Dmitry Likhachev. “Little things of behavior” Notes and observations: from notebooks of different years

Composition

Each person, in one way or another, contains a model of behavior determined by some factors. Of course, for some it may coincide, but for others, without realizing it, they create their own, different from everyone else. However, being in society, we all must be subordinated to such categories as “decency”, “dignity”, “compliance” - they are the main judges of each of us. What determines the “correct” behavior of a person? Does content determine form or does our content depend on form? These questions guide D.S.’s reasoning. Likhachev in the text given to me.

The relevance of the problem under consideration, according to the writer, is determined by the fact that at any period of our history a person was characterized by his behavior, however, the author’s reasoning rests on the idea of what it can depend on and what it can influence. D.S. Likhachev, answering the questions he himself posed, argues in favor of the thesis “the content depends on the form,” saying that, at least in our society, it is customary not to overload others with your inner experiences, “to maintain dignity in grief,” and opportunities to be friendly to everyone. Next, the writer says that the content determines the form, giving as an example the idea that a person with any internal shortcomings, such as stuttering, may not have them on the outside if he is confident in himself. By focusing our attention on such examples, the author leads us to the idea that a person’s behavior depends on both his internal and external characteristics.

D.S. Likhachev is convinced that a self-respecting person must approach his actions with dignity. Its content should be moderately modest, moderately simple and condescending to one’s own shortcomings. On the outside, each of us should not deliberately try to make others laugh, because “not being funny is not only the ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.” To observe moderation in everything, not to be an upstart and not to lose self-confidence - this is a worthy form for each of us. The author believes that in the correct behavior of a person, his external characteristics will depend on the internal ones to the same extent that the content will depend on the form.

Of course, one cannot but admit that the author is right. Indeed, a person’s modesty and his inner harmony with himself ultimately create the image of a harmonious, self-confident person. At the same time, it’s stupid to be an upstart in everything, just as it’s stupid to be afraid to show yourself once again, to hide your advantages, or to deliberately try to throw them at every passerby, to be a gray mouse or a peacock in the office. It is always worth remembering the words of W. Shakespeare: “Silence is not at all a sign of soullessness. Only that which is empty from within rattles.”

In the image of Grushnitsky, the hero of the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”, the reader is repulsed by the pompous importance of the character from the very beginning of his acquaintance. From the first touches of Grushnitsky’s behavior and manner of communication, it becomes clear that he is a slippery and insecure man, trying to attract attention to himself, sometimes by pretentiousness of his image, sometimes by pressure on pity. In desperate attempts to woo Mary, he confesses his seemingly serious feelings to her, but, having received a refusal, he immediately begins to speak badly about the girl. Throughout the novel, the hero’s attempts to portray dignity and valor seem ridiculous. In the scene describing his duel with Pechorin, Grushnitsky fully reveals his cowardice, envy and self-doubt. It seems to me that it was the image artificially created by the hero that destroyed his good beginning in him. In other words, Grushnitsky’s form came into conflict with its content, and the content, in turn, did not determine the form, but tried to artificially create it, which, as a result, looked ridiculous.

A completely different example is the hero of the story A.S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter". From childhood, Pyotr Grinev was brought up in strictness: his father was a respected and demanding nobleman, and his mother, being a modest woman, occasionally bestowed maternal tenderness and affection on her son. And therefore, having matured, Peter intuitively understood how to behave correctly in society and how dear his honor and dignity should be to a man. The content of the hero determined his form: Peter was moderately modest and, unlike many nobles, was close to ordinary people: he voluntarily gives his hare sheepskin coat to a simple traveler, thereby thanking him for his help. In addition, the content of the hero depended on the form of Peter’s behavior: having tender feelings for the captain’s daughter, he does not show any persistence, like Shvabrin, but appreciates and respects Maria, only showing her his intentions in hints.

In conclusion, I would like to once again note the importance of modesty in the internal and external components of a person in the words of J. La Bruyère: “Modesty is as necessary for virtues as the figures in a picture need a background: it gives them strength and relief.”

Before you is the book “Letters about the good and the beautiful” by one of the outstanding scientists of our time, chairman of the Soviet Culture Foundation, academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. These “letters” are not addressed to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who still have to learn life and walk its difficult paths.
The fact that the author of the letters, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, is a man whose name is known on all continents, an outstanding expert on domestic and world culture, elected an honorary member of many foreign academies, and who holds other honorary titles from major scientific institutions, makes this book especially valuable.
After all, only an authoritative person can give advice. Otherwise, such advice will not be heeded.
And the advice that you can get from reading this book concerns almost all aspects of life.
This is a collection of wisdom, this is the speech of a benevolent Teacher, whose pedagogical tact and ability to speak with students is one of his main talents.
The book was first published by our publishing house in 1985 and has already become a bibliographic rarity - this is evidenced by the numerous letters we receive from readers.
This book is being translated in different countries and into many languages.
This is what D. S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:
“In my deep conviction, goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. United - in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and the same for all peoples.
Lies are evil for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and selflessness are always good.
In my book “Letters about the Good and the Beautiful,” intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and only path for a person. It is tested, it is faithful, it is useful - both to the individual and to society as a whole.
In my letters, I do not try to explain what goodness is and why a good person is internally beautiful, lives in harmony with himself, with society and with nature. There can be many explanations, definitions and approaches. I strive for something else - for specific examples, based on the properties of general human nature.
I do not subordinate the concept of goodness and the accompanying concept of human beauty to any worldview. My examples are not ideological, because I want to explain them to children even before they begin to subordinate themselves to any specific ideological principles.
Children love traditions very much, they are proud of their home, their family, as well as their village. But they readily understand not only their own, but also other people’s traditions, other people’s worldviews, and they grasp what all people have in common.
I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least part of what he can agree with.
Harmony between people, different nations, is the most precious thing and now the most necessary for humanity.”

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

Letter one
BIG IN SMALL

In the material world you cannot fit the big into the small. In the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit into the small, but if you try to fit the small into the big, then the big will simply cease to exist.
If a person has a great goal, then it should manifest itself in everything - in the most seemingly insignificant. You must be honest in the unnoticed and accidental: only then will you be honest in fulfilling your great duty. A great goal embraces the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved through bad means.
The saying “the end justifies the means” is destructive and immoral. Dostoevsky showed this well in Crime and Punishment. The main character of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, thought that by killing the disgusting old moneylender, he would get money with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but he suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealistic, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. You cannot strive for a high goal with low means. You must be equally honest in both big and small things.
The general rule: to preserve the big in the small is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most valuable, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If one strives in science for “small” goals - for proof by “force”, contrary to the facts, for the “interestingness” of conclusions, for their effectiveness, or for any forms of self-promotion, then the scientist inevitably fails. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When exaggerations of the obtained research results or even minor manipulations of facts begin and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.
One must resolutely observe the great in everything. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two
YOUTH IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE

Letter three
THE BIGGEST

What is the biggest goal in life? I think: increase the goodness in those around us. And goodness is, first of all, the happiness of all people. It consists of many things, and every time life presents a person with a task that is important to be able to solve. You can do good to a person in small things, you can think about big things, but small things and big things cannot be separated. Much, as I have already said, begins with little things, originates in childhood and in loved ones.
A child loves his mother and his father, his brothers and sisters, his family, his home. Gradually expanding, his affections extend to school, village, city, and his entire country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love the person in a person.
You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no need to hate every other family because you love yours. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a deep difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for your country, in the second - hatred of all others.
The great goal of good begins small - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but as it expands, it covers an ever wider range of issues.
It's like ripples on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, acquire new strength, become higher, and man, their center, becomes wiser.
Love should not be unconscious, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings and deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in the people around them. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind admiration (you can't even call it love) can lead to dire consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can raise a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany (“Germany above all” - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy led to fascism.
Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Mind without kindness is cunning. Cunning gradually withers away and will certainly sooner or later turn against the cunning person himself. Therefore, the cunning is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings the sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-lasting happiness and that calm conscience that is most valuable in old age.
How can I express the commonality between my three propositions: “Big in small”, “Youth is always” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: “Loyalty.” Loyalty to the great principles that should guide a person in big and small things, loyalty to his impeccable youth, his homeland in the broad and narrow sense of this concept, loyalty to family, friends, city, country, people. Ultimately, fidelity is fidelity to truth—truth-truth and truth-justice.

