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Klyuchevsky's statements. Vasily Klyuchevsky: “This country is difficult to study and even more difficult to govern...” (Vitaly Topchiy). Aphorisms and thoughts about history

04.07.2020

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky(1841 - 1911) - an outstanding Russian historian, ordinary professor at Moscow University, academician of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

One of the most prominent specialists in the history of ancient Rus', Klyuchevsky was the author of many books and articles devoted to serfdom, the relationship between the state and the church, and the history of zemstvo councils.

His course of lectures, published in two volumes, is still a valuable publication for historians, and among his students are such famous specialists as the rector of Moscow University Matvey Lyubavsky, academician Yuri Gauthier, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergei Bakhrushin.

In 1993, the book “Aphorisms” was published. Historical portraits and sketches. Diaries”, since then the quotes of the famous historian are familiar to many readers.

We have selected the most interesting of them:

The most precious gift of nature is a cheerful, mocking and kind mind.
Fools in general, and domestic fools in particular, really love to manage something.
Untalented people are usually the most demanding critics: not being able to do the simplest possible, and not knowing what and how to do, they demand from others the completely impossible.
Absolute monarchy is the most perfect form of government, if not for the accidents of birth.
Science is often confused with knowledge. This is a gross misunderstanding. Science is not only knowledge, but also consciousness, that is, the ability to use knowledge properly.
To be able to be evil, you need to be able to be kind, otherwise you will just be nasty.
In the life of a scientist and writer, the main biographical facts are books, the most important events are thoughts.
What you don’t know the senses about, what you don’t understand, then scold: this is the general rule of mediocrity.
From time to time, the poor get together, confiscate the property of the rich and begin to fight over the division of the spoils in order to get rich themselves.
Living with your own mind does not mean ignoring someone else’s mind, but being able to use it to understand things.
Why do people love to study their past, their history? Probably for the same reason why a person, having stumbled while running, likes to get up and look back at the place of his fall.
History teaches nothing, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.
Great writers are lanterns who, in peacetime, light the way for intelligent passers-by, who are defeated by scoundrels, and on whom the stupid ones are hanged in revolution.
Many small successes do not guarantee a big victory.
If you sow care, you will reap initiative.

Untalented people are usually the most demanding critics: not being able to do the simplest possible and not knowing what and how to do, they demand from others the completely impossible.
Gratitude is not the right of the one who is thanked, but the duty of the one who thanks; demanding gratitude is stupidity; not to be grateful is meanness.
Charity creates more needs than it eliminates needs.
Blessed are the nouveau riche, for they derive their greatest pleasure from the mere consciousness that they own something.
Being neighbors does not mean being close.
To be happy means not wanting what you cannot get.
At eighteen a man adores, at twenty he loves, at thirty he desires to possess, at forty he ponders.
In ancient Russian marriage, couples were not selected based on ready-made feelings and characters, but characters and feelings were developed based on selected pairs.
In science, you need to repeat lessons in order to remember them well; In morality, one must remember mistakes well so as not to repeat them.
In Russia, the center is on the periphery.
What you don’t know the senses about, what you don’t understand, then scold: this is the general rule of mediocrity.
The Great Russian often thinks in two ways, and this seems like double-mindedness. He always goes towards a direct goal, but he walks, looking around, and therefore his gait seems evasive and hesitant. After all, you can’t break through walls with your forehead, and only crows fly straight.
Velikorus is a historian by nature: he understands his past better than his future; he will not always guess what needs to be provided, but he will always understand that he did not guess. He is smarter when he discusses what he has done than when he figures out what needs to be done. There is more circumspection than forethought, more humility than impudence.
Do the clergy believe in God? It does not understand this issue because it serves God.
From time to time, the poor get together, confiscate the property of the rich and begin to fight over the division of the spoils in order to get rich themselves.
The entire life science of a woman consists of three ignorances: first, she does not know how to get a groom, then, how to deal with her husband, and finally, how to sell her children.
When choosing a wife, you must remember that you are choosing a mother for your children, and as a guardian of your children, you must take care that a wife according to her husband’s taste is a mother after her children’s heart; Through the father, children should participate in the choice of the mother.
It has long been noted that victors imitate the defeated enemy.
Do what I say, but don't say what I do - corrected Jesuitism.
A job undone is better than a job done wrong, because the former can be done, but the latter cannot be corrected.
A good person is not one who knows how to do good, but one who does not know how to do evil.
Friendship can do without love; love without friendship is not.
There are people whose entire merit is that they do nothing.
There are people who become brutes as soon as they are treated like people.
Women forgive everything, except for one thing - unpleasant treatment of themselves.
Life is not about living, but about feeling that you are living.
Life teaches only those who study it.
Living with your own mind does not mean ignoring someone else’s mind, but being able to use it to understand things.
A healthy and healthy person sculpts the Venus de Milo from his Akulina and does not see in the Venus de Milo anything more than his Akulina.
The idea of a nation is not what it thinks of itself in time, but what God thinks of it in eternity.
The most interesting thing is to find out not what people talk about, but what they are silent about.
Art is a surrogate for life, that’s why art is loved by those who have failed in life.
The historian is strong in hindsight. He knows the present from the rear, not from the face. The historian has an abyss of memories and examples, but no instincts or premonitions.
History teaches nothing, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.
When people, wanting a quarrel, do not expect it, it will not follow; when they wait for it without wanting it, it will certainly happen.
When we feel bad, we think: “But somewhere, someone is feeling good.” When we feel good, we rarely think: “Somewhere, someone is feeling bad.”
Great writers are lanterns who, in peacetime, light the way for intelligent passers-by, who are defeated by scoundrels, and on whom the stupid ones are hanged in revolution.
Whoever lives by someone else's labor will inevitably end up living by someone else's mind, for one's own mind is developed only with the help of one's own labor.
He who does not like to ask does not like to oblige, that is, he is afraid to be grateful.
Anyone who is unable to work 16 hours a day did not have the right to be born and must be eliminated from life as a usurper of existence.
He who loves himself very much is not loved by others, because out of delicacy they do not want to be his rivals.
He who laughs is not angry, because to laugh means to forgive.
While admiring how the reform transformed Russian antiquity, they failed to notice how Russian antiquity transformed the reform.
Proud people love power, ambitious people love influence, arrogant people seek both, reflective people despise both.
People who speak easily are usually difficult to understand.
People who, without having their own mind, know how to appreciate someone else's, often act smarter than smart people who lack this skill.
Many small successes do not guarantee a big victory.
Young people are like butterflies: they fly into the light and end up in the fire.
Both the Muscovite and the Little Russian are cunning people, and the cunning of both is expressed in pretense. But both pretend in their own way: the first likes to pretend to be a fool, and the second likes to pretend to be smart.
A man loves a woman most often because she loves him; A woman loves a man most often because he admires her.
Thought without morality is thoughtlessness, morality without thought is fanaticism.
In the West there is a church without God, in Russia there is God without a church.
We should not complain that there are few smart people, but thank God that they exist.
Finding the cause of evil is almost the same as finding a cure for it.
Science is often confused with knowledge. This is a deep misunderstanding. Science is not only knowledge, but also consciousness, i.e. ability to use knowledge.
Our sympathy for religious antiquity is not moral, but only artistic: we only admire its feelings without sharing them, just as voluptuous old men admire young girls without being able to love them.
Don't start something whose end is not in your hands.
It is not old age itself that is respected, but the life lived. If she was.
It is impossible and shameful to adopt someone else’s way of life, structure of feelings and order of relationships. Every decent people should have all this, just as every decent person should have his own head and his own wife.
There is nothing more hostile to culture than civilization.
He is too smart to be happy and too unhappy to be evil.
Frankness is not gullibility at all, but only the bad habit of thinking out loud.
By common sense, everyone means only their own.
By freedom of conscience we usually mean freedom from conscience.
As you get older, your eyes move from your forehead to the back of your head: you begin to look behind you and see nothing ahead, that is, you live in memories, not hopes.
If you sow care, you will reap initiative.
Constant success turns robbers into good businessmen.
Why is piety required of a clergyman, when a doctor is not required to be healthy himself when treating others?
The habits of fathers, both good and bad, turn into the vices of children.
The simplest way not to need money is not to receive more than you need, but to live less than you can.
The difference between a brave man and a coward is that the first, aware of the danger, does not feel fear, and the second feels fear, not realizing the danger.
The Russian intelligentsia will soon feel like selling candy to hungry people.
The most fun laughter is to laugh at those who laugh at you.
The most precious gift of nature is a cheerful, mocking and kind mind.
The most invincible person is the one who is not afraid to be stupid.
Family quarrels are a regular repair of decaying family love.
A serious political party condemns any meanness if it is not included in the party program.
The Slavophiles worshiped the Russian people not because they really were the embodiment of the Christian ideal, but on the contrary, they tried to present it to themselves and others in such an ideal light because they already worshiped it, no matter what it turned out to be: it was not good for them , but it’s good for a mile.
The word is the great weapon of life.
Looking at them, how they believe in God, you just want to believe in the devil.
Justice is the valor of chosen natures, truthfulness is the duty of every decent person.
Happy is the one who can love his wife as a mistress, and unhappy is the one who allows his mistress to love him as a husband.
Talent is a spark of God with which a person usually burns himself, illuminating the path for others with his own fire.
Creativity is a high feat, and feat requires sacrifice.
Theatrical tears wean one away from everyday ones.
Anyone who does not like to borrow does not know how to commit.
Labor is more valuable when capital becomes cheaper. Intelligence is highly valued when strength becomes cheaper.
Every age has its privileges and its disadvantages.
A good doctor's medicine is not in the pharmacy, but in his own head.
Finding out if you are polite is very simple: to do this, check how legible your handwriting is.
The mind perishes from contradictions, but the heart feeds on them.
Being able to write legibly is the first rule of politeness.
Character is power over oneself, talent is power over others.
A good woman, when she gets married, promises happiness, a bad woman waits for it.
To be a good teacher, you need to love what you teach and love those you teach.
To be clear, a speaker must be frank.
To protect the fatherland from enemies, Peter I devastated it more than any enemy.
To warm Russia, some are ready to burn it.
The alien Western European mind was called upon by us to teach us to live with our own mind, but we tried to replace our mind with it.
It was the Germans who taught us exclusivity. Our goals are universal.

1. The highest degree of the art of speaking is the ability to remain silent

2. The word is the great weapon of life

3. Their thoughts do not lead words, but have difficulty catching up with them

4. The regularity of historical phenomena is inversely proportional to their spirituality

5. Man is the greatest beast in the world

6. We are the lowest organisms in international zoology: we continue to move even after we lose our heads

7. Good done by an enemy is just as difficult to forget as it is difficult to remember good done by a friend. For good we pay good only to the enemy; for evil we take revenge on both enemy and friend

8. A man loves a woman most often because she loves him; A woman loves a man most often because he admires her

9. Family quarrels - regular repair of decaying family love

10. Only in mathematics do two halves make one whole. In life it’s not at all like that: for example, a crazy husband and a crazy wife are undoubtedly two halves, but in complexity they make two crazy people and will never make up one complete smart person

11. A woman’s love gives a man momentary pleasures and puts on him eternal obligations, at least lifelong troubles.

12. There are women with whom no one falls in love, but whom everyone loves. There are women with whom everyone falls in love, but whom no one loves. The only happy woman is the one whom everyone loves, but with whom only one is in love.

13. Women forgive everything, except for one thing - unpleasant treatment of themselves.

14. You need to know the past not because it passed, but because, when leaving, you did not know how to remove your consequences

15. A man loves a woman as much as he can love; a woman loves a man as much as she wants to love. That is why a man usually loves one woman more than she is worth, and a woman wants to love more men than she is capable of loving.

16. A man usually loves women whom he respects; a woman usually respects only the men she loves. That is why a man often loves women who are not worth loving, and a woman often respects men who are not worth respecting.

17. A good woman, when she gets married, promises happiness, a bad woman waits for it.

18. A man falls to his knees in front of a woman only to help her fall.

19. There are two kinds of talkers: some talk too much in order to say nothing, others also talk too much, but because they don’t know what to say. Some people talk to hide what they think, others to hide that they don't think anything.

20. There are two kinds of fools: some do not understand what everyone is obliged to understand; others understand what no one should understand

21. The smartest thing in life is still death, because only it corrects all the mistakes and stupidities of life

22. A proud person is one who values the opinions of others about himself more than his own. So, to be self-loving means to love yourself more than others, and to respect others more than yourself.

23. The surest and perhaps the only way to become happy is to imagine yourself like that

24. Strong words cannot be strong evidence.

25. Being able to write legibly is the first rule of politeness.

26. A man listens with his ears, a woman with her eyes, the first one - to understand what is being said to him, the second one - to please the one who is talking to her.

27. Labor is highly valued when capital becomes cheaper. Intelligence is valuable when strength is cheap

28. Sometimes you have to break a rule to save its power.

29. Proud people love power, ambitious people love influence, arrogant people seek both, reflective people despise both.

30. To be a good teacher, you need to love what you teach and love those you teach.

31. Art is a surrogate for life, that’s why art is loved by those who have failed in life

32. The worst thing is to consider yourself an addition to your own furniture.

33. A detailed study of individual organs makes it difficult to understand the life of the whole organism.

34. Voluptuousness is nothing more than power-hungry pride played out on female charms

35. Death is the greatest mathematician, because he solves all problems without error.

36. When people, wanting a quarrel, do not expect it, it will not follow; when they wait for it without wanting it, it will certainly happen

37. Friendship can do without love; love without friendship is no

38. To live means to be loved. He lived or she lived - this means only one thing: he or she was loved a lot

39. Music is an acoustic composition that arouses in us an appetite for life, just as well-known pharmaceutical compositions arouse an appetite for food.

40. Happiness is not in living well, but in understanding and feeling what it can consist of

41. In history we learn more facts and understand less the meaning of phenomena

42. Not one of them will fall in love with the man whom all women love.

43. A man sees in any woman what he wants to make of her, and usually makes of her what she does not want to be

44. People live in idolatry of ideals, and when ideals are lacking, they idealize idols

45. In Russia there are no average talents, simple masters, but there are lonely geniuses and millions of worthless people. Geniuses can do nothing because they have no apprentices, and nothing can be done with millions because they have no masters. The first are useless because there are too few of them; the latter are helpless because there are too many of them

46. Character is power over oneself, talent is power over others.

47. Why is piety required of a clergyman, when a doctor is not required to be healthy himself when treating others?

48. A healthy and healthy person sculpts the Venus de Milo from his Akulina and does not see in the Venus de Milo anything more than his Akulina

49. Happy is he who can love his wife as a mistress, and unhappy is he who allows his mistress to love him as a husband.

50. Some women are smarter than other fools only because they are aware of their stupidity. The only difference between the two is that some consider themselves smart while remaining stupid; others admit they are stupid without becoming smart

51. Ladies only discover the presence of mind in themselves because they often leave it

52. Friendship usually serves as a transition from simple acquaintance to enmity

53. If there was a heart, there would be sorrows

54. A reflective person should fear only himself, because he must be the only and merciless judge of himself

55. He who laughs does not get angry, because to laugh means to forgive.

56. He who has friends who hate each other deserves their common hatred

57. The mind perishes from contradictions, but the heart feeds on them

58. Wanting to be something other than yourself means wanting to become nothing

59. A worthy person is not one who has no shortcomings, but one who has dignity

60. He who does not like to ask does not like to oblige, that is, he is afraid to be grateful.

61. Some people think that you just have to call everyone a fool in order to be considered smart.

62. Hygiene teaches you how to be the watchdog of your own health.

63. Looking at them, how they believe in God, I just want to believe in the devil

64. There are two kinds of fools: some do not understand what everyone is obliged to understand; others understand what no one should understand

65. By common sense, everyone understands only his own

66. The straight path is the shortest distance between two troubles

67. I'm too old to grow old: only the young grow old

68. Old people are not born, but only die and, however, they are not all transferred

69. Beautiful women can be very stupid in old age only because they were very beautiful in their youth

70. How can she not be smart, messing around with such fools all her life?

71. He is stupid because he is so handsome, and would not be so handsome if he were less stupid

72. Marry hopes, marry promises

73. At the age of 50 you must have a hat and two ties, white and black: you will often have to get married and bury

74. History teaches nothing, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.

75. People often criticize a writer’s work only because they themselves don’t know how to write it like that.

76. To be useful to people, you need to not use anything from them

77. To have an influence on people, you need to think only about them, forgetting about yourself, and not remembering about them when you need to remind yourself.

78. To have the right to live, one must acquire the willingness to die

79. To be able to be evil, you must learn to be kind: otherwise you will just be nasty

80. Egoists complain the most about the selfishness of others, because they suffer the most from it.

81. As you get older, your eyes move from your forehead to the back of your head: you begin to look behind you and see nothing ahead, that is, you live in memories, not hopes.

82. Before demanding that others be worthy of our love, we must earn their love

83. The simplest way not to need money is not to receive more than you need, but to live less than you can

84. The difference between a brave man and a coward is that the first, aware of the danger, does not feel fear, and the second feels fear, not realizing the danger.

85. Theater is boring when you see actors on stage, not people.

86. Justice is the valor of chosen natures, truthfulness is the duty of every decent person

87. Old age is for a person what dust is for a dress - it brings out all the stains of character

88. Some people are always sick only because they care very much about being healthy, while others are healthy only because they are not afraid of being sick.

89. Belief in life after death is a heavy tax on people who do not know how to live to death, who stop living before they have time to die.

90. In science, you need to repeat lessons in order to remember them well; in morality, one must remember mistakes well so as not to repeat them

91. Imagination - that’s what imagination is for, to fill reality

92. Only scammers believe in the truth, because you can believe in what you don’t understand.

93. It is much easier to become a father than to remain one.

94. There are people whose very vices are sweeter and more harmless than others’ virtues

95. There are people whose only merit is that they do nothing

96. He is too smart to be happy and too unhappy to be evil

97. When a cat wants to catch a mouse, she pretends to be a mouse

98. Whoever lives by someone else’s labor will inevitably end up living by someone else’s mind, for one’s own mind is developed only with the help of one’s own labor

99. A good person is not one who knows how to do good, but one who does not know how to do evil.

100. A bad fit between two stools - finding yourself between your aspirations and abilities, appearing too great for small goals and being too small for great ones

101. Each new Russian tsar began by rejecting his predecessor

102. It is necessary to recognize as aimless not only that which does not reach the goal, but also that which is sufficient through the goal

103. Belief in life after death is a heavy tax on people who do not know how to live to death, who stop living before they have time to die.

104. In science, you need to repeat lessons in order to remember them well; in morality, one must remember mistakes well so as not to repeat them

105. There are people whose very vices are sweeter and more harmless than others’ virtues

106. Whoever lives by someone else’s labor will inevitably end up living by someone else’s mind, for one’s own mind is developed only with the help of one’s own labor

107. When you don’t understand whether a person is good or evil, you can safely say that he is unhappy

108. He who loves himself very much is not loved by others, because out of delicacy they do not want to be his rival.

109. It’s wise to write only about what you don’t understand

110. It is much easier to become smart than to stop being a fool

111. Fanaticism in the name of order is ready to bring anarchy

112. How long does it take people to understand the century they have lived? Three centuries. When will humanity understand the meaning of its life? 3 thousand years after his death

113. In the life of a scientist and writer, the main biographical facts are books, the most important events are thoughts

114. Rite is religious ashes: it protects the remnant of religious heat from the external cold of life

115. The complaint that we are not understood most often comes from the fact that we do not understand people.

116. Previously they were connected by at least the floor, but now only by the ceiling

117. A man worked smartly, worked and suddenly felt that he had become stupider than his work

118. A man deals with a woman like a chemist with his laboratory: he observes processes in her that are incomprehensible to him, which he himself produces

119. Whoever despises people must despise himself, therefore only animals have the right to despise people

120. Don’t start something whose end is not in your hands.

121. Science is often confused with knowledge. This is a gross misunderstanding. Science is not only knowledge, but also consciousness, i.e. ability to use knowledge properly

122. To protect the fatherland from enemies, Peter devastated it more than any enemy

123. Theatrical tears wean one away from everyday ones

124. For artists, from constant touching of art, the aesthetic sense is dulled, replaced by an aesthetic eye

125. Freedom of conscience usually means freedom from conscience

126. Let us not confuse the theater with the church, for it is more difficult to turn a booth into a church than to turn a church into a booth

127. In Russia, the center is on the periphery

128. Our history follows our calendar: in each century we are one day behind the world

129. Sport is becoming a favorite subject of thought and will soon become the only method of thinking.

130. Statistics is the science of how, without being able to think and understand, make numbers do it

131. Happiness is not reality, but only a memory: our past years seem happy to us, when we could live better than we lived, and lived better than we live in the moment of memories

132. Admiring how the reform transformed Russian antiquity, they did not notice how Russian antiquity transformed the reform

133. Our sympathy for religious antiquity is not moral, but only artistic: we only admire its feelings, without sharing them, like voluptuous old men admire young girls, without being able to love them

134. Timid, but not cowardly

135. Previously they valued the face and hid the body, now they value the body and are indifferent to the face. Previously, instinct, like a slave, was rude and rebelled, but was also subjected to scourge; now it has been emancipated and is respected as the natural ruler of life

136. You can revere people who believed in Russia, but not the object of their belief

137. To warm Russia, they are ready to burn it

138. Her refusal is more pleasant than any other consent

139. Popular art is valuable not for the benefit it brings, but for the harm from which it saves by providing less crude entertainment

140. The habits of fathers, both bad and good, turn into the vices of children

141. A rake needs more subtle understanding of people to seduce a woman than Bismarck needed to fool Europe

142. Friendship usually serves as a transition from simple acquaintance to enmity

143. Scholarly dissertations with two opponents and no readers

144. It is necessary to find meaning in nonsense: this is the unpleasant duty of a historian; every philosopher can find meaning in an intelligent matter.

145. The Russian clergy always taught their flock not to know and love God, but only to fear the devils, which they also bred with their priests

146. You can be proud of everything, even the absence of pride, just as you can be stupefied by everything, even by your own mind

147. Do the clergy believe in God? It does not understand this issue because it serves God

148. Art is loved by those who have failed in life

149. Frankness is not gullibility at all, but only the bad habit of thinking out loud

150. There is nothing more pointless than judging or treating corpses: they are ordered only to be buried

151. When an actor does not understand who he is playing, he inevitably plays himself

152. The true purpose of charity is not to do good, but to ensure that there is no one to do good.

153. Prologue of the 20th century - gunpowder factory. Epilogue - Red Cross barracks

154. The newspaper teaches the reader to think about what he does not know, and to know what he does not understand.

155. The most invincible person is the one who is not afraid to be stupid

156. The difference between the clergy and other Russian classes: there are many drunkards here, there are few sober ones there

157. The mind perishes from contradictions, but the heart feeds on them. You can hate a person as a scoundrel, or you can die for him as for your neighbor

158. The alien Western European mind was called upon by us to teach us to live with our own mind, but we tried to replace our mind with it

159. Slavophilism - the story of two or three living rooms in Moscow and two or three cases in the Moscow police

160. The Russian intelligentsia will soon feel like selling candy to hungry people

161. Populists reason so intelligently about the foundations of their lives that it seems that what they are sitting on is smarter than what they are using to reason about it.

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky

Aphorisms and thoughts about history

Notebook with aphorisms

The regularity of historical phenomena is inversely proportional to their spirituality.

If a person's shadow walks ahead of him, this does not mean that the person follows his shadow.

If by character we mean decisiveness of action in one direction, then character is nothing more than a lack of reflection, unable to point the will in other directions.

The so-called types of time are faces on which the most common or fashionable grimaces are frozen, caused by the pathological state of people of a certain time.

Man is the greatest beast in the world.

Our state machine is designed for defense, not attack. It gives us as much stability as it takes away mobility. When we passively fight back, we are stronger than ourselves, because our defensive forces are supplemented by our inability to quickly understand our powerlessness, i.e. our courage is increased by the fact that, being frightened, we are not soon going to run away. On the contrary, when attacking, we use only 10% of our forces, the rest is spent on setting this 10% in motion. We are like a heavily armed knight of the Middle Ages. We will be defeated not by the one who knightly correctly attacks us from the front, but by the one who, from under the horse’s belly, grabs us by the leg and flips us over: like a cockroach overturned on its back, we, without losing the normal amount of our strength, will powerlessly move our legs, looking for points supports. Power is an act, not a potency; not connected with discipline, it kills itself. We are the lowest organisms in international zoology: we continue to move even after we lose our heads.

You can have a big mind and not be smart, just as you can have a big nose and be deprived of smell.

Good done by an enemy is just as difficult to forget as it is difficult to remember good done by a friend. For good we pay good only to the enemy; For evil we take revenge on both the enemy and the friend.

A man loves a woman most often because she loves him; A woman loves a man most often because he admires her.

Family quarrels are a regular repair of decaying family love.

The beauty looks at her love as a sacrifice to Moloch; the ugly one considers her an unnecessary gift that she was allowed to bring; a woman sees neither this nor that, simply a sexual service.

Passions become vices when they turn into habits, or virtues when they resist habits.

When a fool begins to think himself witty, the number of witty people does not increase; when a smart person recognizes himself as witty, he always becomes one less smart and sometimes one more witty; When a witty person begins to consider himself smart, there is always one less witty person and there is never one more smart person.

The smart one asked the stupid one: “When will you say something smart?” “Immediately after your first stupidity,” answered the stupid one. “Well, in that case, we will both have to wait a long time,” continued the smart one. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve already waited for mine,” the stupid one finished.

Only in mathematics do two halves make one whole. In life it’s not like that at all: for example, a crazy husband and a crazy wife are undoubtedly two halves, but in complexity they make two crazy people and will never make up one complete smart person.

A woman's love gives a man momentary pleasures and places on him eternal obligations, at least lifelong troubles.

There are women with whom no one falls in love, but whom everyone loves. There are women with whom everyone falls in love, but whom no one loves. The only happy woman is the one whom everyone loves, but with whom only one is in love.

Women who did not love in their youth throw themselves into charity in their old age. Men who begin to think late usually indulge in philosophy. Philosophy is as poor a substitute for understanding for the latter as charity is for love.

A woman cries after losing something she has enjoyed for a long time; a man cries, having not achieved what he has been striving for for a long time. For the first, tears are a reward for loss, for the second, a reward for failed efforts, and for both, a consolation in misfortune.

Happiness is a piece of meat that a dog saw in the water as it swam across the river with a piece of meat in its mouth. In achieving happiness, we lose contentment; we lose what we have and do not achieve what we want.

Exceptions are usually more correct than the rule itself; but they do not constitute a rule because there are fewer of them than irregular phenomena.

Whoever despises people must despise himself, therefore only an animal has the right to despise people.

He treated women dirty, and therefore women did not love him, because women forgive everything, except for one thing - unpleasant treatment of themselves.

You need to know the past not because it has passed, but because, when leaving, you did not know how to remove your consequences.

A man loves a woman as much as he can love; a woman loves a man as much as she wants to love. That is why a man usually loves one woman more than she is worth, and a woman wants to love more men than she is able to love.

A man usually loves women whom he respects; a woman usually respects only the men she loves. Therefore, a man often loves women who are not worth loving, and a woman often respects men who are not worth respecting.

A good woman, when she gets married, promises happiness, a bad woman waits for it.

Politics should be nothing more and nothing less than applied history. Now it is nothing more than a denial of history and nothing less than its distortion.

The way of government in a state is the same as temperament in a person. What is temperament? This is a way of managing your thoughts and actions, to the extent that it depends on the relationship between his spiritual and physical strength established by the entire structure of a person. What is a form of government? This is a way of directing people's aspirations and actions, to the extent that it depends on the relationship between its moral and material means that has been established historically. History, the past for a people is the same as its nature for an individual person, for the nature of each of us is nothing more than the sum of hereditary characteristics. This means that just as temperament is a sum of unconscious conditions, but emanating from the person himself, that put pressure on personal will, so the way of government is determined by the sum of conditions, independent of public opinion, but emanating from the people themselves, that limit public freedom. Public opinion among the people is the same as personal consciousness in an individual. Consequently, just as temperament does not depend on consciousness, so the way of government does not depend on public opinion. The first can change from upbringing; the second is changed by public education.

The creators of social order usually become its instruments or victims, the first as soon as they stop creating it, the second as soon as they begin to remake it.

A decent woman before marriage can only love her groom, and after marriage only her husband. But she does not fully love the groom, because he is not yet a husband, and the husband - because he has already ceased to be a groom, so a decent woman never loves any man the way a woman should love a man, i.e. quite.

Republicans in monarchies are usually people who do not have a king in their own heads; monarchists in republics are people who notice that others are losing it.

The whole difference between a smart person and a stupid person is in one thing: the first will always think and rarely say, the second will always say and never think. For the first, language is always in the sphere of thought; the second has a thought outside the sphere of language. The first language is the secretary of thought, the second is its gossip or informer.

A man in love is always stupid because he only seeks the love of a woman, not wanting to know with what kind of love the woman loves him, and this is the main thing, because a woman loves only her love and loves a man only to the extent that the man loves the love she loves.

Politeness is an artificially created good mood.
Thomas Jefferson

Politeness is the ability to listen with interest to what you know from a person who knows nothing about it.

Politeness costs nothing; That must be why you won't find it in stores.
Jadwiga Rutkowska

Simplicity is the politeness of a wise man.
Alexander Zhukov

Politeness is kindness in small things.
Thomas Macaulay

Politeness is the desire to always receive polite treatment and be known as a courteous person.
Francois La Rochefoucauld

It's nice to be important, but to be nice is more important.

Virginity is the politeness of a newlywed.
Arkady Davidovich

The first rule of politeness is to be beautiful, or at least not to be ugly.
Yanina Ipohorskaya

The less a person knows you, the more polite he is to you.

If politeness could be bought, only the polite would buy it.
Barbe d'Orville

If you want to be a lady, bow to the watchman most politely.
Christina Kofta

Among the English, politeness requires lying. Among Americans, politeness requires telling the truth.
Malcolm Bradbury

I will be as polite to my wife as if she were a complete stranger to me.
Robert Jones Burdett

Be polite to every girl - you never know who she will marry.
Nancy Mitford

Be nice to nerds. It is likely that you will have to work for one of them.
Bill Gates, "Advice to Spoiled Teenagers"

He was so polite to everyone and everyone that no one was grateful to him for it.
Samuel Johnson

Politeness is only half of good manners. The other half is a skillful lie.
Mary Wilson Little

If a person is trying to sell you something, don't assume that they are always so polite.
Edgar Howe

It rarely makes sense to be impolite; but being only half impolite never makes sense.
Norman Douglas

Politeness is only one half of good manners. The other half is a subtle lie.
M. Little

Politeness is an openly recognized counterfeit coin.
A. Schopenhauer

Politeness is sometimes the most perfect form of neglect.
G. Böll

Politeness is the most acceptable form of hypocrisy.
A. Beers

Politeness is a flatterer who refuses no one her respect.
O. Mirabeau

P. Valerie

Politeness is a fig leaf of selfishness.
A. Schopenhauer

Politeness is a silent mutual agreement - to mutually ignore each other and not to expose the morally and mentally pitiful and miserable qualities of human beings, as a result of which it is somewhat more difficult for these latter to be detected.
A. Schopenhauer

Politeness costs nothing but brings a lot.
M. Montagu

Politeness is like gilding, which too often covers only base metal.
author unknown

Politeness, like a gambling chip, is an openly recognized counterfeit coin. Stinginess with her proves poverty of mind; generosity, on the contrary, proves intelligence. Anyone who takes politeness to the point of sacrificing real interests is like a person who distributes real bills instead of chips.
A. Schopenhauer

Nothing costs us so little or is valued so dearly as politeness.
M. Cervantes

Listening is a courtesy that a smart person often extends to a fool, but which the latter never returns in kind.
P. Decourcel

Thanks to subtle and delicate politeness, people are forgiven many shortcomings and their good qualities are exaggerated. Those without manners need more solid virtues, and their reputation is slow to establish.
Adan

Politeness is a symbolically conditional expression of respect for every person.
Nikolay Berdyaev

Politeness is well-organized indifference.
Paul Valéry

If you suddenly notice that twenty-year-olds are suspiciously polite to you, it means that you are older than you think.
Sylvia Cheese

In terms of politeness, it is better to over-salt than under-salt.
Miguel Cervantes

If you decide to kill a person, it costs nothing to be polite.
Winston Churchill

You are not yet dead to say only good things about you.
Karol Izhikowski

"Very nice!" - the most common lie in the world.
Gerd Heise

When we give way to a bus, we are not doing it out of politeness.
Victor Shklovsky

It is becoming increasingly difficult to meet a polite person who is not trying to sell you anything.

How hard it is to be polite when you are right!
Andrey Petrilin

I refused to attend his funeral, but sent a very polite letter approving the event.
Mark Twain

Be nice to people until you make your first million. And then people will be nice to you.

Be polite to everyone. You never know who will be on the twelve jurors.
American saying

A boor remains a boor even when he apologizes.
Jan Tsybis

Pretend to be polite and you'll get used to it.
"Pshekruj"

I remember very well the day the war ended. We learned about this in the evening. My neighbor's girl Valka and I were playing on a swing in the yard. Or easier to say - on a board tied with ropes to a tree. Suddenly people began running out of neighboring houses shouting: “Victory! Victory!" - hug, kiss. Valka jumped off, and the board hit me on the head with a bang. I fell. Apparently he lost consciousness for a short time. I woke up - I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t say anything. I see everyone running and rejoicing. I understand that an extraordinary event has happened, but I lie there and imagine that I am a wounded scout. No one picked me up, I lay down and got up myself. So Victory Day coincided with a slight concussion for me. The war was a test for the people. And I think we withstood it perfectly. In difficult situations, people always unite. And now we are losers. It is impossible to imagine that a person in wartime could commit suicide, leaving a child to the mercy of fate, but now this happens all the time. It's scary to imagine! Go hungry, wash the floors, do what you want, but feed the child. After the war, many Japanese prisoners appeared in the city. At first they were accompanied by guards, then they walked in formation without an escort, just like that, out of habit, and for some reason they always sang. No one showed hostility towards them. I don’t think they had any particularly bad feelings towards us either. The prisoners were building something not far from our house and sometimes passed through our yard. We lived on the first floor, and one summer one of the Japanese saw a piano through the window in our room, and a violin on it. He met his mother and said that he also played the violin, and showed a photograph of his wife and children. After that, when passing by our house, he always said hello. His mother sometimes gave him crackers. Chita has never been a run-of-the-mill provincial town. The old culture did not die there: many exiled people lived there, not since the time of the Decembrists, of course, but much later. And these were very educated people. Oh, if only, like today, I truly understood the whole ego then. I am convinced that everything good that is in a person begins in childhood. It is childhood that “programs” the soul. I think that all the good that is in my soul comes from my dear parents. I am very grateful to them for trying to introduce me to real high art. My father, for example, once took me to see the film “Rome - Open City.” Children under sixteen were not allowed to attend it, and then this was strictly monitored, but everyone in the city knew him, and he “through connections” took me to the Pioneer cinema. I sat stunned and cried with delight. And now, unfortunately, children sometimes get involved in films that adults shouldn’t even watch. The soul is shaped by both kindergarten and family. But first of all, school! I went to first grade in 1943. Winter, war... What kind of breakfast will they prepare for you at home? Herbal tea. A piece of bread And at school the stove was heated from the very morning. After the second lesson, the teacher brewed tea with the same herbs and poured a little diluted saccharin into each person’s mug - personal! The door opened and the attendant brought in a baking tray on which the pies lay. I don’t remember what they came with, but they seemed to us the most delicious in the world! We ate them, sipping boiling water, while the teacher told different stories. It was called education! It was called caring! Caring for the next generation. This is where the cultivation of love for the Motherland begins - when you feel the Motherland’s care for you. And now I listen to all these discussions - paid education, elite schools... I don’t even understand what it is - elite students. I understand what elite dogs or horses are. But I don’t know elite people - I know educated ones. I know intelligent people. An attempt to replace one class with another - the intelligentsia with an elite, the degree of elitism of which is determined by their level of income - gives rise to stratification, and with it the savagery of souls that we have received. Ostrovsky once said: “Without theater there is no nation.” To paraphrase him, I will say: without culture there is no nation. How could it be possible to remove hours of literature and the Russian language from the school curriculum? Now we've caught on! The essay was returned to the exams. And suddenly it turned out that over the years, while children were being trained for the Unified State Exam, they had forgotten how to formulate thoughts in writing. That is, we have forgotten how to analyze and reflect! Now they are again trying to correct something, add something here, subtract something here. Can not be so! You need to say once, without hesitation: “Excuse us! We wanted the best, but it turned out as always!” Remove the Unified State Exam. Bring back exams in the form in which they have existed in our school from time immemorial. Ask modern children: “Do you know where Baikal is?” They will send you... to hell. And they also don’t know that there is a monument to Marshal Zhukov near Red Square. They wonder what kind of general this could be... When we begin to forget our own history, we get what we have today. Yuri Methodievich Solomin. Excerpt from the interview.

Thoughts, quotes, wise advice, aphorisms of one of the most outstanding Russian historians - Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky.

Academician, professor at Moscow University and the Moscow Theological Academy, founder of a scientific school and Privy Councilor wrote about the events and facts of Russian reality in a fascinating and accessible way. Historical portraits, diaries and aphorisms of the scientist - a brilliant master of words - reflect his thoughts about science, life, human strengths and weaknesses.

“In the life of a scientist and writer, the main biographical facts are books, the most important events are thoughts” - this is a statement by V.O. Klyuchevsky is confirmed by his whole life.

Klyuchevsky gained the reputation of a brilliant lecturer who knew how to capture the attention of the audience with the power of analysis, gift of image, and deep erudition. He shone with wit, aphorisms, and epigrams that are still in demand today. His works always caused controversy, in which he tried not to interfere. The topics of his works are extremely diverse: the situation of the peasantry, zemstvo councils of Ancient Rus', the reforms of Ivan the Terrible...

He was concerned about the history of the spiritual life of Russian society and its outstanding representatives. A number of articles and speeches by Klyuchevsky about S.M. relate to this topic. Solovyov, Pushkin, Lermontov, N.I. Novikov, Fonvizin, Catherine II, Peter the Great. He published a “Brief Guide to Russian History,” and in 1904 began publishing the full course. A total of 4 volumes were published, brought up to the time of Catherine II.

Klyuchevsky’s most famous scientific work, which has received worldwide recognition, is a Course of Russian History in 5 parts. The scientist worked on it for more than three decades.

The best aphorisms of Klyuchevsky

Untalented people are usually the most demanding critics: not being able to do the simplest possible and not knowing what and how to do, they demand from others the completely impossible.

Gratitude is not the right of the one who is thanked, but the duty of the one who thanks; demanding gratitude is stupidity; not to be grateful is meanness.

Charity creates more needs than it eliminates needs.

Being neighbors does not mean being close.

To be happy means not wanting what you cannot get.

At eighteen a man adores, at twenty he loves, at thirty he desires to possess, at forty he ponders.

In science, you need to repeat lessons in order to remember them well; In morality, one must remember mistakes well so as not to repeat them.

In Russia, the center is on the periphery.

What you don’t know the senses about, what you don’t understand, then scold: this is the general rule of mediocrity.

Do the clergy believe in God? It does not understand this issue because it serves God.

From time to time, the poor get together, confiscate the property of the rich and begin to fight over the division of the spoils in order to get rich themselves.

The entire life science of a woman consists of three ignorances: first, she does not know how to get a groom, then, how to deal with her husband, and finally, how to sell her children.

When choosing a wife, you must remember that you are choosing a mother for your children, and as a guardian of your children, you must take care that a wife according to her husband’s taste is a mother after her children’s heart; Through the father, children should participate in the choice of the mother.

A job undone is better than a job done wrong, because the former can be done, but the latter cannot be corrected.

A good person is not one who knows how to do good, but one who does not know how to do evil.

Friendship can do without love; love without friendship is not.

There are people who become brutes as soon as they are treated like people.

Women forgive everything, except for one thing - unpleasant treatment of themselves.

Life is not about living, but about feeling that you are living.

Life teaches only those who study it.

Living with your own mind does not mean ignoring someone else’s mind, but being able to use it to understand things.

A healthy and healthy person sculpts the Venus de Milo from his Akulina and does not see in the Venus de Milo anything more than his Akulina.

The most interesting thing is to find out not what people talk about, but what they are silent about.

The historian is strong in hindsight. He knows the present from the rear, not from the face. The historian has an abyss of memories and examples, but no instincts or premonitions.

History teaches nothing, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.

When we feel bad, we think: “But somewhere, someone is feeling good.” When we feel good, we rarely think: “Somewhere, someone is feeling bad.”

Great writers are lanterns who, in peacetime, light the way for intelligent passers-by, who are defeated by scoundrels, and on whom the stupid ones are hanged in revolution.

Whoever lives by someone else's labor will inevitably end up living by someone else's mind, for one's own mind is developed only with the help of one's own labor.

He who does not like to ask does not like to oblige, that is, he is afraid to be grateful.

Anyone who is unable to work 16 hours a day did not have the right to be born and must be eliminated from life as a usurper of existence.

He who loves himself very much is not loved by others, because out of delicacy they do not want to be his rivals.

He who laughs is not angry, because to laugh means to forgive.

Proud people love power, ambitious people love influence, arrogant people seek both, reflective people despise both.

Many small successes do not guarantee a big victory.

Young people are like butterflies: they fly into the light and end up in the fire.

A man loves a woman most often because she loves him; A woman loves a man most often because he admires her.

Thought without morality is thoughtlessness, morality without thought is fanaticism.

We should not complain that there are few smart people, but thank God that they exist.

Finding the cause of evil is almost the same as finding a cure for it.

Don't start something whose end is not in your hands.

It is not old age itself that is respected, but the life lived. If she was.

It is impossible and shameful to adopt someone else’s way of life, structure of feelings and order of relationships. Every decent people should have all this, just as every decent person should have his own head and his own wife.

There is nothing more hostile to culture than civilization.

Frankness is not gullibility at all, but only the bad habit of thinking out loud.

By common sense, everyone means only their own.

As you get older, your eyes move from your forehead to the back of your head: you begin to look back and see nothing ahead, that is, you live in memories, not hopes.

If you sow care, you will reap initiative.

The habits of fathers, both good and bad, turn into the vices of children.

The difference between a brave man and a coward is that the first, aware of the danger, does not feel fear, and the second feels fear, not realizing the danger.

The most fun laughter is to laugh at those who laugh at you.

The most precious gift of nature is a cheerful, mocking and kind mind.

The most invincible person is the one who is not afraid to be stupid.

Family quarrels are a regular repair of decaying family love.

The word is the great weapon of life.

Looking at them, how they believe in God, you just want to believe in the devil.

Justice is the valor of chosen natures, truthfulness is the duty of every decent person.

Happy is the one who can love his wife as a mistress, and unhappy is the one who allows his mistress to love him as a husband.

Talent is a spark of God with which a person usually burns himself, illuminating the path for others with his own fire.

Creativity is a high feat, and feat requires sacrifice.

Every age has its privileges and its disadvantages.

A good doctor's medicine is not in the pharmacy, but in his own head.

The mind perishes from contradictions, but the heart feeds on them.

Being able to write legibly is the first rule of politeness.

Character is power over oneself, talent is power over others.

A good woman, when she gets married, promises happiness, a bad woman waits for it.

It was the Germans who taught us exclusivity. Our goals are universal.

To warm Russia, some are ready to burn it.

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