel and feelings, accordingly, the will was given to prevail over the mind (only the subplane of the mind worked, Figure 51, 2-3). At the second stage of development of the relationship between mind-mind and feelings, Gogol talks about victory over passions, noting that only a few managed to achieve victory over passions. Let me clarify, at the second stage, a certain appearance of victory is only observed, since a person’s CONSCIOUSNESS at the level of the mind, through the constant struggle of the mind with feelings, increases its Strength and, thanks to this Strength, gains the ability to restrain feelings. However, deterrence is not victory. Airplanes on aircraft carriers are also restrained so that the engine accelerates properly and the plane immediately soars into the sky almost from a standstill. I will cite as an example again the same Father Sergius from Leo Tolstoy, who held back for a year as a monk, and then attacked his bare breasts with rage. Tolstoy, as far as passions in a person are concerned, understood this somewhat deeper than Gogol.
We do not know how Gogol and Tolstoy communicated with God, since they themselves do not say anything about it. Apparently, they had a minimum of specific communications. God communicates with people in such a way that usually no one can say anything about this communication. I am telling everything because the Higher Consciousness that guides me is not God, who led Gogol and Tolstoy. And the God of Gogol and Tolstoy is the old Master of existence, who created this world and kept people in it the way an old magician keeps his audience, not sharing his secrets. Therefore, one might say, it is quite natural that in Gogol, from all these showdowns between the mind and feelings, it is quite natural that a state of Mind called reason appears in the arena, when a person can only pray to the Lord to give him wisdom. God, meaning the old Master of existence, indeed, as Gogol claims, can give a person such a state of mind (WISDOM) when feelings or passions are not the masters of a person’s actions. And when God gives this state, a person can, observing himself, think how good it is that passions no longer control him, but all this will be in him from God, and not born of him. In the first book, I describe this state of mine, when I didn’t want anything at all in the south and I was delighted with this state, because all this was also accompanied by euphoria.
Artificially God can mold anything out of a person. But then it will not be a person, but a biorobot. For now, all people are in a state of biorobots, since in the old limits of existence under the old Master, no one, even such smart and reasonable people as Gogol and Tolstoy, were able to make themselves human. Alexander I is artificially given such a state of Soul that he leaves his reign and goes on a journey as a wandering monk. Who else could do this?! This is an exception to the rule that confirms the rule. Leo Tolstoy, also not without the help of God, through forgiveness, renounced the count's privileges. Theoretically, everything was so correct with Tolstoy that even the “Tolstoyism” movement appeared. However, later this word began to be used ironically to describe the image of a certain rapprochement between the upper class and common people. Let me remind you that Tolstoy, in accordance with the theory of simplification or listening to a voice from above, resisted the publication of his old works, but did not abandon them. Gogol completely abandoned all his works: he was ashamed of them when he saw this “trifle” on the shelves of his friends. He stopped writing, but he needed to do something. And he began to write the second volume " Dead souls”, believing that with his new spiritual vision for life he will achieve something exactly what God requires from man. However, nothing worked out for him. I understand why, but he did not understand and continued to torture what his consciousness had not yet reached. I repeat, it didn’t work out for him because there was no knowledge in his consciousness about the separation between feelings and passions and between the mind and CONSCIOUSNESS, which ultimately leads to prayer appeal to God, that is, to the refusal of self-birth.
The reason for Gogol’s failure in his work on the second volume of Dead Souls (after the turning point) is the mixing of two genres or, in other words, the mixing of two levels of understanding of reality. You can't write a work of art like they were " Dead Souls", through the means of spiritual prose. Leo Tolstoy writes “Confession” in a completely different language, just as Gogol writes his “Spiritual Prose”. I have my spiritual books, starting with “My Path to God”, this is a study of myself, and not of some invented hero. No matter how good Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is, it is a work of art, since the author collects his observations of the human personality in an invented hero who can be sculpted as the author wants: to add something for the sake of saying. Hoffmann’s “Little Zaches” seems to be a cast from the life of German society of that time, but the author resorts to the technique of increasing one and decreasing the other, which in work of art is allowed and welcomed, for a number of reasons (one of which is to avoid being sent to prison). Even cooler is the exaggeration in Swift’s work in Gulliver’s Travels, where a man finds himself in the land of Lilliputians and looks like a giant there.
Spiritual prose (for a writer) or a diary (for a person) is frank thoughts about everything around a person, in the light of exploring yourself, who you are, why you are, why you are. Within the old world, this research, due to the incomplete knowledge of the technology of human birth, thus turns into a mockery of this birth. In Tolstoyanism with its simplification, everything seems to be fine (theoretically), but this is only part of the path, which becomes a mockery of the path itself and the person who took up the tug, not knowing that this tug is pulled by a system of blocks reverse side. Tolstoy pulled and pulled for a very long time (1828-1910) - and pulled out God knows what. Gogol (1809-1852) at the age of forty, when according to our technology a person should enter the period of understanding the lessons, dies. He began his period of reflection in 1840, when he was thirty-one years old: it was as if he was quickly going through something that Tolstoy would later, on the contrary, drag on for a long time. He comprehended (1840-52) for twelve years, almost the same amount of time required by technology (Figure 36) to comprehend the lessons: it takes seven years plus seven for the maturity of the mind.