Letter Four
THE BIGGEST VALUE IS LIFE

“Inhale, exhale, exhale!” I hear the voice of the gymnastics instructor: “To breathe deeply, you need to exhale well. First of all, learn to exhale and get rid of “waste air.”
Life is, first of all, breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - “stopped breathing.” That's what they thought from time immemorial. “Spirit out!” - it means “died.”
It can be “stuffy” in the house, and “stuffy” in moral life as well. Take a good breath out of all the petty worries, all the bustle of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hinders the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, that does not allow a person to accept life, its values, its beauty.
A person should always think about what is most important for himself and for others, throwing off all empty worries.
We must be open to people, tolerant of people, and look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “overshadowed beauty” enriches a person spiritually.
To notice beauty in nature, in a village, a city, a street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of little things - this means expanding the sphere of life, the sphere of the living space in which a person lives.
I've been looking for this word for a long time - sphere. At first I said to myself: “We need to expand the boundaries of life,” but life has no boundaries! This is not a plot of land surrounded by a fence - boundaries. Expanding the limits of life is not suitable for expressing my thoughts for the same reason. Expanding the horizons of life is already better, but still something is not right. Maximilian Voloshin has a well-invented word - “okoe”. This is everything that the eye can accommodate, that it can embrace. But even here the limitations of our everyday knowledge interfere. Life cannot be reduced to everyday impressions. We must be able to feel and even notice what is beyond our perception, to have, as it were, a “premonition” of something new that is opening or could be revealed to us. The greatest value in the world is life: someone else’s, one’s own, the life of the animal world and plants, the life of culture, life throughout its entire length - in the past, in the present, and in the future... And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something we haven’t noticed before, something that amazes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, and uniqueness.

Letter five
WHAT IS A SENSE OF LIFE

You can define the purpose of your existence in different ways, but there must be a purpose - otherwise there will be no life, but vegetation.
You also need to have principles in life. It’s even good to write them down in a diary, but for the diary to be “real”, it cannot be shown to anyone - write only for yourself.
Every person should have one rule in life, in his goal of life, in his principles of life, in his behavior: he must live his life with dignity, so that he will not be ashamed to remember.
Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, a good friend, and to find joy in helping others.
For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to give up small pleasures and considerable ones too... Being able to apologize and admit a mistake to others is better than fussing and lying.
When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, remained silent.

Letter six
PURPOSE AND SELF-ESTEEM

When a person consciously or intuitively chooses some Goal or life task for himself in life, he at the same time involuntarily gives himself an assessment. By what a person lives for, one can judge his self-esteem - low or high.
If a person sets himself the task of acquiring all the basic material goods, he evaluates himself at the level of these material goods: as the owner of a car of the latest brand, as the owner of a luxurious dacha, as part of his furniture set...
If a person lives to bring good to people, to alleviate their suffering from illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of this humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a person.
Only a vital goal allows a person to live his life with dignity and get real joy. Yes, joy! Think: if a person sets himself the task of increasing goodness in life, bringing happiness to people, what failures can befall him?
Help the wrong person who should? But how many people don't need help? If you are a doctor, then perhaps you misdiagnosed the patient? This happens to the best doctors. But in total, you still helped more than you didn’t help. No one is immune from mistakes. But the most important mistake, the fatal mistake, is choosing the wrong main task in life. Didn't get promoted - disappointing. I didn’t have time to buy a stamp for my collection – it’s a shame. Someone has better furniture than you or a better car - again a disappointment, and what a disappointment!
When setting the goal of a career or acquisition, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything. What can a person who rejoices in every good deed lose? It is only important that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from an intelligent heart, and not just from the head, and should not be a “principle” alone.
Therefore, the main task in life must necessarily be a task that is broader than just personal; it should not be limited only to one’s own successes and failures. It should be dictated by kindness towards people, love for family, for your city, for your people, for your country, for the entire universe.
Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not enjoy a simple promotion? Not at all! A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant to me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some ostentatious exaggeration of his kindness, unselfishness, significance, in this there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.
Therefore, I am only talking about the main task in life. And this main life task does not need to be emphasized in the eyes of other people. And you need to dress well (this is respect for others), but not necessarily “better than others.” And you need to compile a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than your neighbor’s. And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient. Just don’t turn the secondary into the primary, and don’t let the main goal of life exhaust you where it’s not necessary. When you need it is another matter. There we will see who is capable of what.

Letter seven
WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.
Trace a person's life.
A person is born, and the first care for him is his mother; gradually (after just a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, care for him already existed, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - the parents were preparing for the birth of the child, dreaming about him).
The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl doesn’t speak yet, but she’s already trying to take care of the doll, nursing it. Boys, very small, love to pick mushrooms and fish. Girls also like to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.
Gradually, children become objects of increasingly higher care and themselves begin to show real and broad care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care placed them, about their village, city and country...
Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for caring for themselves by caring for their elderly parents, when they can no longer repay the children’s care. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole.
If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.
Caring brings people together, strengthens the memory of the past and is aimed entirely at the future. This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring. A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.
Morality is characterized to the highest degree by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.
A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person, a big step for humanity.”
Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feeding a child, walking an old man across the street, giving up a seat on a tram, working well, being polite and courteous... etc., etc. - all this is easy for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.
Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.” A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind. I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

