Likhachev's letters a summary of each. Letters to Young Readers

The book "Letters about the Good and the Beautiful" by one of the outstanding scientists of our time, chairman of the Soviet Cultural Fund, academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev is addressed not to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who have yet to learn life and follow 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 connoisseur of national and world culture, elected an honorary member of many foreign academies, bearing other honorary titles of major scientific institutions, makes this book especially valuable.

And the advice that can be obtained by reading this book relates to almost all aspects of life.

This is a collection of wisdom, this is the speech of a benevolent Teacher, whose pedagogical tact and the ability to speak with students are one of his main talents.

The book was first published in 1985 and has already become a bibliographic rarity.

This book has been translated into different countries are translated into many languages.

Here is what D.S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:

“It is my deep conviction that goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. They are united in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and are the same for all peoples.

Lies are bad for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and disinterestedness are always good.

In my book “Letters on Good and Beautiful”, intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and the only path for a person. He is tested, he is faithful, he is useful - both to a person alone and to the whole society as a whole.

In my letters I do not try to explain what kindness 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 aspire to another - to concrete examples based on the properties of common 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 worldview principles.

Children are very fond of traditions, they are proud of their home, their family, as well as their village. But they willingly understand not only their own, but also other people's traditions, someone else's worldview, they catch the common thing that all people have.

I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (after all, it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least a part of what he can agree with.

Consent between people different nations- this is the most precious and now the most necessary for humanity.

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

For my conversations with the reader, I have chosen the form of letters. This is, of course, a conditional form. In the readers of my letters, I imagine 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 turn to the beauty of the world around us, to the beauty that opens up to us in works of art. I do this because in order to perceive the beauty of the environment, a person himself must be spiritually beautiful, deep, stand on the right positions in life. Try to hold the binoculars in trembling hands - you won't see anything.

Letter one

BIG IN SMALL

In the material world, the big cannot fit in the small. But in the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit in the small, and if you try to fit the small in the big, then the big simply ceases 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 imperceptible and accidental: then only will you be honest in the fulfillment of your great duty. A great goal encompasses the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved by bad means.

The saying “the end justifies the means” is pernicious 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 usurer, he would get money, with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealizable, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. It is impossible to strive for a high goal with low means. We must be equally honest in both big and small things.

General rule: observe the big in the small - it is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most precious thing, and it must be followed in every detail. scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If, however, 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 form of self-advancement, then the scientist will inevitably fail. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When the results of research are exaggerated or even minor juggling of facts and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.

It is necessary to observe the great in everything resolutely. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two

YOUTH IS ALL LIFE

Therefore, take care of youth until old age. Appreciate all the good things that you acquired in your youth, do not squander the wealth of youth. Nothing acquired in youth goes unnoticed. Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Skills in work - too. Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important it is for human happiness! There is nothing more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids labor and effort...

Both in youth and in old age. Good habits of youth will make life easier, bad habits will complicate it and make it more difficult.

And further. There is a Russian proverb: "Take care of honor from a young age." All the deeds committed in youth remain in the memory. The good ones will please, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

letter three

THE BIGGEST

What is the biggest purpose of life? I think: to increase the good in those around us. And goodness is above all the happiness of all people. It is made up of many things, and every time life sets a task for a person, which 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 trifles, is born in childhood and in loved ones.

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

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

The great goal of kindness begins with a small one - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but, expanding, it captures an ever wider range of issues.

It's like circles on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, gain new strength, become higher and higher, and the person, their center, is wiser.

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

Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Mind without kindness is cunning. Cunning, however, gradually languishes and sooner or later turns against the cunning one himself. Therefore, the trick is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all herself wise man. Wisdom brings a sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-term happiness and that calm conscience, which is most valuable in old age.

How to express what is common between my three positions: “Big in small”, “Youth is always” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: "Loyalty". Loyalty to those great principles that a person should be guided by in big and small, loyalty to his impeccable youth, his homeland in broad and in narrow sense this concept, loyalty to family, friends, city, country, people. Ultimately, loyalty is loyalty to the truth - truth-truth and truth-justice.

Letter Four

THE BIGGEST VALUE IS LIFE

Life is first and foremost breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - "stopped breathing." That's what the ancients thought. "Spirit out!" - it means "died".

"Stuffy" happens in the house, "stuffy" and in the moral life. Exhale well all the petty worries, all the fuss of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hampers the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, 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, to look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “veiled beauty” enriches a person spiritually.

To notice beauty in nature, in a village, city, street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of trifles, means to expand the sphere of life, the sphere of that living space in which a person lives.

I have 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! Is not land plot, enclosed by a fence - borders. To expand the limits of life is not suitable for expressing my thought 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 - “eye”. This is all that the eye can take in, that it can grasp. 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 up or that can open up 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 - both in the past, and in the present, and in the future ... And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something that we have not noticed before, which strikes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, originality.

letter five

WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LIFE

You can define the goal of your existence in different ways, but the goal must be - otherwise it will not be life, but vegetation.

You have to have principles in life. It’s good even to state them in a diary, but in order for the diary to be “real”, you can’t show it 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: one must live life with dignity, so that one is not ashamed to remember.

Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, good friend find joy in helping others.

For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to refuse small pleasures and considerable ones too ... To be able to apologize, admit a mistake to others is better than play up and lie.

When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, kept silent.

letter six

PURPOSE AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

When a person consciously or intuitively chooses for himself some kind of Goal, life task, at the same time he 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 elementary 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 ease their suffering in case of illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of his humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a man.

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?

Not to help who should? But how many people don't need help? If you are a doctor, then maybe you have given the patient the wrong diagnosis? This happens with 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 the wrong choice the main task in life. Not promoted - chagrin. I did not have time to buy a stamp for my collection - chagrin. Someone has better furniture or a better car than you - again disappointment, and what else!

Setting a career or acquisition as a goal, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything. And what can a person who rejoices in every good deed have to lose? The only important thing is that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from a smart heart, and not just from the head, would not be only a “principle”.

Therefore, the main life task must necessarily be a task wider than just a personal one, it should not be closed only on one's own successes and failures. It should be dictated by kindness to people, love for the family, for your city, for your people, country, for the whole universe.

Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not rejoice at a simple promotion? By no means! 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 kind of ostentatious exaggeration in himself of his kindness, disinterestedness, significance, there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.

Therefore, I am talking only about the main task of 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 make a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than that of a neighbor. And it's good to buy a car for yourself and your family - it's convenient. Only it is not necessary to turn the secondary into the primary, and it is not necessary that the main objective life exhausted you where it was not necessary. When you need it is another matter. We'll see who's capable of what.

letter seven

WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. Strengthens the family, strengthens friendship, strengthens fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.

Follow a person's life.

A man is born, and the first concern for him is his 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 to a certain extent it was “abstract” - the parents prepared for the appearance of the child, dreamed about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl does not speak yet, but is already trying to take care of the doll, nursing her. Boys, very young, like to pick mushrooms, fish. Berries and mushrooms are also loved by girls. And after all, they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They bring it home, prepare it for the winter.

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

Care is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their old parents, when they can no longer repay the care of their children. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, as it were, merges with concern for the historical memory of the family and the motherland as a whole.

If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.

Care - unites people, strengthens the memory of the past and is directed entirely to the future. This is not a feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of a feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. The person must be caring. An uncaring or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

Morality in the highest degree a feeling of compassion. In compassion there is a consciousness of one's unity with humanity and the world (not only with people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). The 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 full revival and development.

Surprisingly correct thought: "A small step for man, a big step for humanity."

Thousands of examples can be cited: it costs nothing to be kind to one person, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. You can't fix humanity, but it's easy to fix yourself. Feeding a child, escorting an old man across the street, giving up his seat on a tram, doing a good job, 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.

Kindness cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is disinterested and does not pursue the goal of profit and "smart result". It is possible to call a good deed "stupid" only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was "false good", erroneously good, that is, not good. 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. The good and the good.

Letter eight

BE FUNNY BUT NOT BE FUNNY

It is said that the content determines the form. This is true, but the opposite is also true, that the content depends on the form. The well-known 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 inner content.

It was once considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune 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 equal with everyone, not to plunge into oneself and remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one's grief on others, not to spoil the mood of others, to always be even in dealing with people, to be always friendly and cheerful - this is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.

But how fun should you be? Noisy and obsessive fun is tiring for others. The young man who is always “pouring” witticisms ceases to be perceived as worthy of behaving. He becomes a joke. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it means ultimately the loss of humor.