Quote from the Preface to the edition of Gogol’s “Spiritual Prose”, which came to me from Misha A. (p. 4), “Russian Book” 1992:
In the summer of 1840, he experienced an illness, but rather not a physical one, but a mental one. Experiencing severe attacks of “nervous disorder” and “painful melancholy” and not hoping for recovery, he even wrote a spiritual will. According to S.T. Aksakov, Gogol had “visions” about which he told N.P., who was caring for him at that time. Botkin (brother of the critic V.P. Botkin). Then came the “resurrection”, “miraculous healing”, and Gogol believed that his life was “necessary and would not be useless.” opened up to him new way. “From here,” writes S.T. Aksakov, - Gogol’s constant desire to improve himself begins spiritual person and predominance religious direction, which subsequently reached, in my opinion, such a high mood that is no longer compatible with the physical shell of a person.”
Incompatibility with the bodily shell is an accurate diagnosis of the state of the Soul, which with its consciousness has torn itself away from the earth, and the body still lives with its physical consciousness, focused on earthly life, tears the Soul between heaven and earth.
Gogol began writing spiritual prose when he already had the name of a luminary in literary world. “Sending the first notebook of the manuscript to Pletnev in St. Petersburg at the end of July 1846, Gogol demands: “All your affairs aside, and start printing this book entitled “Selected passages from correspondence with friends.” Gogol is so confident of success that he advises Pletnev to stockpile paper for the second edition. It is absolutely obvious to him that only this work of his makes sense and is head and shoulders above all his previous works. Something similar happened to me when I published my first spiritual book. It seemed that not only I suddenly began to understand everything about spiritually, but people, reading, will immediately understand that the meaning of life can only be in the spiritual path and everyone will unanimously accept this spiritual path realize.
However, not universal recognition awaited Gogol after the publication of this book. Arrows of criticism flew at him from all sides. Gogol, who soared to the pinnacle of success with his “ Dead souls" and "The Inspector General", is no longer able to calmly deal with criticism, which clearly does not understand what he is talking about in his new work. Gogol experiences criticism very painfully. The higher the peak taken, the more painful the human soul is from the arrows of criticism.
“P.A. Vyazemsky wrote to S.P. not without wit. Shevyrev in March 1847: “... our critics look at Gogol as a master would look at a serf, who in his house occupied the place of a storyteller and amusement maker and suddenly ran away from home and became a monk.”
“In the debate, the main trend quickly emerged - rejection of the book. She was unconditionally condemned not only by Westerners (Herzen, Granovsky, Botkin, Annenkov), but also by those close to Gogol - for example, the Aksakovs. The apotheosis was Belinsky’s article from Salzbrunn, in which the critic argued that Gogol had betrayed his talent and beliefs, that the book was written with the goal of becoming a mentor to the son of the heir to the throne; in the language of the book he saw the decline of talent and unambiguously hinted at Gogol’s madness.”
So this period of Gogol’s life and work remained for posterity the period of the “roof gone crazy” of the brilliant satirist. During Gogol's lifetime, the belief spread that Gogol was crazy and it persisted until last days writer's life. I.S. Turgenev, who visited Gogol with Shchepkin in October 1851, recalled that they “went to see him as if he were extraordinary, genius man, who had something in his head... All of Moscow was of this opinion.” “Once again the words of the Apostle Paul were confirmed: “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, because he considers them foolishness; and cannot understand, because this must be judged spiritually” (1 Cor. 2:14).
It was much easier for me in this regard, because I had almost no fame and none of the authorities of this world knew me. Only one of my literary acquaintances said that I had gone crazy, and immediately added that I was now like Nostradamus, or what? Others, except for the guide Chert Alexei M., thought the same, but did not say it directly. A century and a half has passed since the time of Gogol, and the nineties were a spiritual boom in Russia. Many people were going crazy, and for some people it was going in which direction, no one could say. Only the old earthly masters of the world knew for sure that it’s bad when you go crazy, and it’s better not to accept such writers who go crazy, just in case, into the Union. And it’s good that they didn’t accept me, because they would immediately begin to build an author who was not entirely reasonable, in their opinion, just as everyone who was not too lazy built Gogol. As a result, Gogol wrote to Aksakov S.T. in 1847 on this occasion: “Yes, the book defeated me, but it was the will of God.”
Gogol admits defeat from the height of his physical consciousness, which turned out to be too exalted to diminish. If he, say, had the wisdom to understand that the world's reaction to his book is a pattern, he would not consider the book's rejection a defeat. If I had the wisdom, as I said above, to accept everything that happens as learning, then I would consider rejection just another lesson.