Letter Eight
BE FUN BUT NOT BE FUNNY

They say that content determines form. This is true, but the opposite is also true: the content depends on the form. The famous American psychologist of the beginning of this century, D. James, wrote: “We cry because we are sad, but we are also sad because we cry.” Therefore, let's talk about the form of our behavior, about what should become our habit and what should also become our internal content.
Once upon a time it was considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune had happened to you, that you were in grief. A person should not have imposed his depressed state on others. It was necessary to maintain dignity even in grief, to be even with everyone, not to become self-absorbed and to remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one’s sorrows on others, not to spoil others’ moods, to always be even in dealing with people, to always be friendly and cheerful is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.
But how cheerful should you be? Noisy and intrusive fun is tiring for those around you. A young man who is always spitting out witticisms is no longer perceived as behaving with dignity. He becomes a buffoon. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it ultimately means the loss of humor.
Don't be funny.
Not being funny is not only an ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.
You can be funny in everything, even in the way you dress. If a man carefully matches his tie to his shirt, or his shirt to his suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. We must take care to dress decently, but this concern for men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares excessively about his appearance is unpleasant. A woman is a different matter. Men's clothes should have only a hint of fashion. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh, but not very bright tie are enough. The suit may be old, it should not just be unkempt.
When talking with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and at the right time. Take up as little space as possible. Therefore, at dinner, do not put your elbows on the table, embarrassing your neighbor, but also do not try too hard to be the “life of the party.” Observe moderation in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.
Don't be tormented by your shortcomings if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers can be excellent speakers, meaning every word they say. The best lecturer at Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight squint can add significance to the face, while lameness can add significance to movements. But if you're shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: Shyness is very cute and not at all funny. She only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome her and are embarrassed by her. Be simple and forgiving of your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it bitterness, hostility towards other people, and envy. A person loses what is best in him - kindness.
There is no better music than silence, silence in the mountains, silence in the forest. There is no better “music in a person” than modesty and the ability to remain silent, not to come to the forefront. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in a person’s appearance and behavior than being important or noisy; There is nothing funnier in a man than excessive care for his suit and hairstyle, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and anecdotes, especially if they are repeated.
In your behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest and quiet.
Never let yourself go, always be even with people, respect the people who surround you.
Here are some tips, it would seem, about secondary things - about your behavior, about your appearance, but also about your inner world: do not be afraid of your physical shortcomings. Treat them with dignity and you will look elegant.
I have a girl friend who has a slightly hunchback. Honestly, I never tire of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her at museum openings (everyone meets there - that’s why they are cultural holidays).
And one more thing, and perhaps the most important: be truthful. He who seeks to deceive others first of all deceives himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But a lie always reveals itself, a lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse, you become ridiculous.
Don't be funny! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you deceived before on some occasion, and explain why you did it. This will correct the situation. You will be respected and you will show your intelligence.
Simplicity and “silence” in a person, truthfulness, lack of pretensions in clothing and behavior - this is the most attractive “form” in a person, which also becomes his most elegant “content”.

Letter Nine
WHEN SHOULD YOU BE OFFENDED?

You should only be offended when they want to offend you. If they don’t want to, and the reason for the offense is an accident, then why be offended?
Without getting angry, clear up the misunderstanding - that’s all.
Well, what if they want to offend? Before responding to an insult with an insult, it is worth thinking: should one stoop to being offended? After all, resentment usually lies somewhere low and you should bend down to it in order to pick it up.
If you still decide to be offended, then first perform some mathematical operation - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something for which you were only partly to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Let's say that you were offended for noble reasons - divide your feelings into the noble motives that caused the offensive remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you will be able to respond to the insult with greater dignity, which will be the more noble the You attach less importance to resentment. Up to certain limits, of course.
In general, excessive touchiness is a sign of a lack of intelligence or some kind of complex. Be smart.
There is a good English rule: be offended only when you want offend intentionally offended. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention or forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age or some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special care to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.
This is if they “offend” you, but what to do when you yourself can offend someone else? You need to be especially careful when dealing with touchy people. Touchiness is a very painful character trait.

Letter ten
HONOR TRUE AND FALSE

I don't like definitions and am often not ready for them. But I can point out some differences between conscience and honor.
There is one significant difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience one is purified to one degree or another. Conscience is gnawing. Conscience is never false. It can be muted or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor can be completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called “uniform honor.” We have lost such a phenomenon, unusual for our society, as the concept of noble honor, but the “honor of the uniform” remains a heavy burden. It was as if the man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders had been removed. And inside which a conscientious heart no longer beats.
“The honor of the uniform” forces managers to defend false or flawed projects, insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, fight with societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. Many examples of such defense of “uniform honor” can be given.
True honor is always in accordance with conscience. False honor is a mirage in the desert, in the moral desert of the human (or rather, “bureaucratic”) soul.

Letter Eleven
ABOUT CAREERISM

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is focused on the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.
Then, as a boy and a young man, he also studies.
And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...
But the acceleration continues, and now, instead of studying, the time comes for many to master their situation in life. The movement proceeds by inertia. A person is always striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in placing oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the real content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person personally unhappy and unbearable for others.

Letter Twelve
A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT

A person must be intelligent! What if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: that’s how the circumstances developed. What if the environment doesn’t allow it? What if his intelligence makes him a “black sheep” among his colleagues, friends, relatives, and simply prevents him from getting closer to other people?

- an outstanding defender of Russian culture. His moral image and life path are an example of the struggle for high ideals. A philologist and researcher of ancient Russian literature, Likhachev also addressed a children's audience. Today we are publishing excerpts from Likhachev’s “Letters about the Good and the Beautiful” - a wonderful book for all generations and ages.

Letters to young readers

For my conversations with the reader, I chose the form of letters. This is, of course, a conditional form. I imagine the readers of my letters as friends. Letters to friends allow me to write simply.

Why did I arrange my letters this way? First, in my letters, I write about the purpose and meaning of life, about the beauty of behavior, and then I move on to the beauty of the world around us, to the beauty that is revealed to us in works of art. I do this because in order to perceive the beauty of the environment, a person himself must be mentally beautiful, deep, and stand on the right positions in life. Try holding binoculars in shaking hands - you won’t see anything.

Letter one. Big in small

If a person has a great goal, then it should manifest itself in everything - in the most seemingly insignificant. You must be honest in the unnoticed and accidental: only then will you be honest in fulfilling your great duty. A great goal embraces the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved through bad means.

The saying “The end justifies the means” is destructive and immoral. Dostoevsky showed this well in Crime and Punishment. The main character of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, thought that by killing the disgusting old moneylender, he would get money with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but he suffered an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealistic, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. You cannot strive for a high goal with low means. You must be equally honest in both big and small things.

The general rule – to preserve the big in the small – is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most valuable, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If one strives in science for “small” goals - for proof by “force”, contrary to the facts, for the “interestingness” of conclusions, for their effectiveness, or for any forms of self-promotion, then the scientist inevitably fails. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When exaggerations of the obtained research results or even minor manipulations of facts begin and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.

One must resolutely observe the great in everything. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two. Youth is all life

Therefore, take care of your youth until old age. Appreciate all the good things you acquired in your youth, do not waste the riches of your youth. Nothing acquired in youth passes without a trace. Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Work skills too. Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important this is for human happiness! There is no one more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids work and effort...

Both in youth and in old age. Good youth skills will make life easier, bad ones will complicate it and make it difficult. And further. There is a Russian proverb: “Take care of your honor from a young age.” All the actions committed in youth remain in memory. The good ones will make you happy, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

Letter three. The biggest

What is the biggest goal in life? I think to increase the goodness in those around us. And goodness is, first of all, the happiness of all people. It consists of many things, and every time life presents a person with a task that is important to be able to solve. You can do good to a person in small things, you can think about big things, but small things and big things cannot be separated. Much, as I have already said, begins with little things, originates in childhood and in loved ones.

A child loves his mother and his father, his brothers and sisters, his family, his home. Gradually expanding, his affections extend to school, village, city, and his entire country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love the person in a person.

You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no need to hate every other family because you love yours. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a deep difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for your country, in the second - hatred of all others.

“The great goal of good begins small - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but as it expands, it covers an ever wider range of issues. It's like ripples on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, acquire new strength, become higher, and man, their center, becomes wiser.”

Love should not be unconscious, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings and deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in the people around them. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind admiration (you can't even call it love) can lead to dire consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can raise a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany (“Germany above all” - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy led to fascism.

Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Mind without kindness is cunning. Cunning gradually withers away and will certainly sooner or later turn against the cunning person himself. Therefore, the cunning is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings the sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-lasting happiness and that calm conscience that is most valuable in old age.

How can I express the commonality between my three propositions: “Big in small”, “Youth is always” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: “Loyalty.” Loyalty to the great principles that should guide a person in big and small things, loyalty to his impeccable youth, his homeland in the broad and narrow sense of this concept, loyalty to family, friends, city, country, people. Ultimately, fidelity is fidelity to truth—truth-truth and truth-justice.

Letter five. What is a sense of life

You can define the purpose of your existence in different ways, but there must be a purpose - otherwise there will be no life, but vegetation.

You also need to have principles in life. It’s even good to write them down in a diary, but for the diary to be “real”, it cannot be shown to anyone - write only for yourself.

Every person should have one rule in life, in his goal of life, in his principles of life, in his behavior: he must live his life with dignity, so that he will not be ashamed to remember.
Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, a good friend, and to find joy in helping others.

For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to give up small pleasures and considerable ones too... Being able to apologize and admit a mistake to others is better than fussing and lying.
When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, remained silent.

Letter eight. Be funny without being funny

Once upon a time it was considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune had happened to you, that you were in grief. A person should not have imposed his depressed state on others. It was necessary to maintain dignity even in grief, to be even with everyone, not to become self-absorbed and to remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one’s sorrows on others, not to spoil others’ moods, to always be even in dealing with people, to always be friendly and cheerful is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.

But how cheerful should you be? Noisy and intrusive fun is tiring for those around you. A young man who is always spitting out witticisms is no longer perceived as behaving with dignity. He becomes a buffoon. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it ultimately means the loss of humor.

Don't be funny.
Not being funny is not only an ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.

You can be funny in everything, even in the way you dress. If a man carefully matches his tie to his shirt, or his shirt to his suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. We must take care to dress decently, but this concern for men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares excessively about his appearance is unpleasant. A woman is a different matter. Men's clothes should have only a hint of fashion. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh, but not very bright tie are enough. The suit may be old, it should not just be unkempt.
When talking with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and at the right time. Take up as little space as possible. Therefore, at dinner, do not put your elbows on the table, embarrassing your neighbor, but also do not try too hard to be the “life of the party.” Observe moderation in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.

Don't be tormented by your shortcomings if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers can be excellent speakers, meaning every word they say. The best lecturer at Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, is historian V.O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight squint can add significance to the face, while lameness can add significance to movements. But if you're shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: Shyness is very cute and not at all funny. She only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome her and are embarrassed by her. Be simple and forgiving of your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it bitterness, hostility towards other people, and envy. A person loses what is best in him - kindness.

There is no better music than silence, silence in the mountains, silence in the forest. There is no better “music in a person” than modesty and the ability to remain silent, not to come to the forefront. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in a person’s appearance and behavior than being important or noisy; There is nothing funnier in a man than excessive care for his suit and hairstyle, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and anecdotes, especially if they are repeated.

In your behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest and quiet.
Never let yourself go, always be even with people, respect the people who surround you.

Here are some tips, it would seem, about secondary things - about your behavior, about your appearance, but also about your inner world: do not be afraid of your physical shortcomings. Treat them with dignity and you will look elegant.

I have a girl friend who has a slightly hunchback. Honestly, I never tire of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her at museum openings (everyone meets there - that’s why they are cultural holidays).

And one more thing, and perhaps the most important: be truthful. He who seeks to deceive others first of all deceives himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But a lie always reveals itself, a lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse, you become ridiculous.

Don't be funny! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you deceived before on some occasion, and explain why you did it. This will correct the situation. You will be respected and you will show your intelligence.

Simplicity and “silence” in a person, truthfulness, lack of pretensions in clothing and behavior - this is the most attractive “form” in a person, which also becomes his most elegant “content”.

Letter nine. When should you be offended?

If you still decide to be offended, then first perform some mathematical operation - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something for which you were only partly to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Let's say that you were offended for noble reasons - divide your feelings into the noble motives that caused the offensive remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you will be able to respond to the insult with greater dignity, which will be the more noble the You attach less importance to resentment. Up to certain limits, of course.

In general, excessive touchiness is a sign of a lack of intelligence or some kind of complex. Be smart.

There is a good English rule: to be offended only when they want to offend you, they deliberately offend you. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention or forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age or some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special care to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.

This is if they “offend” you, but what to do when you yourself can offend someone else? You need to be especially careful when dealing with touchy people. Touchiness is a very painful character trait.

Letter fifteen. About envy

If a heavyweight breaks a new world record in weight lifting, do you envy him? What if I'm a gymnast? What if the record holder for diving from a tower into the water?

Start listing everything you know and what you can envy: you will notice that the closer you are to your job, specialty, life, the stronger the proximity of envy. It’s like in a game – cold, warm, even warmer, hot, burned!

On the last one, you found an item hidden by other players while blindfolded. It's the same with envy. The closer the achievement of another to your specialty, to your interests, the more the burning danger of envy increases.

A terrible feeling that primarily affects those who envy.
Now you will understand how to get rid of the extremely painful feeling of envy: develop your own individual inclinations, your own uniqueness in the world around you, be yourself, and you will never envy. Envy develops primarily where you are a stranger to yourself. Envy develops primarily where you do not differentiate yourself from others. If you are jealous, it means you haven’t found yourself.

Letter twenty-two. Love to read!

Every person is obliged (I emphasize - obliged) to take care of his intellectual development. This is his responsibility to the society in which he lives and to himself.

The main (but, of course, not the only) way of one’s intellectual development is reading.

Reading should not be random. This is a huge waste of time, and time is the greatest value that cannot be wasted on trifles. You should read according to the program, of course, without strictly following it, moving away from it where additional interests for the reader appear. However, with all deviations from the original program, it is necessary to draw up a new one for yourself, taking into account the new interests that have arisen.

Reading, in order to be effective, must interest the reader. An interest in reading in general or in certain branches of culture must be developed in oneself. Interest can be largely the result of self-education.

Creating reading programs for yourself is not so easy, and this should be done in consultation with knowledgeable people, with existing reference guides of various types.
The danger of reading is the development (conscious or unconscious) of a tendency towards “diagonal” viewing of texts or various types of speed reading methods.

“Speed reading” creates the appearance of knowledge. It can be allowed only in certain types of professions, being careful not to create the habit of speed reading; it leads to attention disorders.

Have you noticed how great an impression is made by those works of literature that are read in a calm, leisurely and unhurried environment, for example on vacation or during some not very complex and non-distracting illness?

“Uninterested” but interesting reading is what makes you love literature and what broadens a person’s horizons.”

My literature teacher taught me “disinterested” reading at school. I studied in the years when teachers were often forced to be absent from classes - either they were digging trenches near Leningrad, or they had to help some factory, or they were simply sick. Leonid Vladimirovich (that was the name of my literature teacher) often came to class when the other teacher was absent, casually sat down on the teacher’s table and, taking books out of his briefcase, offered us something to read. We already knew how he could read, how he could explain what he read, laugh with us, admire something, be amazed at the art of the writer and rejoice at what was to come. So we listened to many passages from “War and Peace”, “The Captain’s Daughter”, several stories by Maupassant, an epic about Nightingale Budimirovich, another epic about Dobrynya Nikitich, a story about Grief-Misfortune, Krylov’s fables, Derzhavin’s odes and much, much more. I still love what I listened to back then as a child. And at home, father and mother loved to read in the evenings. We read for ourselves, and some of the passages we liked were read for us. They read Leskov, Mamin-Sibiryak, historical novels - everything that they liked and that we gradually began to like.