Don't be funny.

Not being funny is not only the ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.

You can be funny in everything, even in the manner of dressing. If a man carefully matches a tie to a shirt, a shirt to a suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. Care must be taken to dress decently, but this care in men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares too much about his appearance is unpleasant. The woman is another matter. Men should only have a hint of fashion in their clothes. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh but not very bright tie are enough. The suit can be old, it doesn't have to be just unkempt.

In a conversation with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and in 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 "soul of society." Observe the measure in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.

Do not suffer from your shortcomings, if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers are excellent speakers, considering every word they say. The best lecturer of Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight strabismus can give significance to the face, lameness - to movements. But if you are shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: shyness is very sweet and not at all funny. It only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome it and feel embarrassed about it. Be simple and indulgent to your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it anger, hostility towards other people, 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 forward in the first place. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in the appearance and behavior of a person than dignity or noisy; there is nothing more ridiculous in a man than excessive concern for his suit and hair, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and jokes, especially if they are repeated.

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

Never loosen up, always be equal with people, respect the people who surround you.

Here are some tips about the seemingly minor - 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 be elegant.

I have a friend who is a little chubby. Honestly, I do not get tired of admiring her elegance on those rare occasions when I meet her in museums on opening days (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 is first of all deceived himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But the lie always betrays itself, the lie is always "felt", and you not only become disgusting, worse - you are ridiculous.

Don't be ridiculous! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you have deceived before on any occasion, and explain why you did it. This will fix 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 be offended only when they want to offend you. If they don’t want to, and the reason for resentment is an accident, then why be offended?

Without getting angry, clear up the misunderstanding - and that's it.

Well, what if they want to offend? Before responding to an insult with an insult, it is worth considering: should one stoop to an insult? 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 action - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something in which you are only partly to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Suppose that you were offended by noble motives - divide your feelings into noble motives that caused an insulting remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you can respond to an insult with great dignity, which will be the nobler than you attach less importance to resentment. 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 intentionally offend you. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention, forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age, due to some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special attention to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.

This is if they “offend” you, but what if you yourself can offend another? In relation to touchy people, one must be especially careful. Resentment 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 essential difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience they are cleansed to one degree or another. Conscience "gnaws". Conscience is not false. It is muffled or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor are completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called the "honor of the uniform." 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 a man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders were removed. And within which a conscientious heart no longer beats.

The “honor of the uniform” forces the leaders to defend false or vicious projects, to insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, to fight with the societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. There are many examples of such upholding of the “honor of the uniform”.

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

PRO CAREERISM

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is looking to 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 also studies as a boy and a young man.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge, to achieve what you aspired to. Maturity. You have to live in real...

But the acceleration persists, and now, instead of teaching, the time comes for many to master the position in life. The movement goes by inertia. A person is constantly striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering the skill, but in arranging oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the original content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Inner restlessness that makes a person unhappy personally and unbearable for others.

Letter 12

A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT

A person must be intelligent! And if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: that is how the circumstances developed. And if Environment does not allow? And if intelligence makes him a "black sheep" among his colleagues, friends, relatives, will it simply interfere with his rapprochement with other people?

No, no and NO! Intelligence is needed under all circumstances. It is necessary both for others and for the person himself.

This is very, very important, and above all, in order to live happily and for a long time - yes, for a long time! For intelligence is equal to moral health, and health is necessary in order to live long - not only physically, but also mentally. In one old book it says: "Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth." This applies both to the whole people and to the individual. This is wise.

But first of all, let's define what intelligence is, and then why it is connected with the commandment of longevity.

Many people think: an intelligent person is one who read a lot, received a good education (and even predominantly humanitarian), traveled a lot, knows several languages.

Meanwhile, you can have all this and be unintelligent, and you can not possess any of this to a large extent, but still be an internally intelligent person.

Education should not be confused with intelligence. Education lives on the old content, intelligence lives on the creation of the new and the awareness of the old as new.

More than that... Deprive a truly intelligent person of all his knowledge, education, deprive him of his very memory. Let him forget everything in the world, he will not know the classics of literature, he will not remember the greatest works of art, he will forget the most important historical events, but if with all this he retains a susceptibility to intellectual values, a love of acquiring knowledge, an interest in history, an aesthetic sense, he will be able to to distinguish a real work of art from a rough "thing" made only to surprise if he can admire the beauty of nature, understand the character and personality of another person, enter into his position, and having understood another person, help him, will not show rudeness, indifference, gloating , envy, but will appreciate the other if he shows respect for the culture of the past, the skills of an educated person, responsibility in solving moral issues, the richness and accuracy of his language - spoken and written - this will be an intelligent person.

Intelligence is not only in knowledge, but in the ability to understand another. It manifests itself in a thousand and a thousand little things: in the ability to argue respectfully, to behave modestly at the table, in the ability to imperceptibly (precisely imperceptibly) help another, to protect nature, not to litter around oneself - not to litter with cigarette butts or swearing, bad ideas (this is also garbage, and what else!)

I knew peasants in the Russian North who were truly intelligent. They observed amazing cleanliness in their homes, knew how to appreciate good songs, knew how to tell “by-life” (that is, what happened to them or others), lived an orderly life, were hospitable and friendly, treated with understanding both other people’s grief and someone else's joy.

Intelligence is the ability to understand, to perceive, it is a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people.

Intelligence must be developed in oneself, trained - mental strength is trained, as physical ones are also trained. A. training is possible and necessary in any conditions.

That the training of physical strength contributes to longevity - this is understandable. Far fewer people understand that for longevity it is also necessary to train spiritual and mental strength.

The fact is that a vicious and evil reaction to the environment, rudeness and misunderstanding of others is a sign of mental and spiritual weakness, human inability to live ... Pushing in a crowded bus - a weak and nervous person, exhausted, reacting incorrectly to everything. Quarrels with neighbors - also a person who does not know how to live, deaf mentally. Aesthetically unreceptive is also an unhappy person. He who does not know how to understand another person, attributing only evil intentions to him, always taking offense at others - this is also a person who impoverishes his life and interferes with the lives of others. Mental weakness leads to physical weakness. I am not a doctor, but I am convinced of this. Years of experience convinced me of this.

Friendliness and kindness make a person not only physically healthy, but also beautiful. Yes, it's beautiful.

The face of a person, distorted by anger, becomes ugly, and the movements of an evil person are devoid of grace - not deliberate grace, but natural, which is much more expensive.

The social duty of a person is to be intelligent. This is a duty to yourself as well. This is the guarantee of his personal happiness and the "aura of goodwill" around him and towards him (that is, addressed to him).

Everything I talk about with young readers in this book is a call to intelligence, to physical and moral health, to the beauty of health. Let us be long-lived, as people and as a people! And the veneration of the father and mother should be understood broadly - as the veneration of all our best in the past, in the past, which is the father and mother of our modernity, the great modernity, to belong to which is great happiness.

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 Cultural Fund, academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. These "letters" are not addressed to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who have yet to learn life and follow 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 connoisseur of Russian and world culture, elected an honorary member of many foreign academies, bearing other honorary titles of 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 can be obtained by reading this book relates to almost all aspects of life.
This is a collection of wisdom, this is the speech of a benevolent Teacher, whose pedagogical tact and the ability to speak with students are 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 numerous letters that we receive from readers.
This book is translated in different countries, translated into many languages.
Here is what D.S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:
“It is my deep conviction that goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. They are united in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and are the same for all peoples.
Lies are bad for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and disinterestedness are always good.
In my book “Letters on Good and Beautiful”, intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and the only path for a person. He is tested, he is faithful, he is useful - both to a person alone and to the whole society as a whole.
In my letters I do not try to explain what kindness 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 worldview principles.
Children are very fond of traditions, they are proud of their home, their family, as well as their village. But they willingly understand not only their own, but also other people's traditions, someone else's worldview, they catch the common thing that all people have.
I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (after all, it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least a part of what he can agree with.
Consent between people, different peoples is the most precious and now the most necessary for humanity.

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

Letter one
BIG IN SMALL

In the material world, the big cannot fit in the small. But in the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit in the small, and if you try to fit the small in the big, then the big simply ceases 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 imperceptible and accidental: then only will you be honest in the fulfillment of your great duty. A great goal encompasses the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved by bad means.
The saying “the end justifies the means” is pernicious 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 usurer, he would get money, with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealizable, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. It is impossible to strive for a high goal with low means. We must be equally honest in both big and small things.
The general rule: to observe the big in the small - it is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most precious thing, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If, however, one strives in science for “small” goals – for proof by “force”, contrary to facts, for the “interestingness” of conclusions, for their effectiveness, or for any form of self-advancement, then the scientist will inevitably fail. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When the results of research are exaggerated or even minor juggling of facts and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.
It is necessary to observe the great in everything resolutely. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two
YOUTH IS ALL LIFE

letter three
THE BIGGEST

What is the biggest purpose of life? I think: to increase the good in those around us. And goodness is above all the happiness of all people. It is made up of many things, and every time life sets a task for a person, which 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 trifles, is born in childhood and in loved ones.
A child loves his mother and his father, brothers and sisters, his family, his home. Gradually expanding, his affections extend to the school, village, city, all of his country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love a person in a person.
You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. You don't have to hate every other family because you love your own. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a profound difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for one's country, in the second - hatred for all others.
The great goal of kindness begins with a small one - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but, expanding, it captures an ever wider range of issues.
It's like circles on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, gain new strength, become higher and higher, and the person, their center, is wiser.
Love should not be unaccountable, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings, to deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in those around you. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind delight (you can’t even call it love) can lead to terrible consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can bring up a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany ("Germany is above all" - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy - to fascism.
Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Intelligence without kindness is cunning. Cunning, however, gradually languishes and sooner or later turns against the cunning one himself. Therefore, the trick is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings a sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-term happiness and that calm conscience, which is most valuable in old age.
How to express what is common between my three positions: “Big in small”, “Youth is always” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: "Loyalty". Loyalty to those great principles that a person should be guided by 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 inhale deeply, you need to exhale well. First of all, learn to exhale, to get rid of the “exhaust air”.
Life is first and foremost breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - "stopped breathing." That's what the ancients thought. "Spirit out!" It means "died".
"Stuffy" happens in the house, "stuffy" and in the moral life. Exhale well all the petty worries, all the fuss of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hampers the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, 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, to look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “veiled beauty” enriches a person spiritually.
To notice beauty in nature, in a village, city, street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of trifles, means to expand the sphere of life, the sphere of that living space in which a person lives.
I have 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 land plot fenced with a fence - borders. To expand the limits of life is not suitable for expressing my thought 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 - “eye”. This is all that the eye can take in, that it can grasp. 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 up or that can open up 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 - both in the past, and in the present, and in the future ... And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something that we have not noticed before, which strikes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, originality.

letter five
WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LIFE

You can define the purpose of your existence in different ways, but there must be a purpose - otherwise it will not be life, but vegetation.
You have to have principles in life. It’s good even to state them in a diary, but for the diary to be “real”, you can’t show it 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: one must live life with dignity, so that one is not ashamed to remember.
Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, a good friend, to find joy in helping others.
For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to refuse small pleasures and considerable ones too ... To be able to apologize, admit a mistake to others is better than play up and lie.
When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, kept silent.

letter six
PURPOSE AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

When a person consciously or intuitively chooses for himself some kind of Goal, life task, at the same time he 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 elementary 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 ease their suffering in case of illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of his humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a man.
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?
Not to help who should? But how many people don't need help? If you are a doctor, then maybe you have given the patient the wrong diagnosis? This happens with 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 the wrong choice of the main task in life. Not promoted - disappointment. I did not have time to buy a stamp for my collection - disappointment. Someone has better furniture or a better car than you - again disappointment, and what else!
Setting a career or acquisition as a goal, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything. And what can a person who rejoices in every good deed have to lose? The only important thing is that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from a smart heart, and not just from the head, would not be only a “principle”.
Therefore, the main life task must necessarily be a task wider than just a personal one, it should not be closed only on one's own successes and failures. It should be dictated by kindness to people, love for the family, for your city, for your people, country, for the whole universe.
Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not rejoice at a simple promotion? By no means! A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant for me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some kind of ostentatious exaggeration in himself of his kindness, disinterestedness, significance, there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.
Therefore, I am talking only about the main task of 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 make a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than that of a neighbor. And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient. Just do not turn the secondary into the primary, and do not let the main goal of life exhaust you where it is not necessary. When you need it is another matter. We'll see who's capable of what.

letter seven
WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. Strengthens the family, strengthens friendship, strengthens fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.
Follow a person's life.
A man is born, and the first concern for him is his 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 to a certain extent it was “abstract” - the parents prepared for the appearance of the child, dreamed about him).
The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl does not speak yet, but is already trying to take care of the doll, nursing her. Boys, very young, like to pick mushrooms, fish. Berries and mushrooms are also loved by girls. And after all, they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They bring it home, prepare it for the winter.
Gradually, children become objects of ever higher care and they themselves begin to show real and wide care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care has placed them, about their village, city and country ...
Care is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their old parents, when they can no longer repay the care of their children. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, as it were, merges with concern for the historical memory of the family and the motherland as a whole.
If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.
Caring unites people, strengthens the memory of the past and is directed entirely towards the future. This is not a feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of a feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. The person must be caring. An uncaring or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.
Morality is characterized by a feeling of compassion in the highest degree. In compassion there is a consciousness of one's unity with humanity and the world (not only with people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). The 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 full revival and development.
Surprisingly correct thought: "A small step for man, a big step for humanity."
Thousands of examples can be cited: it costs nothing to be kind to one person, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. You can't fix humanity, but it's easy to fix yourself. Feeding a child, escorting an old man across the street, giving up his seat on a tram, doing a good job, 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.
Kindness cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is disinterested and does not pursue the goal of profit and "smart result". It is possible to call a good deed "stupid" only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was "false good", erroneously good, that is, not good. 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. The good and the good.

Letter eight
BE FUNNY BUT NOT BE FUNNY

It is said that the content determines the form. This is true, but the opposite is also true, that the content depends on the form. The well-known 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 inner content.
It was once considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune 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 equal with everyone, not to plunge into oneself and remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one's grief on others, not to spoil the mood of others, to always be even in dealing with people, to be always friendly and cheerful - this is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.
But how fun should you be? Noisy and obsessive fun is tiring for others. The young man who is always “pouring” witticisms ceases to be perceived as worthy of behaving. He becomes a joke. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it means ultimately the loss of humor.
Don't be funny.
Not being funny is not only the ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.
You can be funny in everything, even in the manner of dressing. If a man carefully matches a tie to a shirt, a shirt to a suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. Care must be taken to dress decently, but this care in men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares too much about his appearance is unpleasant. A woman is another matter. Men should only have a hint of fashion in their clothes. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh but not very bright tie are enough. The suit can be old, it doesn't have to be just unkempt.
In a conversation with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and in 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 "soul of society." Observe the measure in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.
Do not suffer from your shortcomings, if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers are excellent speakers, considering every word they say. The best lecturer of Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight strabismus can give significance to the face, lameness - to movements. But if you are shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: shyness is very sweet and not at all funny. It only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome it and feel embarrassed about it. Be simple and indulgent to your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it anger, hostility towards other people, 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 forward in the first place. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in the appearance and behavior of a person than dignity or noisy; there is nothing more ridiculous in a man than excessive concern for his suit and hair, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and jokes, especially if they are repeated.
In behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest, quiet.
Never loosen up, always be equal with people, respect the people who surround you.
Here are some tips about what seems to be secondary - 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 be elegant.
I have a friend who is a little chubby. Honestly, I do not get tired of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her in museums on opening days (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 is first of all deceived himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But the lie always betrays itself, the lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse - you are ridiculous.
Don't be ridiculous! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you have deceived before on any occasion, and explain why you did it. This will fix 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 be offended only when they want to offend you. If they don’t want to, and the reason for resentment is an accident, then why be offended?
Without getting angry, clear up the misunderstanding - and that's it.
Well, what if they want to offend? Before responding to an insult with an insult, it is worth considering: should one stoop to an insult? 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 action - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something in which you are only partially to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Suppose that you were offended from noble motives - divide your feelings into noble motives that caused an insulting remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you will be able to respond to an insult with great dignity, which will be the nobler than you attach less importance to resentment. To certain limits, of course.
In general, excessive touchiness is a sign of a lack of intelligence or some kind of complexes. Be smart.
There is a good English rule: to be offended only when you want offend intentionally offend. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention, forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age, due to some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special attention to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.
This is if they “offend” you, but what if you yourself can offend another? In relation to touchy people, one must be especially careful. Resentment 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 essential difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience they are cleansed to one degree or another. Conscience "gnaws". Conscience is not false. It is muffled or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor are completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called the "honor of the uniform." 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 a man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders were removed. And within which a conscientious heart no longer beats.
The “honor of the uniform” forces the leaders to defend false or vicious projects, to insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, to fight with the societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. There are many examples of such upholding of the “honor of the uniform”.
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
PRO CAREERISM

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is looking to 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 also studies as a boy and a young man.
And the time has come to apply your knowledge, to achieve what you aspired to. Maturity. You have to live in real...
But the acceleration persists, and now, instead of teaching, the time comes for many to master the position in life. The movement goes by inertia. A person is constantly striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering the skill, but in arranging oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the original content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Inner restlessness that makes a person unhappy personally and unbearable for others.

Letter 12
A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT

A person must be intelligent! And if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: that is how the circumstances developed. What if the environment doesn't allow it? And if intelligence makes him a "black sheep" among his colleagues, friends, relatives, will it simply interfere with his rapprochement with other people?
No, no and NO! Intelligence is needed under all circumstances. It is necessary both for others and for the person himself.
This is very, very important, and above all, in order to live happily and for a long time - yes, for a long time! For intelligence is equal to moral health, and health is necessary to live long - not only physically, but also mentally. In one old book it says: "Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth." This applies both to the whole people and to the individual. This is wise.
But first of all, let's define what intelligence is, and then why it is connected with the commandment of longevity.
Many people think that an intelligent person is one who read a lot, received a good education (and even predominantly in the humanities), traveled a lot, knows several languages.
Meanwhile, you can have all this and be unintelligent, and you can not possess any of this to a large extent, but still be an internally intelligent person.
Education should not be confused with intelligence. Education lives on the old content, intelligence lives on the creation of the new and the awareness of the old as new.
More than that... Deprive a truly intelligent person of all his knowledge, education, deprive him of his very memory. Let him forget everything in the world, he will not know the classics of literature, he will not remember the greatest works of art, he will forget the most important historical events, but if with all this he retains a susceptibility to intellectual values, a love of acquiring knowledge, an interest in history, an aesthetic sense, he will be able to to distinguish a real work of art from a rough "thing" made only to surprise if he can admire the beauty of nature, understand the character and personality of another person, enter into his position, and having understood another person, help him, will not show rudeness, indifference, gloating , envy, but will appreciate another at its true worth if he shows respect for the culture of the past, the skills of an educated person, responsibility in solving moral issues, the richness and accuracy of his language - spoken and written - this will be an intelligent person.
Intelligence is not only in knowledge, but in the ability to understand another. It manifests itself in a thousand and thousand little things: in the ability to argue respectfully, to behave modestly at the table, in the ability to imperceptibly (precisely imperceptibly) help another, to protect nature, not to litter around oneself - not to litter with cigarette butts or swearing, bad ideas (this is also garbage, and what else!)
I knew peasants in the Russian North who were truly intelligent. They observed amazing cleanliness in their homes, knew how to appreciate good songs, knew how to tell “by-life” (that is, what happened to them or others), lived an orderly life, were hospitable and friendly, treated with understanding both other people’s grief and someone else's joy.
Intelligence is the ability to understand, to perceive, it is a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people.
Intelligence must be developed in oneself, trained - mental strength is trained, as physical ones are also trained. A. training is possible and necessary in any conditions.
That physical strength training contributes to longevity is understandable. Much less people understand that for longevity, the training of spiritual and spiritual forces is also necessary.
The fact is that a vicious and evil reaction to the environment, rudeness and misunderstanding of others is a sign of mental and spiritual weakness, human inability to live ... Pushing in a crowded bus - a weak and nervous person, exhausted, reacting incorrectly to everything. Quarrels with neighbors - also a person who does not know how to live, deaf mentally. Aesthetically unreceptive is also an unhappy person. He who does not know how to understand another person, attributing only evil intentions to him, always taking offense at others - this is also a person who impoverishes his life and interferes with the lives of others. Mental weakness leads to physical weakness. I am not a doctor, but I am convinced of this. Years of experience convinced me of this.
Friendliness and kindness make a person not only physically healthy, but also beautiful. Yes, it's beautiful.
The face of a person, distorted by anger, becomes ugly, and the movements of an evil person are devoid of grace - not deliberate grace, but natural, which is much more expensive.
The social duty of a person is to be intelligent. This is a duty to yourself as well. This is the guarantee of his personal happiness and the "aura of goodwill" around him and towards him (that is, addressed to him).
Everything I talk about with young readers in this book is a call to intelligence, to physical and moral health, to the beauty of health. Let us be long-lived, as people and as a people! And the veneration of father and mother should be understood broadly - as the veneration of all our best in the past, in the past, which is the father and mother of our modernity, the great modernity, to belong to which is great happiness.

Letter thirteen
ABOUT EDUCATION

Letter fourteen
ON BAD AND GOOD INFLUENCES

In the life of every person there is a curious age-related phenomenon: third-party influences. These third-party influences are usually extremely strong when a boy or girl begins to become adults - at a turning point. Then the force of these influences passes. But young men and women must remember about influences, their "pathology", and sometimes even normality.
Maybe there is no particular pathology here: just a growing person, a boy or a girl, wants to quickly become an adult, independent. But, becoming independent, they seek to free themselves first of all from the influence of their family. Ideas about their “childishness” are associated with their family. The family itself is partly to blame for this, which does not notice that their “child”, if not, then wants to be an adult. But the habit of obeying has not yet passed, and now he "obeys" the one who recognized him as an adult - sometimes a person who himself has not yet become an adult and is truly independent.
Influences are both good and bad. Remember this. But bad influences are to be feared. Because a person with a will does not give in to bad influence, he chooses his own path. A weak-willed person succumbs to bad influences. Beware of unconscious influences: especially if you still do not know how to accurately, clearly distinguish good from bad, if you like the praises and approvals of your comrades, whatever these praises and approvals may be: if only they praised.

Letter fifteen
ABOUT ENVY

If a heavyweight sets a new world record in weightlifting, do you envy him? How about a gymnast? And if the champion in diving from a tower into the water?
Start listing everything that you know and that you can envy: you will notice that the closer to your work, 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 a thing hidden by other players while blindfolded. It's the same with envy. The closer the achievement of the other is to your specialty, to your interests, the more the burning danger of envy increases.
A terrible feeling, from which the one who envies suffers first of all.
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
you will never be jealous. Envy develops primarily where you are
yourself a stranger. Envy develops primarily where you are not
distinguish yourself from others. Envy means you haven't found yourself.

Letter Sixteen
ABOUT GREED

I am not satisfied with the dictionary definitions of the word "greed". “The desire to satisfy an excessive, insatiable desire for something” or “stinginess, greed” (this is from one of the best dictionaries of the Russian language - four volumes, its first volume was published in 1957). In principle, this definition of the four-volume "Dictionary" is correct, but it does not convey the feeling of disgust that seizes me when I observe manifestations of greed in a person. Greed is a forgetfulness of one’s own dignity, it is an attempt to put one’s material interests above oneself, it is a spiritual crookedness, a terrible orientation of the mind, which is extremely limiting, mental witherness, pity, an icteric view of the world, jaundice towards oneself and others, forgetfulness of fellowship. Greed in a person is not even funny, it is humiliating. She is hostile to herself and others. Another thing is reasonable thrift; greed is its distortion, its disease. Thrift controls the mind, greed controls the mind.

Letter Seventeen
BE ABLE TO ARGUMENT WITH Dignity

In life, you have to argue a lot, object, refute the opinions of others, disagree.
A person shows his upbringing best of all when he leads a discussion, argues, defending his convictions.
In a dispute, intelligence, logical thinking, politeness, the ability to respect people and ... self-respect are immediately revealed.
If in a dispute a person cares not so much about the truth as about victory over his opponent, does not know how to listen to his opponent, seeks to “shout” the opponent, frighten him with accusations, this is an empty person, and his argument is empty.
How does a smart and polite debater argue?
First of all, he carefully listens to his opponent - a person who does not agree with his opinion. Moreover, if something is not clear to him in the positions of his opponent, he asks him additional questions. And one more thing: even if all the opponent's positions are clear, he will choose the weakest points in the opponent's statements and ask again whether this is his opponent's assertion.
By carefully listening to his opponent and asking again, the arguing achieves three goals: 1) the opponent will not be able to object that he was “misunderstood”, that he “did not assert this”; 2) arguing with his attentive attitude to the opinion of the enemy immediately wins sympathy among those who are watching the dispute; 3) the arguing, listening - and asking again, gains time in order to consider their own objections (and this is also important), to clarify their positions in the dispute.

End of free trial.

DEAR FRIENDS!

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 Cultural Fund, academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. These "letters" are not addressed to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who have yet to learn life and follow 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 connoisseur of Russian and world culture, elected an honorary member of many foreign academies, bearing other honorary titles of major scientific institutions, makes this book especially valuable.

And the advice that can be obtained by reading this book relates to almost all aspects of life.

This is a collection of wisdom, this is the speech of a benevolent Teacher, whose pedagogical tact and the ability to speak with students are 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 numerous letters that we receive from readers.

This book is translated in different countries, translated into many languages.

Here is what D.S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:

“It is my deep conviction that goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. They are united in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and are the same for all peoples.

Lies are bad for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and disinterestedness are always good.

In my book “Letters on Good and Beautiful”, intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and the only path for a person. He is tested, he is faithful, he is useful - both to a person alone and to the whole society as a whole.

In my letters I do not try to explain what kindness 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 worldview principles.

Children are very fond of traditions, they are proud of their home, their family, as well as their village. But they willingly understand not only their own, but also other people's traditions, someone else's worldview, they catch the common thing that all people have.

I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (after all, it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least a part of what he can agree with.

Consent between people, different peoples is the most precious and now the most necessary for humanity.

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

For my conversations with the reader, I have chosen the form of letters. This is, of course, a conditional form. In the readers of my letters, I imagine 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 turn to the beauty of the world around us, to the beauty that opens up to us in works of art. I do this because in order to perceive the beauty of the environment, a person himself must be spiritually beautiful, deep, stand on the right positions in life. Try to hold the binoculars in trembling hands - you will not see anything.

Letter one

BIG IN SMALL

In the material world, the big cannot fit in the small. But in the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit in the small, and if you try to fit the small in the big, then the big simply ceases 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 imperceptible and accidental: then only will you be honest in the fulfillment of your great duty. A great goal encompasses the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved by bad means.

The saying “the end justifies the means” is pernicious 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 usurer, he would get money, with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealizable, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. It is impossible to strive for a high goal with low means. We must be equally honest in both big and small things.

The general rule: to observe the big in the small - it is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most precious thing, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If, however, one strives in science for “small” goals – for proof by “force”, contrary to facts, for the “interestingness” of conclusions, for their effectiveness, or for any form of self-advancement, then the scientist will inevitably fail. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When the results of research are exaggerated or even minor juggling of facts and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.

It is necessary to observe the great in everything resolutely. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two

YOUTH IS ALL LIFE

Therefore, take care of youth until old age. Appreciate all the good things that you acquired in your youth, do not squander the wealth of youth. Nothing acquired in youth goes unnoticed. Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Work habits, too. Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important it is for human happiness! There is nothing more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids labor and effort...

Both in youth and in old age. Good habits of youth will make life easier, bad habits will complicate it and make it more difficult.

And further. There is a Russian proverb: "Take care of honor from a young age." All the deeds committed in youth remain in the memory. The good ones will please, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

letter three

THE BIGGEST

What is the biggest purpose of life? I think: to increase the good in those around us. And goodness is above all the happiness of all people. It is made up of many things, and every time life sets a task for a person, which 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 trifles, is born in childhood and in loved ones.

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

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

The publishing house would like to thank Vera Sergeevna Tolts-Zilitinkevich for providing the photographs.

© D.S. Likhachev, heirs, 2017

© Design. AST Publishing House LLC, 2017

Part 1
Good Letters

Letters to Young Readers

For my conversations with the reader, I have chosen the form of letters. This is, of course, a conditional form. In the readers of my letters, I imagine 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 turn to the beauty of the world around us, to the beauty that opens up to us in works of art. I do this because in order to perceive the beauty of the environment, a person himself must be spiritually beautiful, deep, stand on the right positions in life. Try to hold the binoculars in trembling hands - you will not see anything.

Letter one
Big in small

In the material world, you cannot fit the big in the small, but in the sphere of spiritual values ​​it is not so: much more can fit in the small, and if you try to fit the small in the big, then the big simply ceases 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 imperceptible and accidental, then only will you be honest in the fulfillment of your great duty. A great goal encompasses the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved by bad means.

The saying “the end justifies the means” is pernicious 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 usurer, he would get money, with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealizable, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. It is impossible to strive for a high goal with low means. We must be equally honest in both big and small things.

The general rule: to observe the big in the small - it is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most precious thing, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If, however, one strives in science for “small” goals – for proof by “force”, contrary to facts, for spectacular results, or for any form of self-advancement – ​​then the scientist will inevitably fail. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When the results of research are exaggerated or even minor juggling of facts and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.

It is necessary to observe the big in the small in everything resolutely. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two
Youth is all life

Therefore, take care of youth until old age. Appreciate all the good things that you acquired in your youth, do not squander the wealth of youth. Nothing acquired in youth goes unnoticed. Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Work habits, too. Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important it is for human happiness! There is nothing more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids labor and effort...

Both in youth and in old age. Good habits of youth will make life easier, bad habits will complicate it and make it more difficult.

And further. There is a Russian proverb: "Take care of honor from a young age." All the deeds committed in youth remain in the memory. The good ones will please, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

letter three
The biggest

What is the biggest purpose of life? I think: to increase the good in those around us. And goodness is above all the happiness of all people. It is made up of many things, and every time life sets a task for a person, which 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 trifles, is born in childhood and among loved ones.

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

You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. It is impossible, there is no need to hate someone else's family, because you love your own. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a profound difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for one's country, in the second - hatred for all others.

The great goal of kindness begins with a small one - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but, expanding, it captures an ever wider range of issues.

It's like circles on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, gain new strength, become higher and higher, and the person, their center, is wiser.

Love should not be unaccountable, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings, to deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in those around you. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind delight (you can’t even call it love) can lead to terrible consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can bring up a moral monster.

Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Intelligence without kindness is cunning. Cunning, however, sooner or later turns against the cunning one himself. Therefore, the trick is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings a sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-term happiness and that calm conscience, which is most valuable in old age.

How can I express what is common between my three propositions: "Big in the small", "Youth is the whole life" and "The greatest"? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: "Loyalty". Loyalty to those great principles that a person should be guided by 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 greatest value is life

Life is first and foremost breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - "stopped breathing." That's what the ancients thought. "Spirit out!" It means "died".

It is stuffy in the house, "stuffy" in the moral life. It is necessary to “breathe out” all the petty worries, all the fuss of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hampers the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, 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.

You have to be open to people, tolerant of people, look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply good, "veiled beauty" enriches a person spiritually.

To notice beauty in nature, in a village, a city, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of trifles, means to expand the sphere of life, the sphere of that living space in which a person lives.

I have been looking for this word - "sphere" for a long time. At first I said to myself: “We need to expand the boundaries of life,” but life has no boundaries! This is not a land plot fenced with a fence - borders. “To expand the limits of life” is not suitable for expressing my thought for the same reason. “Expanding the horizons of life” is already better, but still something is not right. Maximilian Voloshin loved good word- "okoe". This is all that the eye can take in, that it can grasp. 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 up or that can open up 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 - both in the past, and in the present, and in the future ... And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something that we have not noticed before, which strikes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, originality.

letter five
What is the sense of life

You can define the purpose of your existence in different ways, but there must be a purpose - otherwise it will not be life, but vegetation.

You have to have principles in life. It’s good even to state them in a diary, but for the diary to be “real”, you can’t show it 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: one must live life with dignity, so that one is not ashamed to remember.

Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, a good friend, to find joy in helping others.

For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to refuse small pleasures and considerable ones too ... To be able to apologize, admit a mistake to others is better than play up and lie.

When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, kept silent. Lies are always visible. A special feeling tells people whether they are lying or telling the truth. But sometimes there is no evidence, and more often - you don’t want to get involved ...

Nature has been creating man for many millions of years, and this creative, constructive activity of nature must, I think, be respected, we must live life with dignity, and live in such a way that nature, working on our creation, is not offended. In our life we ​​must support this creative trend, the creativity of nature, and in no case support everything destructive that exists in life. How to understand this, how to apply it to your life - each person should answer this individually, in relation to his abilities, his interests, etc. But you need to live by creating, maintaining creativity in life. Life is varied, and consequently, creation is also varied, and our striving for creativity in life should also be varied according to our abilities and inclinations. How do you think?

In life, there is some level of happiness from which we count, as we count height from sea level.

Starting point. So, the task of each person, both large and small, is to increase this level of happiness. And personal happiness also does not remain outside of these worries. But mostly those around you, those who are closer to you, whose level of happiness can be increased simply, easily, without worries. And besides, it means raising the level of happiness of your country and all of humanity, after all.

The methods are different, but something is available for everyone. If the solution of state issues is not available, which always increases the level of happiness, if they are wisely resolved, then this level of happiness can be increased within your working environment, within your school, in the circle of your friends and comrades. Everyone has such an opportunity.

Life is, first of all, creativity, but this does not mean that every person, in order to live, must be born an artist, ballerina or scientist. Creativity can also be created. You can simply create a good atmosphere around you, as they say now, an aura of goodness around you. For example, a person can bring into society an atmosphere of suspicion, some kind of painful silence, or he can immediately bring joy, light. This is what creativity is. Creativity is continuous. So life is eternal creation. A person is born and leaves a memory behind. What kind of memory will he leave behind? This needs to be taken care of not only from a certain age, but, I think, from the very beginning, since a person can die at any moment and at any moment. And it is very important what kind of memory he leaves about himself.

letter six
Purpose and self-esteem

When a person consciously or intuitively chooses a goal, a life task for himself, at the same time he 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 elementary 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 ease their suffering in case of illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of his humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a man.

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? Not to help who should? But how many people don't need help? If you are a doctor, then maybe you have given the patient the wrong diagnosis? This happens with 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 the wrong choice of the main task in life. Not promoted - disappointment. I did not have time to buy a stamp for my collection - disappointment. Someone has better furniture or a better car than you - again disappointment, and what else!

Setting a career or acquisition as a goal, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything. And what can a person who rejoices in every good deed have to lose? It is only important that the good that a person does be his inner need, come from a smart heart, and not just from the head, it would not be only a “principle”.

Therefore, the main life task must necessarily be a task wider than just a personal one, it should not be closed only on one's own successes and failures. It should be dictated by kindness to people, love for the family, for your city, for your people, country, for the whole universe.

Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not rejoice at a simple promotion? By no means! A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant for me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some kind of ostentatious exaggeration of his kindness, disinterestedness, significance, there is some kind of contempt for other people, a desire stand out.

Therefore, I am talking only about the main task of 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 make a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than that of a neighbor. And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient. Just do not turn the secondary into the primary, and do not let the main goal of life exhaust you where it is not necessary. When you need it is another matter. We'll see who's capable of what.

letter seven
What unites people

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. Strengthens the family, strengthens friendship, strengthens fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.

Follow a person's life.

A man is born, and the first concern for him is his 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 to a certain extent it was “abstract” - the parents prepared for the appearance of the child, dreamed about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl does not speak yet, but is already trying to take care of the doll, nursing her. Boys, very young, like to pick mushrooms, fish. Berries and mushrooms are also loved by girls. And after all, they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They bring it home, prepare it for the winter.

Gradually, children become objects of ever higher care and they themselves begin to show real and wide care - not only about the family, but also about the school, about their village, city and country ...

Care is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their old parents, when they can no longer repay the care of their children. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, as it were, merges with concern for the historical memory of the family and the motherland as a whole.

If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.

Care unites people, strengthens the memory of the past and is directed entirely to the future. This is not a feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of a feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. The person must be caring. An uncaring or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

Morality is characterized by a feeling of compassion in the highest degree. In compassion there is a consciousness of one's unity with humanity and the world (not only with people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). The 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, a people, a country. Universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its full revival and development.

Surprisingly correct thought: "A small step for man, a big step for humanity." Thousands of examples can be cited: it costs nothing to be kind to one person, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. You can't fix humanity, but it's easy to fix yourself. Feeding a child, moving an old man across the road, giving up your seat on a tram, doing a good job, 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.

Kindness cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is disinterested and does not pursue the goal of profit and "smart result". It is possible to call a good deed "stupid" only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was "false good", erroneously good, that is, not good. 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. The good and the good.

Letter eight
Be funny but not funny

It is said that the content determines the form. This is true, but the opposite is also true, that the content depends on the form. The well-known 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 inner content.

It was once considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune 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 equal with everyone, not to plunge into oneself and remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one's grief on others, not to spoil the mood of others, to always be even in dealing with people, to be always friendly and cheerful - this is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.

But how fun should you be? Noisy and obsessive fun is tiring for others. A young man who is always spouting witticisms ceases to be perceived as worthy of behaving. He becomes a joke. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it means ultimately the loss of a sense of humor.

Don't be funny.

Not being funny is not only the ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.

You can be funny in everything, even in the manner of dressing. If a man chooses too carefully a tie to a shirt, a shirt to a suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. Care must be taken to dress decently, but this care in men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares too much about his appearance is unpleasant. The woman is another matter. Men should only have a hint of fashion in their clothes. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh but not very bright tie are enough. The suit can be old, it just doesn't have to be unkempt.

In a conversation with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and in time. Take up as little space as possible. Therefore, at dinner, do not put your elbows on the table, embarrassing your neighbor. Do not try too hard to be the "soul of society." Observe the measure in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.

Don't worry about your shortcomings if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers are excellent speakers, considering every word they say. The best lecturer of Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight strabismus can give significance to the face, lameness - to movements. And if you are shy, don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: shyness is very sweet and not at all funny. It only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome it and feel embarrassed about it. Be simple and indulgent to your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it anger, hostility towards other people, 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 forward in the first place. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in the appearance and behavior of a person than dignity or noisy; there is nothing more ridiculous in a man than excessive concern for his suit and hair, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and jokes, especially if they are repeated.

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

Never loosen up, always be equal with people, respect the people who surround you.

Don't be afraid of your physical imperfections. Carry yourself with dignity and you will be elegant.

I have a friend who is a little chubby. Honestly, I do not get tired of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her in museums on opening days (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 is first of all deceived himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But the lie always betrays itself, the lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse - you are ridiculous.

Don't be ridiculous! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you have deceived before on any occasion, and explain why you did it. This will fix 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".

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 Cultural Fund, academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. These "letters" are not addressed to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who have yet to learn life and follow 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 connoisseur of Russian and world culture, elected an honorary member of many foreign academies, bearing other honorary titles of 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 can be obtained by reading this book relates to almost all aspects of life.
This is a collection of wisdom, this is the speech of a benevolent Teacher, whose pedagogical tact and the ability to speak with students are 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 numerous letters that we receive from readers.
This book is translated in different countries, translated into many languages.
Here is what D.S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:
“It is my deep conviction that goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. They are united in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and are the same for all peoples.
Lies are bad for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and disinterestedness are always good.
In my book “Letters on Good and Beautiful”, intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and the only path for a person. He is tested, he is faithful, he is useful - both to a person alone and to the whole society as a whole.
In my letters I do not try to explain what kindness 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 worldview principles.
Children are very fond of traditions, they are proud of their home, their family, as well as their village. But they willingly understand not only their own, but also other people's traditions, someone else's worldview, they catch the common thing that all people have.
I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (after all, it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least a part of what he can agree with.
Consent between people, different peoples is the most precious and now the most necessary for humanity.

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

Letter one
BIG IN SMALL

In the material world, the big cannot fit in the small. But in the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit in the small, and if you try to fit the small in the big, then the big simply ceases 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 imperceptible and accidental: then only will you be honest in the fulfillment of your great duty. A great goal encompasses the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved by bad means.
The saying “the end justifies the means” is pernicious 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 usurer, he would get money, with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealizable, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. It is impossible to strive for a high goal with low means. We must be equally honest in both big and small things.
The general rule: to observe the big in the small - it is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most precious thing, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If, however, one strives in science for “small” goals – for proof by “force”, contrary to facts, for the “interestingness” of conclusions, for their effectiveness, or for any form of self-advancement, then the scientist will inevitably fail. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When the results of research are exaggerated or even minor juggling of facts and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.
It is necessary to observe the great in everything resolutely. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two
YOUTH IS ALL LIFE

letter three
THE BIGGEST

What is the biggest purpose of life? I think: to increase the good in those around us. And goodness is above all the happiness of all people. It is made up of many things, and every time life sets a task for a person, which 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 trifles, is born in childhood and in loved ones.
A child loves his mother and his father, brothers and sisters, his family, his home. Gradually expanding, his affections extend to the school, village, city, all of his country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love a person in a person.
You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. You don't have to hate every other family because you love your own. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a profound difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for one's country, in the second - hatred for all others.
The great goal of kindness begins with a small one - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but, expanding, it captures an ever wider range of issues.
It's like circles on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, gain new strength, become higher and higher, and the person, their center, is wiser.
Love should not be unaccountable, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings, to deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in those around you. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind delight (you can’t even call it love) can lead to terrible consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can bring up a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany ("Germany is above all" - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy - to fascism.
Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Intelligence without kindness is cunning. Cunning, however, gradually languishes and sooner or later turns against the cunning one himself. Therefore, the trick is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings a sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-term happiness and that calm conscience, which is most valuable in old age.
How to express what is common between my three positions: “Big in small”, “Youth is always” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: "Loyalty". Loyalty to those great principles that a person should be guided by 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 inhale deeply, you need to exhale well. First of all, learn to exhale, to get rid of the “exhaust air”.
Life is first and foremost breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - "stopped breathing." That's what the ancients thought. "Spirit out!" It means "died".
"Stuffy" happens in the house, "stuffy" and in the moral life. Exhale well all the petty worries, all the fuss of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hampers the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, 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, to look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “veiled beauty” enriches a person spiritually.
To notice beauty in nature, in a village, city, street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of trifles, means to expand the sphere of life, the sphere of that living space in which a person lives.
I have 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 land plot fenced with a fence - borders. To expand the limits of life is not suitable for expressing my thought 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 - “eye”. This is all that the eye can take in, that it can grasp. 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 up or that can open up 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 - both in the past, and in the present, and in the future ... And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something that we have not noticed before, which strikes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, originality.

letter five
WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LIFE

You can define the purpose of your existence in different ways, but there must be a purpose - otherwise it will not be life, but vegetation.
You have to have principles in life. It’s good even to state them in a diary, but for the diary to be “real”, you can’t show it 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: one must live life with dignity, so that one is not ashamed to remember.
Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, a good friend, to find joy in helping others.
For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to refuse small pleasures and considerable ones too ... To be able to apologize, admit a mistake to others is better than play up and lie.
When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, kept silent.

letter six
PURPOSE AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

When a person consciously or intuitively chooses for himself some kind of Goal, life task, at the same time he 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 elementary 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 ease their suffering in case of illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of his humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a man.
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?
Not to help who should? But how many people don't need help? If you are a doctor, then maybe you have given the patient the wrong diagnosis? This happens with 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 the wrong choice of the main task in life. Not promoted - disappointment. I did not have time to buy a stamp for my collection - disappointment. Someone has better furniture or a better car than you - again disappointment, and what else!
Setting a career or acquisition as a goal, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything. And what can a person who rejoices in every good deed have to lose? The only important thing is that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from a smart heart, and not just from the head, would not be only a “principle”.
Therefore, the main life task must necessarily be a task wider than just a personal one, it should not be closed only on one's own successes and failures. It should be dictated by kindness to people, love for the family, for your city, for your people, country, for the whole universe.
Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not rejoice at a simple promotion? By no means! A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant for me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some kind of ostentatious exaggeration in himself of his kindness, disinterestedness, significance, there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.
Therefore, I am talking only about the main task of 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 make a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than that of a neighbor. And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient. Just do not turn the secondary into the primary, and do not let the main goal of life exhaust you where it is not necessary. When you need it is another matter. We'll see who's capable of what.

letter seven
WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. Strengthens the family, strengthens friendship, strengthens fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.
Follow a person's life.
A man is born, and the first concern for him is his 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 to a certain extent it was “abstract” - the parents prepared for the appearance of the child, dreamed about him).
The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl does not speak yet, but is already trying to take care of the doll, nursing her. Boys, very young, like to pick mushrooms, fish. Berries and mushrooms are also loved by girls. And after all, they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They bring it home, prepare it for the winter.
Gradually, children become objects of ever higher care and they themselves begin to show real and wide care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care has placed them, about their village, city and country ...
Care is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their old parents, when they can no longer repay the care of their children. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, as it were, merges with concern for the historical memory of the family and the motherland as a whole.
If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.
Caring unites people, strengthens the memory of the past and is directed entirely towards the future. This is not a feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of a feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. The person must be caring. An uncaring or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.
Morality is characterized by a feeling of compassion in the highest degree. In compassion there is a consciousness of one's unity with humanity and the world (not only with people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). The 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 full revival and development.
Surprisingly correct thought: "A small step for man, a big step for humanity."
Thousands of examples can be cited: it costs nothing to be kind to one person, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. You can't fix humanity, but it's easy to fix yourself. Feeding a child, escorting an old man across the street, giving up his seat on a tram, doing a good job, 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.
Kindness cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is disinterested and does not pursue the goal of profit and "smart result". It is possible to call a good deed "stupid" only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was "false good", erroneously good, that is, not good. 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. The good and the good.

Letter eight
BE FUNNY BUT NOT BE FUNNY

It is said that the content determines the form. This is true, but the opposite is also true, that the content depends on the form. The well-known 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 inner content.
It was once considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune 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 equal with everyone, not to plunge into oneself and remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one's grief on others, not to spoil the mood of others, to always be even in dealing with people, to be always friendly and cheerful - this is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.
But how fun should you be? Noisy and obsessive fun is tiring for others. The young man who is always “pouring” witticisms ceases to be perceived as worthy of behaving. He becomes a joke. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it means ultimately the loss of humor.
Don't be funny.
Not being funny is not only the ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.
You can be funny in everything, even in the manner of dressing. If a man carefully matches a tie to a shirt, a shirt to a suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. Care must be taken to dress decently, but this care in men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares too much about his appearance is unpleasant. A woman is another matter. Men should only have a hint of fashion in their clothes. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh but not very bright tie are enough. The suit can be old, it doesn't have to be just unkempt.
In a conversation with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and in 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 "soul of society." Observe the measure in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.
Do not suffer from your shortcomings, if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers are excellent speakers, considering every word they say. The best lecturer of Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight strabismus can give significance to the face, lameness - to movements. But if you are shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: shyness is very sweet and not at all funny. It only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome it and feel embarrassed about it. Be simple and indulgent to your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it anger, hostility towards other people, 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 forward in the first place. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in the appearance and behavior of a person than dignity or noisy; there is nothing more ridiculous in a man than excessive concern for his suit and hair, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and jokes, especially if they are repeated.
In behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest, quiet.
Never loosen up, always be equal with people, respect the people who surround you.
Here are some tips about what seems to be secondary - 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 be elegant.
I have a friend who is a little chubby. Honestly, I do not get tired of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her in museums on opening days (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 is first of all deceived himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But the lie always betrays itself, the lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse - you are ridiculous.
Don't be ridiculous! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you have deceived before on any occasion, and explain why you did it. This will fix 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 be offended only when they want to offend you. If they don’t want to, and the reason for resentment is an accident, then why be offended?
Without getting angry, clear up the misunderstanding - and that's it.
Well, what if they want to offend? Before responding to an insult with an insult, it is worth considering: should one stoop to an insult? 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 action - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something in which you are only partially to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Suppose that you were offended from noble motives - divide your feelings into noble motives that caused an insulting remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you will be able to respond to an insult with great dignity, which will be the nobler than you attach less importance to resentment. To certain limits, of course.
In general, excessive touchiness is a sign of a lack of intelligence or some kind of complexes. Be smart.
There is a good English rule: to be offended only when you want offend intentionally offend. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention, forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age, due to some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special attention to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.
This is if they “offend” you, but what if you yourself can offend another? In relation to touchy people, one must be especially careful. Resentment 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 essential difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience they are cleansed to one degree or another. Conscience "gnaws". Conscience is not false. It is muffled or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor are completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called the "honor of the uniform." 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 a man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders were removed. And within which a conscientious heart no longer beats.
The “honor of the uniform” forces the leaders to defend false or vicious projects, to insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, to fight with the societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. There are many examples of such upholding of the “honor of the uniform”.
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
PRO CAREERISM

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is looking to 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 also studies as a boy and a young man.
And the time has come to apply your knowledge, to achieve what you aspired to. Maturity. You have to live in real...
But the acceleration persists, and now, instead of teaching, the time comes for many to master the position in life. The movement goes by inertia. A person is constantly striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering the skill, but in arranging oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the original content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Inner restlessness that makes a person unhappy personally and unbearable for others.

Letter 12
A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT

A person must be intelligent! And if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: that is how the circumstances developed. What if the environment doesn't allow it? And if intelligence makes him a "black sheep" among his colleagues, friends, relatives, will it simply interfere with his rapprochement with other people?
No, no and NO! Intelligence is needed under all circumstances. It is necessary both for others and for the person himself.
This is very, very important, and above all, in order to live happily and for a long time - yes, for a long time! For intelligence is equal to moral health, and health is necessary to live long - not only physically, but also mentally. In one old book it says: "Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth." This applies both to the whole people and to the individual. This is wise.
But first of all, let's define what intelligence is, and then why it is connected with the commandment of longevity.
Many people think that an intelligent person is one who read a lot, received a good education (and even predominantly in the humanities), traveled a lot, knows several languages.
Meanwhile, you can have all this and be unintelligent, and you can not possess any of this to a large extent, but still be an internally intelligent person.
Education should not be confused with intelligence. Education lives on the old content, intelligence lives on the creation of the new and the awareness of the old as new.
More than that... Deprive a truly intelligent person of all his knowledge, education, deprive him of his very memory. Let him forget everything in the world, he will not know the classics of literature, he will not remember the greatest works of art, he will forget the most important historical events, but if with all this he retains a susceptibility to intellectual values, a love of acquiring knowledge, an interest in history, an aesthetic sense, he will be able to to distinguish a real work of art from a rough "thing" made only to surprise if he can admire the beauty of nature, understand the character and personality of another person, enter into his position, and having understood another person, help him, will not show rudeness, indifference, gloating , envy, but will appreciate another at its true worth if he shows respect for the culture of the past, the skills of an educated person, responsibility in solving moral issues, the richness and accuracy of his language - spoken and written - this will be an intelligent person.
Intelligence is not only in knowledge, but in the ability to understand another. It manifests itself in a thousand and thousand little things: in the ability to argue respectfully, to behave modestly at the table, in the ability to imperceptibly (precisely imperceptibly) help another, to protect nature, not to litter around oneself - not to litter with cigarette butts or swearing, bad ideas (this is also garbage, and what else!)
I knew peasants in the Russian North who were truly intelligent. They observed amazing cleanliness in their homes, knew how to appreciate good songs, knew how to tell “by-life” (that is, what happened to them or others), lived an orderly life, were hospitable and friendly, treated with understanding both other people’s grief and someone else's joy.
Intelligence is the ability to understand, to perceive, it is a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people.
Intelligence must be developed in oneself, trained - mental strength is trained, as physical ones are also trained. A. training is possible and necessary in any conditions.
That physical strength training contributes to longevity is understandable. Much less people understand that for longevity, the training of spiritual and spiritual forces is also necessary.
The fact is that a vicious and evil reaction to the environment, rudeness and misunderstanding of others is a sign of mental and spiritual weakness, human inability to live ... Pushing in a crowded bus - a weak and nervous person, exhausted, reacting incorrectly to everything. Quarrels with neighbors - also a person who does not know how to live, deaf mentally. Aesthetically unreceptive is also an unhappy person. He who does not know how to understand another person, attributing only evil intentions to him, always taking offense at others - this is also a person who impoverishes his life and interferes with the lives of others. Mental weakness leads to physical weakness. I am not a doctor, but I am convinced of this. Years of experience convinced me of this.
Friendliness and kindness make a person not only physically healthy, but also beautiful. Yes, it's beautiful.
The face of a person, distorted by anger, becomes ugly, and the movements of an evil person are devoid of grace - not deliberate grace, but natural, which is much more expensive.
The social duty of a person is to be intelligent. This is a duty to yourself as well. This is the guarantee of his personal happiness and the "aura of goodwill" around him and towards him (that is, addressed to him).
Everything I talk about with young readers in this book is a call to intelligence, to physical and moral health, to the beauty of health. Let us be long-lived, as people and as a people! And the veneration of father and mother should be understood broadly - as the veneration of all our best in the past, in the past, which is the father and mother of our modernity, the great modernity, to belong to which is great happiness.

Letter thirteen
ABOUT EDUCATION

Letter fourteen
ON BAD AND GOOD INFLUENCES

In the life of every person there is a curious age-related phenomenon: third-party influences. These third-party influences are usually extremely strong when a boy or girl begins to become adults - at a turning point. Then the force of these influences passes. But young men and women must remember about influences, their "pathology", and sometimes even normality.
Maybe there is no particular pathology here: just a growing person, a boy or a girl, wants to quickly become an adult, independent. But, becoming independent, they seek to free themselves first of all from the influence of their family. Ideas about their “childishness” are associated with their family. The family itself is partly to blame for this, which does not notice that their “child”, if not, then wants to be an adult. But the habit of obeying has not yet passed, and now he "obeys" the one who recognized him as an adult - sometimes a person who himself has not yet become an adult and is truly independent.
Influences are both good and bad. Remember this. But bad influences are to be feared. Because a person with a will does not give in to bad influence, he chooses his own path. A weak-willed person succumbs to bad influences. Beware of unconscious influences: especially if you still do not know how to accurately, clearly distinguish good from bad, if you like the praises and approvals of your comrades, whatever these praises and approvals may be: if only they praised.

Letter fifteen
ABOUT ENVY

If a heavyweight sets a new world record in weightlifting, do you envy him? How about a gymnast? And if the champion in diving from a tower into the water?
Start listing everything that you know and that you can envy: you will notice that the closer to your work, 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 a thing hidden by other players while blindfolded. It's the same with envy. The closer the achievement of the other is to your specialty, to your interests, the more the burning danger of envy increases.
A terrible feeling, from which the one who envies suffers first of all.
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
you will never be jealous. Envy develops primarily where you are
yourself a stranger. Envy develops primarily where you are not
distinguish yourself from others. Envy means you haven't found yourself.

Letter Sixteen
ABOUT GREED

I am not satisfied with the dictionary definitions of the word "greed". “The desire to satisfy an excessive, insatiable desire for something” or “stinginess, greed” (this is from one of the best dictionaries of the Russian language - four volumes, its first volume was published in 1957). In principle, this definition of the four-volume "Dictionary" is correct, but it does not convey the feeling of disgust that seizes me when I observe manifestations of greed in a person. Greed is a forgetfulness of one’s own dignity, it is an attempt to put one’s material interests above oneself, it is a spiritual crookedness, a terrible orientation of the mind, which is extremely limiting, mental witherness, pity, an icteric view of the world, jaundice towards oneself and others, forgetfulness of fellowship. Greed in a person is not even funny, it is humiliating. She is hostile to herself and others. Another thing is reasonable thrift; greed is its distortion, its disease. Thrift controls the mind, greed controls the mind.

Letter Seventeen
BE ABLE TO ARGUMENT WITH Dignity

In life, you have to argue a lot, object, refute the opinions of others, disagree.
A person shows his upbringing best of all when he leads a discussion, argues, defending his convictions.
In a dispute, intelligence, logical thinking, politeness, the ability to respect people and ... self-respect are immediately revealed.
If in a dispute a person cares not so much about the truth as about victory over his opponent, does not know how to listen to his opponent, seeks to “shout” the opponent, frighten him with accusations, this is an empty person, and his argument is empty.
How does a smart and polite debater argue?
First of all, he carefully listens to his opponent - a person who does not agree with his opinion. Moreover, if something is not clear to him in the positions of his opponent, he asks him additional questions. And one more thing: even if all the opponent's positions are clear, he will choose the weakest points in the opponent's statements and ask again whether this is his opponent's assertion.
By carefully listening to his opponent and asking again, the arguing achieves three goals: 1) the opponent will not be able to object that he was “misunderstood”, that he “did not assert this”; 2) arguing with his attentive attitude to the opinion of the enemy immediately wins sympathy among those who are watching the dispute; 3) the arguing, listening - and asking again, gains time in order to consider their own objections (and this is also important), to clarify their positions in the dispute.

End of free trial.