There are many examples in Russian literature illustrating this idea. In them, literary heroes have to master their feelings and make the right choice so that actions are based only on a reasonable decision, and are not generated by passions that blind the mind.

So in L. N. Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace,” in the episode telling about Prince Andrei’s farewell to the war, readers see the old Count Bolkonsky, who, it would seem, is stingy with words and cold; the farewell of son and father is restrained, but the reader in every movement and word of the count feels great love for his son, and sees only how old Bolkonsky, turning away from everyone, wipes away a tear.

The old count overcame his feelings and acted wisely, which was undoubtedly the right decision.

The second example of the victory of reason over passions can be seen in V. G. Rasputin’s work “Farewell to Matera.” There comes a time in the lives of the characters Grandma Nastasya and Grandfather Yegor when they have to choose between moving to the city and staying in their native land, Matera. They choose to move.

Their feelings did not allow them to leave Matera, the place where their whole life had passed, where they had “grown their roots.” Reason said that one way or another, this native land would disappear under water, disappear, as if it had never existed, and they would disappear with it. By choosing to move, they suppressed that strong feeling stopping them, thereby acting as their reason dictated.

We see another striking example of the manifestation of the highest ability of the mind in M.

I. Sholokhov in the novel “Quiet Don” on the pages telling about when Grigory Melekhov saves Stepan Astakhov in battle, despite their enmity. Grigory understands that he and Stepan are on the same side of the opposing forces and the battle is not the time to clarify their personal relationships. Thus, the salvation of Stepan by Gregory is his victory over his passions, and therefore the acquisition of reason.

Reason is victory over feelings, which is the highest ability to understand one’s behavior and solve problems without the interference of unnecessary passions and emotions.

Updated: 2017-01-20

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So in the epic novel L.

N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, in the episode telling about Prince Andrei’s farewell to the war, readers see the old Count Bolkonsky, who, it would seem, is stingy with words and cold; the farewell of son and father is restrained, but the reader in every movement and word of the count feels great love for his son, and sees only how old Bolkonsky, turning away from everyone, wipes away a tear.

with his son, so as not to show his weakness, because of which he could change his son’s mood for further service. The old count overcame his feelings and acted wisely, which was undoubtedly the right decision.

Their feelings did not allow them to leave Matera, the place where their whole life had been spent, where they had “grown their roots.” Reason said that one way or another, this native land would disappear under water, disappear, as if it had never existed, and they would disappear with it. By choosing to move, they suppressed that strong feeling stopping them, thereby acting as their reason dictated.

We see another striking example of the manifestation of the highest ability of the mind in M.I. Sholokhov in the novel “Quiet Don” on the pages that tell the story of when Grigory Melekhov saves Stepan Astakhov in battle, despite their enmity. Grigory understands that he and Stepan are on the same side of the opposing forces and the battle is not the time to clarify their personal relationships. Thus, the salvation of Stepan by Gregory is his victory over his passions, and therefore the acquisition of reason.

Reason is victory over feelings, which is the highest ability to understand one’s behavior and solve problems without the interference of unnecessary passions and emotions.

Reason - aphorisms, sayings, quotes. Help me write an essay on the topic “Reason is an incomparably higher ability, but it is acquired only by victory over the passions.” based on the story "What to do?"

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