Why is TV now partially replacing books? Yes, because TV forces you to slowly watch some program, sit comfortably so that nothing disturbs you, it distracts you from your worries, it dictates to you how to watch and what to watch. But try to choose a book to your liking, take a break from everything in the world for a while, sit comfortably with a book, and you will understand that there are many books that you cannot live without, which are more important and more interesting than many programs. I'm not saying stop watching TV. But I say: look with choice. Spend your time on things that are worth spending. Read more and read with greater choice. Determine your choice yourself, depending on the role your chosen book has acquired in the history of human culture in order to become a classic. This means that there is something significant in it. Or maybe this essential for the culture of mankind will be essential for you too?

A classic is one that has stood the test of time. With him you won't waste your time. But the classics cannot answer all the questions of today. Therefore, it is necessary to read modern literature. Don't just jump at every trendy book. Don't be fussy. Vanity causes a person to recklessly spend the largest and most precious capital he has - his time.

Letter forty. About memory

Memory is one of the most important properties of existence, any existence: material, spiritual, human...
Paper. Squeeze it and spread it out. There will be folds on it, and if you squeeze it a second time, some of the folds will fall along the previous folds: the paper “has memory”...

Memory is possessed by individual plants, stone, on which traces of its origin and movement during the Ice Age remain, glass, water, etc.
The memory of wood is the basis of the most precise special archaeological discipline, which has recently revolutionized archaeological research - where wood is found - dendrochronology ("dendros" in Greek "tree"; dendrochronology is the science of determining the time of wood).

Birds have the most complex forms of ancestral memory, allowing new generations of birds to fly in the right direction to the right place. In explaining these flights, it is not enough to study only the “navigation techniques and methods” used by birds. The most important thing is the memory that forces them to look for winter and summer quarters - always the same.

And what can we say about “genetic memory” - memory embedded in centuries, memory passing from one generation of living beings to the next.
Moreover, memory is not mechanical at all. This is the most important creative process: it is a process and it is creative. What is needed is remembered; Through memory, good experience is accumulated, tradition is formed, everyday skills, family skills, labor skills, social institutions are created...

It is customary to primitively divide time into past, present and future. But thanks to memory, the past enters the present, and the future is, as it were, predicted by the present, connected with the past.

Memory is overcoming time, overcoming death.
This is the greatest moral significance of memory. “Unmemorable” is, first of all, a person who is ungrateful, irresponsible, and therefore incapable of good, selfless deeds.

Irresponsibility is born from the lack of awareness that nothing passes without a trace. A person who commits an unkind act thinks that this act will not be preserved in his personal memory and in the memory of those around him. He himself, obviously, is not accustomed to cherishing the memory of the past, to feeling a feeling of gratitude to his ancestors, to their work, to their concerns, and therefore he thinks that everything will be forgotten about him.

Conscience is basically memory, to which is added a moral assessment of what has been done. But if what is perfect is not retained in memory, then there can be no evaluation. Without memory there is no conscience.

That is why it is so important to be brought up in a moral climate of memory: family memory, folk memory, cultural memory. Family photographs are one of the most important “visual aids” for the moral education of children and adults. Respect for the work of our ancestors, for their work traditions, for their tools, for their customs, for their songs and entertainment. All this is dear to us. And just respect for the graves of our ancestors. Remember Pushkin:

Two feelings are wonderfully close to us -
The heart finds food in them -
Love for the native ashes,
Love for fathers' coffins.
Life-giving shrine!
The earth would be dead without them.

Pushkin's poetry is wise. Every word in his poems requires thought. Our consciousness cannot immediately get used to the idea that the earth would be dead without love for the graves of our fathers, without love for our native ashes. Two symbols of death and suddenly – a “life-giving shrine”! Too often we remain indifferent or even almost hostile to disappearing cemeteries and ashes - two sources of our not-so-wise gloomy thoughts and superficially heavy moods. Just as a person’s personal memory forms his conscience, his conscientious attitude towards his personal ancestors and loved ones - relatives and friends, old friends, that is, the most faithful ones with whom he is connected by common memories - so the historical memory of the people forms the moral climate in which people live. Perhaps one could think about building morality on something else: completely ignoring the past with its, sometimes, mistakes and difficult memories and being focused entirely on the future, building this future on “reasonable grounds” in itself, forgetting about the past with its dark and light sides.

This is not only unnecessary, but also impossible. The memory of the past is, first of all, “bright” (Pushkin’s expression), poetic. She educates aesthetically.
Human culture as a whole not only has memory, but it is memory par excellence. The culture of humanity is the active memory of humanity, actively introduced into modernity.

In history, every cultural upsurge was, to one degree or another, associated with an appeal to the past. How many times has humanity, for example, turned to Antiquity? At least there were four major, epoch-making conversions: under Charlemagne, during the Palaiologan dynasty in Byzantium, during the Renaissance and again at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. And how many “small” cultural turns to Antiquity were there - in the same Middle Ages, which for a long time were considered “dark” (the British still talk about the Middle Ages - dark age). Each appeal to the past was “revolutionary,” that is, it enriched modernity, and each appeal understood this past in its own way, taking from the past what it needed to move forward. I’m talking about turning to Antiquity, but what did turning to its own national past give for each people? If it was not dictated by nationalism, a narrow desire to isolate itself from other peoples and their cultural experience, it was fruitful, because it enriched, diversified, expanded the culture of the people, their aesthetic sensibility. After all, every appeal to the old in new conditions was always new.

The Carolingian Renaissance in the 6th–7th centuries was not like the Renaissance of the 15th century, the Italian Renaissance is not like the Northern European one. The circulation of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, influenced by the discoveries in Pompeii and the works of Winckelmann, differs from our understanding of Antiquity, etc.

Post-Petrine Russia also knew several appeals to Ancient Rus'. There were different sides to this appeal. The discovery of Russian architecture and icons at the beginning of the 20th century was largely devoid of narrow nationalism and was very fruitful for the new art.

I would like to demonstrate the aesthetic and moral role of memory using the example of Pushkin’s poetry.
For Pushkin, memory plays a huge role in poetry. The poetic role of memories can be traced back to Pushkin’s children’s and youth’s poems, of which the most important is “Memories in Tsarskoe Selo,” but later the role of memories is very large not only in Pushkin’s lyrics, but even in the poem “Eugene Onegin.”

When Pushkin needs to introduce a lyrical element, he often resorts to memories. As you know, Pushkin was not in St. Petersburg during the flood of 1824, but still in The Bronze Horseman the flood is colored by memory:

“It was a terrible time, the memory of it is fresh...”

Pushkin also colors his historical works with a share of personal, tribal memory. Remember: in “Boris Godunov” his ancestor Pushkin acts, in “Arap of Peter the Great” - also an ancestor, Hannibal.

Memory is the basis of conscience and morality, memory is the basis of culture, the “accumulations” of culture, memory is one of the foundations of poetry - the aesthetic understanding of cultural values. Preserving memory, preserving memory is our moral duty to ourselves and to our descendants. Memory is our wealth.

Letter forty-six. In the ways of kindness

Here is the last letter. There could be more letters, but it’s time to take stock. I'm sorry to stop writing. The reader noticed how the topics of the letters gradually became more complex. We walked with the reader, climbing the stairs. It couldn’t be otherwise: then why write if you remain at the same level, without gradually ascending the steps of experience - moral and aesthetic experience. Life requires complications.

Perhaps the reader has an idea of the letter writer as an arrogant person trying to teach everyone and everything. This is not entirely true. In the letters I not only “taught”, but also learned. I was able to teach precisely because I was studying at the same time: I learned from my experience, which I tried to generalize. Many things came to my mind as I wrote. I not only presented my experience, I also reflected on my experience. My letters are instructive, but in instructing, I was instructing myself. The reader and I climbed together through the steps of experience, not just my experience, but the experience of many people. The readers themselves helped me write letters - they talked to me inaudibly.

“In life you need to have your own service - service to some cause. Even if the matter is small, it will become big if you are faithful to it.”

What is the most important thing in life? The main thing can be that each shade has its own, unique color. But still, the main thing should be for every person. Life should not crumble into little things, dissolve in everyday worries.
And also, the most important thing: the main thing, no matter how individual it is for each person, must be kind and significant.

A person must be able to not just rise, but rise above himself, above his personal everyday worries and think about the meaning of his life - look at the past and look into the future.

If you live only for yourself, with your petty worries about your own well-being, then not a trace will remain of what you have lived. If you live for others, then others will save what you served, what you gave strength to.

Has the reader noticed that everything bad and petty in life is quickly forgotten? People are still annoyed with a bad and selfish person, with the bad things he has done, but the person himself is no longer remembered, he has been erased from memory. People who don't care about anyone seem to fade from memory.

People who served others, who served wisely, and who had a good and meaningful purpose in life are remembered for a long time. They remember their words, actions, their appearance, their jokes, and sometimes eccentricities. They talk about them. Much less often and, of course, with an unkind feeling they speak about the evil ones.

In life, the most valuable thing is kindness, and at the same time, kindness is smart and purposeful. Intelligent kindness is the most valuable thing in a person, the most attractive to him and, ultimately, the most faithful on the path to personal happiness.

Happiness is achieved by those who strive to make others happy and are able to forget about their interests and themselves, at least for a while. This is the “unchangeable ruble”.
Knowing this, remembering this always and following the paths of kindness is very, very important. Believe me!

Children's literature, Moscow, 1989

Documentary film “The Epoch of Dmitry Likhachev, Told by Himself”

Documentary film “One warrior in the field. Academician Likhachev"

Russia, 2006
Director: Oleg Morofeev

Documentary film “Private Chronicles. D. Likhachev"

Russia, 2006
Director: Maxim Emk (Katushkin)

Series of documentaries “Steep Roads of Dmitry Likhachev”

Russia, 2006
Director: Bella Kurkova
Film 1st. "Seven Centuries of Antiquities"

Film 2. "Disgraced Academician"

Film 3. "Box for Great-Grandchildren"

Once upon a time it was considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune had happened to you, that you were in grief. A person should not have imposed his depressed state on others. It was necessary to maintain dignity even in grief, to be even with everyone, not to become self-absorbed and to remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one’s sorrows on others, not to spoil others’ mood, to always be even in dealing with people, to be always friendly and cheerful is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.

Don't be funny.
Not being funny is not only a skill to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.

When talking with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and at the right time. Take up as little space as possible. Therefore, at dinner, do not put your elbows on the table, embarrassing your neighbor, but also do not try too hard to be the “life of the party.” Observe moderation in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.

Don't be tormented by your shortcomings if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers can be excellent speakers, meaning every word they say. The best lecturer at Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight squint can add significance to the face, while lameness can add significance to movements. But if you're shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: Shyness is very cute and not at all funny. She only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome her and are embarrassed by her. Be simple and forgiving of your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it bitterness, hostility towards other people, and envy. A person loses what is best in him - kindness.

In your behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest and quiet.

Never let yourself go, always be even with people, respect the people who surround you.

Here are some tips, seemingly about minor things - about your behavior, about your appearance, but also about your inner world: do not be afraid of your physical shortcomings. Treat them with dignity and you will look elegant.

And one more thing, and perhaps the most important: be truthful. He who seeks to deceive others first of all deceives himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But a lie always reveals itself, a lie is always “felt,” and you not only become disgusting, worse, you become ridiculous.

Caring is what unites people, strengthens the memory of the past, and is aimed entirely at the future. This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring. A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

The Apostle Paul says: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may be tempted...” This means that you should not blindly imitate what “this age” suggests, but have much more with “this age.” more active relationships - on the basis of transforming oneself by “renewal of the mind,” that is, on the basis of a sound discernment of what is good and what is bad in “this age.”

There is the music of time and there is the noise of time. The noise often drowns out the music. For the noise can be immeasurably great, but the music sounds within the standards given to it by the composer. Evil knows this and therefore is always very noisy.

Evil tends to be gregarious. The evil ones gather in a crowd, they are unanimous in attack, but, having won, they begin to gnaw at each other. Parties are the same flocks.

Idleness does not at all consist in the fact that a person sits idle, “with folded arms” in the literal sense. No, the slacker is always busy: he talks idle talk on the phone (sometimes for hours), goes to visit people, sits in front of the TV and watches everything, sleeps for a long time, comes up with different things to do. In general, a slacker is always very busy...

The physiologist Ukhtomsky has the “law of an honored interlocutor,” which should be taken into account in everyday life.

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.

Trace a person's life.

A person is born, and the first care for him is the mother, gradually (after a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, there was already care for him, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - until the birth of the child parents were preparing and dreaming about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl doesn’t speak yet, but she’s already trying to take care of the doll, nursing it. Boys, very small, love to pick mushrooms and fish. Girls also like to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.

Gradually, children become objects of increasingly higher care and themselves begin to show real and broad care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care placed them, about their village, city and country...

Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their elderly parents - when they can no longer repay the children’s care. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole. If concern is directed only at oneself, then one is selfish.

Somewhere in Belinsky’s letters, I remember, there is this idea: scoundrels always prevail over decent people because they treat decent people as scoundrels, and decent people treat scoundrels as decent people.

A stupid person does not like a smart person, an uneducated person does not like an educated person, an ill-mannered person does not like a well-mannered person, etc. And all this is hidden behind some phrase: “I am a simple person...”, “I don’t like philosophizing,” “I lived my life without it,” “all this is from the evil one,” etc. And in the soul there is hatred, envy, a feeling of one’s own inferiority.

Miscavige said somewhere: “The devil is a coward, he is afraid of loneliness and always hides in the crowd.” And again: “The devil seeks darkness, and we must hide from him in the light.”

Always remember that there is something that you have not yet matured into. Be brave in trying to embrace other cultures. Be brave in a complex and incomprehensible culture, in relation to what is intellectually superior to you.

Vladimir Nabokov said about himself shortly before his death: “I think like a genius, write like an average writer, and speak like a child.” But the first thing is the most important, the reflection of thought carries in itself any bad letter and any childishly helpless speech.

A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person is a big step for humanity.” Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feed a child, carry an old man across the street, give up your seat on a tram, work well, be polite and courteous... etc. and so on. - all this is simple for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

Habakkuk about himself: “There are no good deeds, but God glorified.”

Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.” A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind. I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

“Jesus, seeing Nathanael coming to him, said of him: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile”fn (Gospel of John, 1, 47.).

What does this text mean? First of all, what kind of “cunning” are we talking about? Deceit is a lie. The father of lies is the devil, the “evil one.” Wed. in prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Cunning is all kinds of pretense, insincerity, temptation by something that a person does not need.

Does what Jesus said mean that the national characteristic of the Israelites is the absence of guile in them? No, what has been said means that the true nature of a person of any nationality is revealed when the husk of lies, deceit, and pretense falls off; when a person is completely sincere, simple.

"Week of open good deeds." This is a topic for thought and a short essay. The action takes place at an unknown time. Maybe in the year two thousand. The word “kind” is despised, and they say “dobrenky” when they want to insult. There should only be “irreconcilability.” And suddenly a decree: you can and even need to do good deeds - do them individually! It is even recommended to engage in charity. You can give and beg for alms. It is possible and even recommended to give and receive in debt. You can come to hospitals to help the sick, wash the floors. You can, you can, you can... And now people discover the happiness of kindness. For many, acquisitiveness, the passion for profit, for collecting trifles, dissolves like fog. People smile at each other after doing a good deed. Someone is carrying an elderly man across the street. Not “someone”, but everyone gives up their seats on the subway to the elderly.

Happy faces. The saleswomen are happy to sell and are happy to carefully wrap their purchases.

And they are already asking to extend the week of open good deeds. They write letters to the top about this.

Children are zealously taking up the revolution of goodness. They are the most and the first to be infected with goodness. Good becomes their favorite game. They learn to do good from the village old women. They look for the poor, the sick, the elderly, orphans who need help, and find the unfortunate. Groups of “pathfinders of good” are organized.

There is a reconciliation with the world. That's why there are unhappy people: to give happiness to others. The unhappy become the happy cares of others, for the unhappy in one thing can be happy in another.

Stravinsky spoke about Vl.Vas. Stasov that he did not speak badly even about the weather.

Among the many trifles of narcissism in V.V. Rozanov also has wonderful, well-expressed thoughts; here is one: “It is good to move with a reserve of great silence in the soul; for example, travel. Then everything seems bright, meaningful, everything fits into a good result. But “sitting still” is good only with a lot of movement in your soul. Kant sat all his life: but he had so much movement in his soul that from his “sitting” the worlds moved”fn (Rozanov V.V. Solitary. St. Petersburg, 1912, p. 153.).

In order to get “silence” while traveling, it is good to take notes or take photographs: this seems to separate a person from himself.

During my anniversary, an incredible amount of good things were written about me, but I always have the feeling that I am reading not about myself, but about someone else, and only my wife and daughter know me. Therefore, this other one is standing nearby, but he is not me. I'm more happy for this other one. But what if I created this other one, then good. But only “good” - no more. Popularity is disgusting. By the way, Boris Pasternak was really deprived of it (in reality, and not just in his poem “Being famous is ugly...”).

The most amazing quality of a person is love. This is where the connectedness of people is most fully expressed. And the connectedness of people (family, village, country, the entire globe) is the foundation on which humanity stands.

There are a lot of well-worn words and expressions for this connection. Everyone now feels the need for this connectedness. For this connection, it is necessary either to find new words and expressions, or to use frequently used ones not in a well-worn context, to feel their significance. I will not list these expressions that we constantly hear and use ourselves.

The worst (not the “most”, but one of the most) qualities of a person is not to take care of his wife, not to remember his parents, not to take care of his children (really), not to visit the graves of loved ones, to leave helpless old people, to demand only for himself. All this, at some point, begins to take possession of a person en masse, together, in the aggregate. And therefore, using one of these signs, you can determine the presence of all the others. These people are unreliable in every way.

Walter Scott's novel "Old Mortality" (in Russian translations it is called "The Puritans") tells about an old man who cleared moss and lichens from old gravestones with inscriptions on them.

The famous Soviet oncologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Petrov (I remember him) was resourceful and witty. Alive, small in stature. He always operated lightly. The robe was put on directly over the linen. One day, an equally famous French oncologist arrived: a perfumed, pomaded dandy. They took me to the operating room. Petrov came out in his underpants, walked up to the Frenchman and pretended to blow a speck of dust off him.

In Aswan in February 1990, at the Conference of Heads of State of the founders of the Library of Alexandria, the head of the Egyptian government, Mubarak, decided to show his significance and made him wait a long time. The presiding President of France, Mitterrand, came out of the situation brilliantly. He went deep into reading the papers and when Mubarak finally entered, Mitterrand did not notice his appearance and only after a while, lifting his head from the papers, he opened the meeting, forcing Mubarak to wait in turn. The most brilliant speech on the importance of libraries in general and the future of the Library of Alexandria was undoubtedly delivered at this conference by Mitterrand. Mubarak spoke platitudes. I decided to make a very short speech, because our state did not provide funds for the library and my speech could not be long and pretentious.

If a heavyweight breaks a new world record in weight lifting, do I envy him? What about gymnastics? What if in diving from a tower into water?

Start listing everything you know and what you can envy: you will notice that the closer you are to your job, specialty, life, the stronger the proximity of envy. It's like in a game - cold, warm, even warmer, hot, burned! On the last one, you found an item hidden by other players while blindfolded. It's the same with envy. The closer the achievement of another to your specialty, to your interests, the more the burning danger of envy increases. A terrible feeling that primarily affects those who envy.

Now you will understand how to get rid of the extremely painful feeling of envy: develop your own individual inclinations, your own uniqueness in the surrounding humanity, be yourself - and you will never envy. Envy develops primarily where you are a stranger to yourself, where you do not distinguish yourself from others.

“No one is a hero in the eyes of his lackey” (Rousseau Jean-Jacques. New Heloise, letter X, part IV).

“Bekhterevsky complex” - joy in the misfortune of others.

Pasternak said the same thing that I say. I only read his words on May 1, 1988: “There is nothing more beneficial to health than straightforwardness, frankness, sincerity and a clear conscience. If I were a doctor, I would write a work about the terrible danger to physical health of crookedness, which has become a habit. This is worse than alcoholism”fn (In the book: A. Gladkov. Late evenings. Memoirs, articles, notes.).

E.B. Pasternak, who cites this entry in his manuscript, adds: “Cf. words of Dudorov in the epilogue of “Doctor Zhivago”” (rkp., p. 30).

B. Zaitsev. The Path (About Pasternak): “Petrarch wrote from Avignon to Rome to friends. He sent letters “on occasion”, with merchants traveling to Italy. Sometimes merchants were robbed by robbers near Florence. They were especially pleased if the loot included letters from Petrarch - they could be sold at a high price. But some letters reached Rome. Then the recipient hosted a dinner, treated his friends, and for dessert, as the highest dish, Petrarch’s letter out loud.”

A collection of articles dedicated to the work of B.L. Pasternak Munich, 1962, p. 17.

Boris Zaitsev also read Pasternak’s letters aloud to his friends.

A person develops from the very first day of his birth. He is focused on the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.

Then he studies as a boy and a young man.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...

But the acceleration continues, and now, instead of studying, the time comes for many to master their situation in life. The movement proceeds by inertia. A person is always striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in placing oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the real content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person personally unhappy and unbearable for others.

S. Lec (“Uncombed Thoughts”) states: “Everyone brings their own acoustics to the theater.” This idea can be expanded: everyone comes into the world with their own perception of it; A person retains, develops or destroys this perception throughout his life.

If one of the disputants gets excited, then it is advantageous for his opponent to be cold, emphatically cold. The hot one exposes his side to the enemy.

Ivan Nikiforovich Zavoloko had three letters as his motto: R S T. If these letters are read by their Slavic names, it will be: “rci the word is firm.” Don't change your word, say it firmly.

A typical (I think) conversation between a Bulgarian waitress and a visitor. P.N. Berkov (sometimes irritable) tells the waitress who served him soup: “I always believed that soup can only be eaten with a spoon.” The smart waitress replies: “I’m convinced of the same thing, so the spoon is on the right side of the plate.” P.N. himself told me about this. Berkov (well done - managed to evaluate the answer).

Prejudices should not interfere with convictions.

Morality is highly characterized by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is the consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.

“Man is a wolf to man,” people of bad inclinations like to repeat. But few people have heard another maxim: “Man is sacred to man.” Seneca (I think) argued that “human society is like a vault, where different stones, holding on to each other, provide the strength of the whole.” This is amazingly true. Just one example: we walk down the street and trust, intuitively trust thousands of drivers, their experience and basic moral principles. We don’t just trust their diplomas, street traffic rules and police service, but we trust them as people with a sense of responsibility...

A remarkable thought by S. Lec (“Uncombed Thoughts”): “The weakest link in the chain is the strongest: it breaks the bonds” (the entire chain - no matter how strong it may be).

A person becomes a person by being among his own kind.

I also remember the saying: “Prudence is the best part of valor.”

Moral concepts that we really lack in our assessments of people: decency and honor. Very rarely, when praising a person, they say: “he is a decent person.” And even less often: “he acted as honor told him.”

Meanwhile, think about how many applications both concepts have: decency in family life, decency of a critic, decency of a journalist, decency in love. The honor of a doctor, the honor of a worker, the honor of an engineer, the honor of a school, the honor of a factory, the honor of a Komsomol organizer, the honor of a citizen, the honor of a husband or wife. A word given by a person, no matter who he is, must be kept, otherwise his honor will be tarnished. How to be a “slave of honor” - this is the highest freedom and independence!

If Pushkin had not challenged him to a duel, had not defended the honor of his wife (although he failed to do so from our modern “gossips”), he would never have defended the honor of his poetry. A poet cannot have his honor tarnished, for the poet's personality is part of his poetry.

And another forgotten moral concept is “courtesy” in behavior. It is most natural and easiest to maintain independence by being polite. You should be polite not only to ladies and with ladies, but with everyone and always.

Honor. In the realm of morality, this concept is extremely important, but honor is a two-faced Janus. On the one hand, there is external honor. A man defends his honor. He does not tolerate insults or what he perceives as insults. He does this mainly for those around him. Such, to a large extent, was the honor of a nobleman, the honor of an officer. And it was this honor that went down with the revolution and pulled with it another honor - honor of paramount importance - internal, honor before oneself, independent of its external assessment, but still of enormous importance for society, for its moral atmosphere, for moral relationships between people and public organizations (government institutions, trading enterprises, factories and factories, military, educational communities, etc.). How is this “internal” honor externally expressed: a person keeps his word both as an official (employee, statesman, representative of an institution) and as a simple person; a person behaves decently, does not violate ethical standards, maintains dignity - does not grovel before his superiors, before any “blessing giver”, does not accommodate other people’s opinions for profit, does not be stubborn to prove that he is right, does not settle personal scores, does not “pay off” with the “right people” at the expense of the state (various concessions, “devices”, etc.), in general he knows how to distinguish between the personal and the state, the subjective from the objective in the assessment of others.

Honor is dignity, first of all, the dignity of a positively living person. This dignity, in turn, is external and internal. External dignity is importance, pompousness, solidity. Internal is essentially dignity when a person does not stoop to pettiness in behavior, in conversations and even in thoughts. With a developed sense of honor and dignity in society, there cannot be protectionism, nepotism, deception of people and institutions, what is called “additions” and artificial lowering of plans or the pursuit at all costs of bonuses, gratitude, and promotions.

Honor obliges a person to think about the honor of the social institution that he represents. There is the honor of a worker, the honor of an engineer, the honor of a doctor, but also the honor of a student of a certain school, the honor of a regiment, the honor of a factory, the honor of an institution.

Worker's honor: work without marriage, strive to create good things. As in the old days: the honor of the typesetter, the honor of the foundry (do not stop the open-hearth furnace even during strikes).

Administrator’s honor: keep your word, fulfill your promises, listen to people’s opinions, don’t be afraid to change your mind if the facts require it, don’t adhere to the “frontal psyche” and don’t be proud of the fact that “I never change my opinion.” Be able to admit your mistake in a timely manner and correct the mistake.

The honor of a citizen: do not take revenge for personal reasons, do not provide services at the expense of the state, avoid protectionism if it is not “business” but personal, support capable people only for business reasons, do not write or read anonymous letters.

The honor of a scientist: do not create theories that are not fully confirmed by facts, do not hold positions for which you lack competence, do not be “personal” in your relationship to scientific conclusions and works, do not appropriate other people’s ideas, always accurately and completely refer to predecessors, do not sign works that do not belong to you, do not join groups and cliques, do not intrigue, be able and willing to distinguish between what is scientifically worthwhile and scientific, etc.

It is necessary to create a complete code of scientific morality. Publish it. Find ways to identify its violations.

In the old days, there was a merchant's word and merchant honor. The largest transactions between merchants of the old style were made this way: they went to church and sealed the deal with a prayer service. In St. Petersburg, between the Duma and Gostin, opposite the portico of Ruska, there was a semi-underground chapel where merchants held prayer services.

Merchant's honor!

And in the City of London, major deals were concluded with a handshake (the British rarely resort to handshakes).

And if merchants and businessmen had a sense of honor, then why not develop it in our society?

And one more consideration: diplomats around the world should have a sense of honor. How often now the word, the promise given by diplomats diverges from deeds! And this is all over the world. I just read in the newspapers: arms reductions in one area of arms are being adopted in order to be compensated for in another. They're being cunning! They cheat like petty swindlers, like businessmen who are far from the Russian merchants of the 19th century

Lack of morality brings chaos to social life. Without morality, economic laws no longer apply in society and no diplomatic agreements are possible.

They say that at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745), the French commandant of the fortress came out to meet the British, took off his hat and shouted: “Gentlemen of the English, shoot first!”

And our barbarism has reached the point where we start a war even without declaring war.

Little things of behavior // Notes and observations: from notebooks of different years. – L.: Sov. writer. Leningr. department, 1989. – P. 316 – 347.

Dmitry Likhachev. “Little things of behavior” Notes and observations: from notebooks of different years

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

Letter one BIG IN SMALL

Letter two YOUTH IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE

Letter three THE BIGGEST

Letter Four THE BIGGEST VALUE IS LIFE

Letter five WHAT IS A SENSE OF LIFE

Letter six PURPOSE AND SELF-ESTEEM

Letter seven WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Letter Eight BE FUN BUT NOT BE FUNNY

Letter Nine WHEN SHOULD YOU BE OFFENDED?

Letter ten HONOR TRUE AND FALSE

Letter Eleven ABOUT CAREERISM

Letter Twelve A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT