Truthful fabrications

The complete set of gags, pranks, ridicule, aphorisms, etc. "On the contrary..." is posted on the Amazon website (Nizovtsev Yury).

Absurdist delights

If the person suddenly will open the true meaning of life – he will not believe in it.
The main difficulty of mankind consists in lack of understanding of that why it oneself in general is necessary.
Our expectations too often come to the end unexpectedly.
The truth bares not beauty, but an unfussy framework.
Existence of knowledge does not allow to sort out in something irrevocably.
Work is akin to digging a grave, and toil - to its burying.
Astonishment differs from indignation in that the surprised has not yet had time to understand that he was deceived.
The person always wants the best than he has, without the bases, special on that.
It is possible to become independent, having only turned away from the people.
If a person was perpetrating only useful, he would turn into an ant.
People like to discuss that they plainly do not know or cannot know.
The belief is a necessary ersatz of cognition.
The key for happiness excessively jams when spinning.

Abstract

The truth in behavior of historical persons does not open to the reader just like that – from the composed memoirs, from diaries, letters. It is being not discovered even from author's texts though about something can be guessed from all these sources. However, it is possible to slightly open veil over it nevertheless after time, having captured a picture in the whole from the side, and having given it to the inquisitive reader in the form of an oksymoron since behind the absurdity, which absorbs time, grow not invented at all, and quite real figures of the past reflecting not only contradictory essence of these persons, but also our eternal present.

Content

1. Something historical.
2. Something lightweight.
3. And here is heavier.
4. And here the head can go round.

1. Something historical.

Gaius Julius Caesar, Brutus and others.
The patricians in Rome walked without pants, but in togas, and despised all those who wore pants, calling them barbarians.
Once, the autocratic G. Yu. Caesar, who was tired of everything by the age of 56, but did not want to vilely die in his own bed from illnesses, found out about the conspiracy of Brutus and other opposition members - he acted on their nerves with his monocracy.
Caesar was rejoiced, and went to the place marked by the conspirators - at a meeting of senators, where he was struck by 23 blows (only one fatal). During this defeat, understanding that there are no trousers on him, he was forced to be engaged in blooming of folds of a toga below knees to fall most decently.
So, he managed to go down in history without being disgraced by the discovery of a causal place.

Shakespeare.
Shakespeare, having uttered by Hamlet's mouths the words “To be or not to be, that is the question” through Hamlet’s words, could not help becoming famous for centuries, if only because so far no one really answered this question, although Shakespeare hinted at some unknown “Not to be” and the injustice of life (“to be”). In fact, if to ponder. about it, then the question was posed by him incorrectly. We are not asked to be or not to be at birth, and we have to "be." To die a natural death, that is, "not to be", no one also asks us either: it comes by itself-without our permission. As for the interval between birth and death, then, again, one has to "be," because one does not know what "not to be" means, and therefore one is afraid. Nevertheless, if "to be" strongly bothers, it is possible and own forces to move in doubtful "not to be"; or any blockheads untimely will move you in "not to be", for example, in the course of a war. All this routine does not mean disclosure of a secret at all: both “not to be” and “to be,” i.e. for what need that and another, and also - for whom!? In other words, Shakespeare put all of us on the threshold of the unsolvable, so as we not to be arrogant, and at the same time showed the eternal fearfulness of the overwhelming majority before that and another.

French writer and philosopher Voltaire.
This son of an official was an active and inventive fellow who wrote a lot of unpleasant things for many people. And, when to him for it once again polished a physiognomy, and then put in prison, he solved:" I will more not speak out definitely!" For warm-up, he wrote about God so: "But where there is Eternal Geometer? In one place or everywhere without taking up space? I don’t know anything about it.” Similar camouflage approach was liked, and numerous imitators of Voltaire began to call themselves Volteryanets, just as now numerous fans of various uncertainties, given out by them for liberty call themselves liberals.

Napoleon in search of himself.
The only Italian who did not bad do some fighting out of all Italians is obliged to this application of own forces to the French. Napoleon so liked to be at war, - that he finished this activity only after destruction of almost all French of military age whom to it as to the foreigner, it was not especially a pity, as well as France, which, actually, has lost forever through his fault the status of the great power.
Similar achievement so struck the French that they, having considered everything thoroughly, made him the foremost national hero: and it is clear – from dirt yes to emperor none of them for all history of France managed to climb.

Nietzsche and Marx.
The German philosopher Nietzsche, who invented the superman, once told Marx: “Karl, what, to hell, is the point in your idiotic dictatorship of the proletariat, where the collective will for certain strangle the personality, and everyone will become blockheads!”
Marx answered this way: “And your superman will destroy everyone else from one contempt for these imperfections!” Arriving home, both realized that each of them went to extremes. Nietzsche fell ill from grief and passed away without inventing anything else. And Marx quit writing Capital and also died of chagrin with his shortsightedness. Everything would be fine, but they had followers who did not die on time.

Lenin as a person who tried to surpass Marx on Russian soil.
Lenin respected Marx for his sharp and talented approach up to economics until the twentieth year. After the apparent failure of all the Marxist dogmas, which he was seriously trying to introduce to begin with in Russia, seizing power in it, Lenin, very upset, decided to return everything to the fold of private property under the nickname NEP, nevertheless, the nightmare failure of all his efforts to implement, as it turned out, Marx’s fake, but very attractive ideas, quickly brought Ilyich to a mausoleum, and not to a simple grave, because the people did not understand his apostasy, lulled by the myth of a happy future, for the sake of which you need a little patience and war.
The poorly educated but sane Stalin comparatively quickly converted revolutionary achievements into ordinary despotism with a claim to world domination, which at him, as well as at Hitler, because of their insufficient preparedness, was intercepted by cunning and not bad educated Americans.

Brigadier General de Gaulle.
The general, though only a brigadier, was far from simple. He did not go into lackeys to Hitler after the defeat of France, like all others generals and marshals of France, but moved to the British, and began to help them than he could - destroy the phony Aryans. As a result, the victorious allies took France into their company, although it did not prove oneself in the war. Such a wonderful phenomenon could not but lead the general to the post of Prime Minister of France. However, already in 1946, he was expelled from his post for harmfulness and autocracy, and was replaced by all sorts of slickers, who owned France for twelve years, harming her a lot. At last, the French were tired of it, and they called for a still living general to rectify the situation as president. Here he is in his old age, when, as you know, there is nothing to lose, he swung around so, that he really tried to bring France into the number of the main powers of the world. This happened because, in spite of everything, de Gaulle excelled all the other rulers of world powers by his harmful character and independent behavior — he generally sneezed at them. For this, they respected him, despite the geographical smallness of France.

Nikita Khrushchev and Mao Zedong.
"For the vilification of the leader of the world proletariat comrade Stalin and voluntarism to shoot this son of a bitch - Nikitka!" - Shouted Mao Zedong in a thunderous voice. At this point, the first Secretary of Central Committee of the CPSU N. S. Khrushchev woke up in a cold sweat in his country residence. It turns out that it was early morning, and Nikita's favorite rooster screamed for some reason in the voice of comrade Mao. At that moment, into his hairless head suddenly struck the seditious thought: “What if I vainly comrade Stalin have vilified? - Mao is not after all a fool?” However, there was nowhere to devat, and he fell asleep until the next cry of the rooster. It is necessary to tell that soon he was tired of all this, and he transferred his favourite rooster to boondocks, though visited him there regularly.

2. Something lightweight.

Once famous writer Leo Tolstoy and known Russian writer - Maxim Gorky caught a live peasant to ask him about the people's hardships. The peasant, frightened by these big guys, held out his purse to them with a trembling hand. Then they realized that the peasants still have money.

Once still young Russian writer Dostoevsky decided challenging the literary critic Belinsky to a duel out of resentment for his statement: “... aroused great hopes - alas! - still not coming true.” When he was buying dueling pistols, the crying Gogol came up and began to choose the fireplace poker larger. “Here,” - he told Dostoevsky, - “the second volume of "Dead Souls" manuscript which needs to be burned!” Dostoevsky forgot about pistols and Belinsky, and went to help Gogol to burn the description of positive characters, whom he too did not see personally never in Russia.

As something some visitors of the house of Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana (Clear Glade) asked to explain the difference between optimists and pessimists. "Contrary to popular belief," - replied the classic, - " the difference is not so great as it seems to many. If you think about their essence, it becomes clear that the optimist is inclined to commit stupidity, especially without thinking about it, whereas the pessimist is inclined to stupidity only after serious reflections."

One day, Maxim Gorky decided to find out finally why woe happens from mind, and not from stupidity. He invited Leo Tolstoy to a spiritualistic session. Called by them from otherworldly environments, Griboyedov, the author of the famous play “Woe from Wit,” explained, that the clever among the crooks, sly fellows and fools is always woefully, and the fools among the smart are only unpleasant. Having learned this truth, Gorky and Tolstoy tried to remove the fools from their circle, but quickly realized that as a result they would be left completely without it, and they had to continue to grieve.

The writer Dostoevsky, there was a case, suggested to the writer-narodnik Chernyshevsky to go to the Passage to look at the overseas crocodile brought there. Struck by the sight of a crocodile, Chernyshevsky slipped and fell into its mouth. From that day on, it was possible to approach the crocodile by paying Dostoevsky, who has been attached to the side, and get the answer to the question asked from the crocodile's belly within the competence of the crocodile and Chernyshevsky. Dostoevsky later gloated that the competence of both was insufficient, but he took money, justifying himself with large debts to honest people.

Friedrich Engels, as a manufacturer, regularly gave Karl Marx money to finish writing "Capital", and thus finally exposed capitalism, but "Capital" was too thick, and Marx overstrained himself, raising it every day, despite Engels ' financial assistance.

Marx once invited Feuerbach to visit Darwin, to find out finally whether labor really created a person? "On the contrary!" - said Darwin shortly. They left him in silence, trying not to show each other that they did not understand any of this answer.

Marx and Engels once conceived to rid all people of want and bring them to complete harmony. And they came up with communism! But then the wise Count Leo Tolstoy came to them and said: “Oh, you! Everybody can't play the same instrument the same way!" He added nothing more and left. But the arrogant Marx and Engels did not believe him, as, however, did not believe him all the others, who are still waiting in vain for this seductive phenomenon.

Marx and Engels, as pure materialists, did not understand the essence of the Kantian "thing-in-itself", as well as all else otherworldly, considering in the depths of their souls this as opium for the people. Nevertheless, they were interested to find out what this mysterious "thing-in-itself" is. It was impossible to ask Kant - he died long ago. So, they had to go to the wisest of all still living idealists Leo Tolstoy with this question. He looked at them with regret, and said: "For you simplistically: this is a thing, which has not yet reached up to us, but there is hope that it will reach."
The time has come for Marx and Engels to die. And they have wondered - is there life after death? They went again to Count Leo Tolstoy for an answer. He says to them: “I, of course, have not been there, but I believe that in order to die, one must be born. This means that after death you have to wait for birth and etc.". They liked this answer and, thanking Tolstoy, having said to him in parting: “If anything happens, we will come to you again, maybe even from the other world. Alas, but materialism has no answers to some questions".

Russian social-democrat Georgy Plekhanov tried to figure out what is the real role of the individual in history? It seemed to him that one could not do without personality, and without the action of the masses, it would also be impossible to move history. And he turned, even though he was an unbeliever, to God - there was no one else - everyone doubted - even Count Leo Tolstoy, although he gravitated more towards the masses. And then Georgy Valentinovich saw in the clouds a written phrase: "Personalities appear in history so rarely that history does not suffer pretty much from them, but, in particular, - very even!"

Lenin envied Marx, dreaming of the same lush vegetation on own physionomy. Once he took Trotsky with him to Marx for a consultation on this issue. Engels meets them and says: “Marx, guys, alas, has died already. Did not have time. But nothing, I'm here instead of him. I won't tell you about the beard, but I will explain about the revolution. " And the harmful Engels taught both them revolutions to arrange. Well, they and arranged us a “fun life".

In his distant childhood, inquisitive and caring for world justice, Volodya Ulyanov came to his educated father, a civil general, and asked the question: "Why the numerous lower classes not overthrown a small number upper?" The answer was: "And they have been overthrowing them, immediately turning themselves into a small number". But Volodya believed not his father, but Marx. And, as you can see now very clearly, he was mistaken!

Vladimir Ulyanov, studying Marxism and dialectics, could not understand in any way what to put ahead - a chicken or an egg. He did not find the answer in Marx. Therefore, he went to Leo Tolstoy. That answer gave: "It is foolish to put the chicken in front of the egg and vice versa". Since then, the puzzled Volodya became the respect Tolstoy so much that later made him a "mirror of the Russian revolution".

Maxim Gorky, originally the lumpen and vagabond, having become a classic of Russian literature and a rich man even before the revolution, came to the Bolsheviks and told them: “I hate the bourgeoisie and the nobility due to own mere origin! You guys are harsh, and I will help you financially." So he became the main sponsor and, therefore, the main culprit of the October Revolution, as well as the cataclysms that followed it around the world.

After the revolution, Gorky, as the honest man, became disillusioned with the Bolsheviks for deceiving the population of Russia, and went to the island of Capri to play chess with Mussolini. Mussolini, thinking about the next move, somehow nostalgically says to him: “Alexey, do you remember how I lost in chess to Lenin, to the now deceased eight years ago, but still won in the next game !?”. "One, you, a gang of scoundrels!" - Gorky muttered gloomily in Russian, whose position on the board was awful.

The then world chess champion David Bronstein, who did not know physics very well, asked his famous friend, physicist and Nobel laureate Albert Einstein: "Can space exist without things?" Einstein, who was not weakly drinking, pondered, but looking at the opened bottle of cognac, he said: "Whether need a bottle without fill !?".

The famous physicist Einstein invited the chess player and mathematician Bronstein, who was then the world champion, to play cards with him for flicks, and Einstein lost - and more than once. As a result, his brains due to shaking could not complete the theory of the unified field, and Einstein died, very dissatisfied with the hardness of Bronstein's nails.

The famous Russian writer Gogol, having composed the comedy "The Inspector General", opened the eyes of Emperor Nicholas I to the outrages reigning in the Russian Empire. Since then, Nikolai began to eradicate them every day, however, without much success. Nevertheless, having greatly respected Gogol since then, he periodically began to throw money to Gogol for travel, which that adored. This is how Gogol managed to live his life without his own apartment and without his own money.

Once Gogol came to the famous Russian poet Pushkin, and said to him: "Pushkin, I want to write the great poetic work, but I am half Ukrainian, half Pole - I do not know enough poetic Russian syllable." "It's nothing," became just kidding Pushkin, "you can write the poetic work and in prose." Gogol understood his words directly, and called the prose story "Dead Souls" the poem. This is how another "poetic" Russian genius came about.

Pushkin loved Gogol for his Little Russian talk and the insolence with which he climbed right through into Russian literature. Besides Gogol, Pushkin loved to write poetry, play cards and shoot at his wife's admirers. That is why he so truthfully portrayed reality in "The Queen of Spades" and "Eugene Onegin". Gogol was afraid of losing at cards, and was afraid to shoot at passers-by. Therefore, he asked Pushkin to help him write at least something brilliant without much risk. Pushkin helped by explaining that it was unnecessary to shoot passers-by to Gogol, because he is a native philosopher and can describe souls well. "Especially," - joked Pushkin, - "you manage good to describe dead". And Gogol did not fail.

Belinsky and Gogol once clashed over progress, which should bring us all the best, as Belinsky argued. Gogol only laughed in response to this stupidity, observing nevertheless that the government is "a huge gang of thieves, which every Russian knows about," but at the same time "every Russian thinks how to get himself a warm apartment". Geniuses, as you can see, do not let down especially, unlike other blockheads, for this blockheads do not like them.

When Fyodor Dostoevsky began writing his famous early work "Poor People", he thought: “I wonder why the gap in income between the poor and the rich is so great?” He went with this question to the great Gogol, since the even greater Pushkin had already been killed. Gogol was not a Marxist, and answered truthfully: "The population growth is to blame: the poor breed so hard that the rich cannot keep up with them".

Once, having drunk 150 grams each, Gorky and Tolstoy thought about human nature: what kind of manifestation prevails in it. Gorky, of course, quoted Marx: "" Man is a set of social relations, "which means the predominance of this set in him." “Thou, oneself is this set! - said Tolstoy. - What does each person do so as not to see their own filthy insides? - everyone is trying with all his might to deceive himself! although, I must admit - because of the relationships!".

Ivan Bunin wrote novels and short stories so beautifully - he did not succeed in novels - that he became first a Russian academician, and then a Nobel laureate.
But Leo Tolstoy did not become Nobel laureate!
Few people know that he refused the proposed Nobel Prize. Apparently, the methyl above.

Once Gorky, who until recently wandered along Russian roads barefoot and did not consider himself very smart, asked Tolstoy: "Is there a difference between a stupid and a durak?"
Tolstoy did not hesitate to answer: "A stupid understands too much about himself and does not want more, but a durak flaunts his stupidity".

Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Ivan Bunin as well as Maxim Gorky loved to drink local wine together in Yalta. Having drunk on a warm evening to a joyful state, the trinity of the classics, laughing, began to ask poor Gorky how he had succeeded in identifying the bottom so successfully in his play "At the Bottom". Gorky muttered gloomily: "So and determined it - because I oneself was there". The Trinity felt ashamed of their snobbery, and they recognized Gorky as a classic, who still reveal to us exactly as a classic.

Chekhov, finally saddened by the illnesses that persecuted him, gave up writing funny stories, and branded the intelligentsia "The Seagull" to the envy of Gorky. Maxim in response pulled up his strength and gave birth to the "Petrel of the Revolution" along with the "stupid penguin-bourgeois." Learning about this, Leo Tolstoy came to them with a mirror, showed his reflection in it, and pronounce, utter significantly: “I don’t need to prove anything - I am already a mirror of the Russian revolution, and I will always remain by it even if the mirror cracks!”

Chekhov was once asked the question: "Is it possible firsthand to detect own duality and the contradictions? ""To do this," Chekhov replied, " you just need to look in a mirror at yourself».

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who made his way to the pinnacle of power in the USSR after Stalin's death, was a great eccentric, and in some respects even a simpleton, since he did not have time to receive education during the turbulent revolutionary events, but at the same time he was a cunning intriguer. While in India in negotiations with the Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru, he, having slightly drunk, reasonably, as it seemed to him, suggested that D. Nehru take the container, go outside, catch some of the Indian cows quietly roaming the streets in Delhi along streets, and milk her: "I know how to milk – do not hesitate, and if all your cows are sacred, and you do not lie, then the milk we produce will be curative, at least, and we, friend Jawaharlal, will continue to live-live in the safety of our organisms, drinking this milk, and the devil himself will not be our brother, but we will not tell the rest," - were his authentic words. Nehru, for whom, as for all Indians, cows are sacred animals, in horror rushed to run, locked himself in his office and began to meditate in order to come to your senses. "And I blurted out something again?" - thought the embarrassed Nikita, and instead of milk for balance he had a drink of vodka, also healing in some respects.

Once Nikita Khrushchev's inner voice clearly said in a dream: "Hindi rusi phai phai." Nikita, recognizing the intonation of Jawaharlal Nehru, a true sage who never lied, immediately woke up and rushed to stuff valuable junk into bundles and suitcases, but suddenly stopped - he remembered the translation of this seemingly alarming phrase into Russian from Hindi: “Indians and Russian brothers”, And he trudged off without fear to view dreams on the Indian theme.

3. And here is heavier.

The German philosopher Nietzsche, who invented the superman, once said to Marx: "Karl, what the hell, meaning is in your idiotic dictatorship of the proletariat, where the collective will surely strangle the individual and everyone will become idiots!" Marx replied: "And your superman will destroy all rest individuals from one contempt for these imperfections!" Arriving home, both realized that each of them had gone up to extreme. From chagrin, Nietzsche fell ill and died without inventing anything else. And Marx gave up writing Capital and also died of chagrin because his shortsightedness. Everything would have been fine, but they had followers who did not die in time.

On an autumn morning, the peasants came to Leo Tolstoy to learn from the sage: "Is truth triumphant in the world or evil triumphs?"
Tolstoy really answered them very wisely, but somewhat vaguely: "Do not doubt - the truth is that the number of decently living people is growing, although, of course, evil is manifested in the fact that the number of indecently living people is not decreasing." With that they left without discovering the desired perspective.

Dostoevsky, walking with Tolstoy, asked him: “Leo, I have been tormented by the question for a long time - the Lord is so blessed that he cannot do evil, and gives everyone only good! And evil, as you can see, rushes from all the cracks! "
“Dear friend, - Tolstoy replied, looking at the sky with respect, - very thing depends on the distribution. The Lord, granting only good to everybody, distributes it so, that good for some turns into evil for others".

Once a whole delegation of high-ranking officials came to Leo Tolstoy with the question; “What value is the main one in our society? We believe, - they noted, - that there is nothing higher than power, for which everyone is fighting with all their might, and by reaching it, they get everything possible in society!”
Tolstoy looked at them with regret and said: "If power is the main human value, then how does the alpha male monkey differ from any one in power!?"

"Is prudence always justified?" - The question was asked to Leo Tolstoy.
“Not at all. - Tolstoy answered. - Prudence cherishes the hope of a favorable outcome even when it cannot happen".

"Why do good intentions, as a rule, lead to collapse?" - inquisitive visitors to estate of Leo Tolstoy have asked him.
"The explanation here is obvious," Tolstoy replied. "Each person dreams of living his life right, not knowing exactly, where follow for the right life

"How do fools, cunning, clever and wise persons differ from each other?" - once Leo Tolstoy was asked.
He pondered a little, and then said: "A fool ignores knowledge, a cunning person sells it, a clever person does not know what to do with it, a wise person does, but does not want to bother".

"Why do various debates in different circles of society rarely lead to a positive result?" - Leo Tolstoy was asked.
"People like to discuss what they don't really know or can't know" - Tolstoy replied.

"Why are successful people mostly so puzzled and concerned?" - there was a question to Leo Tolstoy.
"A successful person is unhappy precisely because he receives the required without problems", - Tolstoy noted.

"Is there any sense in revolution? Leo Tolstoy was asked.
"And you can judge for yourself," - he replied, - if you deprive all rich of their property, the number of poor people will only increase. If, on the contrary, all the poor are exterminated, the rich will be ruined without workers, and the poor that have arisen will again produce the rich".

Once Maxim Gorky asked Leo Tolstoy a question: "Is it really impossible to finally arrange so that everyone lives equally well without any revolutions – after all, wealth always burdens, poverty humiliates: so, it seems, you have to give away the excess or to pick up what is missing.
“Apparently, encumbrance does not come in contact with humiliation”, - Tolstoy noted sadly.

Leo Tolstoy once said to Anton Chekhov: "I love you, but I not like Shakespeare!" "Why so? - Chekhov said, and he continued: - Shakespeare is a recognized genius, and I am still so-so".
" Shakespeare was stealing plots from others, and we, my humble friend Antosha, are real geniuses, because plots are stealing from us”.

Young Chekhov was light in thought and did not read Marx. Therefore, to the question of those curious about economics and saving, he answered as follows: “The method of dividing people into idlers and the personnel serving them is called economics; and saving is just a temporary victory of the idea of saving what needs to be spent".

"Is it possible to make sure that a person does not waste himself on all sorts of nonsense, but does only some useful deeds?" - Chekhov was asked". If a person was making only useful deeds", - Chekhov answered, - he would turn into an ant".

"Is originality always acceptable?" - Chekhov was asked. "I suppose, - he replied, - that, for example, originality in everything is the middle stage of idiocy".

"Is it not true that without faith the world cannot stand up?" - once Chekhov was asked. “The world is mostly filled not with curious, but rather anxious people: they have no time to delve into the foundations of the world order, they determine life realities for their own benefit from observations and their own experience, but everything the rest, which remains incomprehensible to them, they take on faith through religion, and thus faith is for them, a kind of necessary and soothing ersatz of knowledge".

“What would happen to you if you suddenly got rich?”
Chekhov was asked: “I would immediately become sad - after all, wealth would deprive me of my former carelessness!"

Chekhov was asked to explain: "Why was formerly the victim being given the last word before execution?"
“In the old days, people were more curious: they wanted to listen to someone whom no longer had any sense in lying”, - Chekhov replied.

The writer and future Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin, having seen enough of the behavior of the peasants, which he has described in his "Village stories", could not understand why the peasants, who seemed to be not spoiled by culture and education, perform the same outrages as everybody else!? He went to Lev Tolstoy for an explanation. The latter said to him: "Thou could have figured it out myself - there is nothing difficult here: if a person tries to live according to the best in him, then this does not in any way agree with his other effort - to live better!"

Once Gorky in the colonial shop noticed that the seller turned away. He, do not be a fool, for old memory, pulled off a couple of bagels and hid them in his bosom, so that later he would use them with Chekhov at tea drinking. Upon learning of this trick, Chekhov remarked philosophically: "You, Alexey, have clearly demonstrated that honesty is checked only outside the zone of sight".

Lev Tolstoy and Vladimir Ulyanov once began to argue who was right: idealists or materialists? Vladimir muttered: “Where can consciousness find a place without matter!?” But Tolstoy said impressively: "But how can we test matter without consciousness !?" And they dispersed, each remaining at his own opinion, not having realized that, by combining both ideas, one could discover the sought after truth.

Walkers from the people came to visit Tolstoy and say: “Lev Nikolayevich, we would like to be as smart and talented as you, for the good of the people. Open the secret - why new thoughts, discoveries and original ideas do not enter into our heads, after all, our heads are not too different from yours outwardly? "
Tolstoy was amazed at this naivety, and gave out a single phrase, looking over the heads of the walkers: "New thoughts come to minds not for millions, but for a few, because millions actually have no time for them".

Gorky was not a fool, and once greatly surprised Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy argued that it is the people who perform all great deeds, and the significance of other things, in particular, personalities in history, is exaggerated. Maxim Gorky objected: "Leo, you are wrong, the people, of course, are great and powerful, but personally I would have remained a barefoot and a vagabond if I hadn't turned my back on the people one day".

Chekhov did not believe in God, and sowed doubts about this in the believer Leo Tolstoy, exposing the miracles and petty nature of a person in his stories and at parties in Yalta. Tolstoy, under his influence, over time became imbued with distrust of Orthodox priests, and began to try to increase the petty human nature with the help of sermons, but achieved only a side effect - a harmful sect of Tolstoyans appeared.

Lev Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky and Ivan Bunin once asked Anton Chekhov why he writes so succinctly and is laconic in conversations. Anton again put it succinctly: "Anyone who speaks for a long time is either a fool, or a scientist, or a scoundrel, who deliberately fools heads".

Leo Tolstoy, angry at Chekhov for his atheism, exclaimed once: "There cannot but be heaven and hell - after all, everyone should receive either punishment or thanksgiving!" To which Chekhov answered him dryly: "Well, instead of heaven and hell to receive punishments and gratitude, it is provided exactly here a hostel for us, but not somewhere - no knows where".

The intelligentsia became curious about Leo Tolstoy's attitude to full welfare. Its representatives came to him in "Yasnaya Polyana" and asked about it.
He did not find it difficult to answer: "If you have everything, it means that you are already a dead person - after all, thou, like him, already need nothing".

Once Lev Tolstoy was asked about the true role of habit in human life.
"Habit," he replied, "makes life easier, but at the same time - nullifies it."

Lev Tolstoy was once asked the question: "Why are seemingly intelligent public figures, in particular politicians - with rare exceptions - mistaken?" "Their confidence," - Tolstoy has said, - is usually based either on visibility, or on poor judgment, or stems from hopelessness".

A delegation of workers who visited Tolstoy asked him a question: will communism triumph, as Marx believes, or will capitalism continue to torment the working people?
Tolstoy, in response, drew the workers' attention to the impossibility of the long existence of both capitalism and socialism: “The fact is that the dreams of all workers of a just and harmonious life surrounded by milk rivers and jelly banks will turn to ashes inevitably and quite soon in collision with reality - where there is no struggle, no irreparable contradictions, stagnation and decay begins. On the other hand, capitalism alienates a person both from labor and from himself, arranging the rotation of capital, which is necessary only for him, and not for a person, producing from this side the degradation of a person helpless before this rotation. In addition, the continuous expansion of the consumer market cannot be endless due to the limitations of the material resources and capabilities of the human body. This means that capitalism will come to an end! Then it turns out: either there will be a certain balance between the personal and the public, similar to primitive society or the life of some religious sects, or civilization will collapse and everything will start all over again in one way or another".

The representatives of the Moscow intelligentsia asked Leo Tolstoy: "Is there any use in envy?"
"Envy, - Tolstoy answered without comments, - helps not only to delay of somebody, but also to catch up".

A group of philosophers came to Leo Tolstoy with a question, where they diverged diametrically. Some argued that liberty in the course of progress is given to the people from the top, others believed that freedom should be taken by themselves, since no one will give it voluntarily.
Thick without explanation, said: "Liberty is not being given, but - liberty it is not being taken".

Leo Tolstoy, like Anton Chekhov in everyday life were extremely modest, if not poor. Surprised by this strange circumstance with their large earnings on widely published books, the delegation of the incomprehensible intellectuals asked on the veranda of Chekhov's house in Yalta to them the impersonal question about the skill to live, and received a synchronous answer: "The skill to live creates a rather boring comfort".

Chekhov did not experience difficulty in answering a complex philosophical question, which he was asked not without malice at one of the receptions: "Who or what is organizing the world order?"
"The world order, - Chekhov calmly answered, - oneself is quite successfully organizing the resistance of things".

Chekhov was once asked by his admirers: "Why are people so different in their behavior - among them there are not present identical, despite their great number?"
"The thing is, - Chekhov answered, - that the truth of life is different for every person by his own experience".

Chekhov was once asked the tricky question: "Is there a similarity between charm and mind?"
Chekhov did not reach into his pocket for the answer: "An enviable mind, as and charm, is decent apparently not to each person".

Leo Tolstoy at his next visit to Yalta to Chekhov, asked him a question: "You as a humorist with experience certainly became clear what role chance plays in our lives? Explain!".
"It mocks over us!"- Chekhov was laconic.

Once, the Russian social-democrat Plekhanov met with Marx.
"How to awaken revolution in Russia and build communism?" - he asked.
"George, - Marx shied away from the answer, since he did not like Russia for the backwardness and persecution of the Jews, - I need to consult Engels first".
They were not able to meet again, because Marx, exhausted by "Capital," died untimely, and after him Engels also went into another world.
As a result, Plekhanov had to consult Ulyanov (Lenin) on this acute issue, although he did not like him for adventurism. The cautious Plekhanov told Ulyanov that it is too early to start a revolution; at first it is advisable to take off the bast shoes, and, as you see, Marx evaded the answer. But Lenin could not wait. He invited the reckless "Judas" Trotsky. Together they have made the socialist revolution so, that capitalism returned to Russia again rather soon.

After the seventeenth year, Lenin and Trotsky conceived to cancel money in Russia, but hesitated - suddenly something will go wrong - and turned for rhe advice to the still living classic - Gorky. He looked at them with regret, grinned into a hanging mustache, and replied: "Fools, you, Marxists, there will be nothing good except a very short-term kingdom of justice!"

Grigory Rasputin walked to Tsarina Alexandra in bast shoes and thoughtfulness, to be faithful to the image of a simple but wise peasant. Suddenly a drunken Leon Trotsky with a terrible shine in his glasses toke off to meet him. He grabbed Grishka by the beard for stability and said to him: "Well done, continue to decompose the empire further!" Grishka responded knocked off Trotsky's glasses and announcing: "And you, Herod, will be killed too!" So everyone learned that Rasputin had, among other things, remarkable prophetic abilities.

The lawyer Kerensky, as freemason and Socialist-Revolutionary at the same time, allowed liberties in Russia in 1917, and was forced to quickly flee from it where the eyes look. The lawyer, Bolshevik and publicist Ulyanov-Lenin destroyed these liberties, as well as a significant part of the Russian population, but without much sense both for himself and for the population. So both lawyers turned out to be untenable according to their results. Apparently, Russia enthusiasts of this profession in power are contraindicated.

Once the famous anarchist and revolutionary Nestor Makhno grappled with Lenin, who condemned anarchism, considering it a chimera. The offended Makhno told his native Ilyich that he shouldn't have believed the liar Marx, and Lenin replied: "But to the anarchist Kropotkin, who is a prince by birth, should not be trusted either." As a result, one ended up in a mausoleum, the other in a Paris grave, and we were beggars in the richest country in the world.

Planting corn, and sweating due to zeal, fat Nikita Khrushchev set an example for everyone, and at the same time reflected: "What is more promising: shoot these scoundrels, Stalin's henchmen - Malenkov and Molotov, like Beria, or simply send them to retire?" And then, on mature reflection among the corn, he decided, so how he was not a foo after all: “But and I can somehow be leaned - against the wall. I'd better give them a pension, isolate them from society at their dachas, and it will be calmer for me! " And he turned out to be right: he was not shot, following this example, but was sent to isolation at the dacha, not having forgotten about his pension.

Once the Soviet leaders have thought about the world problem - how to defeat corruption!? And they came up with it. They have relocated it into category of gratitude under the term "blat", which is hardly understandable to foreigners.

4. And here the head can go round.

Sarcastic Bronstein once said to Einstein: "I heard that thou have weighed Universe and got some stunning figure".
"Yes, - Albert answered importantly, - I succeeded!"
"Not a damn thing did thou succeed," shouted the hotheaded Bronstein, "Thou have weighed only one universe, and thou misled everyone about Creation, which everyone confuses with Universe. And the weighing of Universe - I say to thou, so how I am a chess player, who, unlike pedant-scientists, understands that everything starts from zero and ends with it - will give nothing but the same zero!”. Einstein, who had previously tried to reduce everything that exists to one equation, but unsuccessfully, realized that the chess player was too clever. Then he got drunk out of resentment, and ceased mucking around own theory of the unified field.

The chess player David Bronstein once remarked to the physicist Albert Einstein that, apparently, time and motion coincide.
Einstein answered him: "In reality, this is not so! I observed recently, during a film show, that everything moves on the screen only in the time interval indicated on the ticket. And this fact, my friend Bronstein, means that time is primary, and motion is secondary!"

Scientists came to Leo Tolstoy with a question by which they did not have consent: "Where is located Creation?"
Tolstoy did not hesitate in answering: "The infinite Creation fits only in one point of the present".

The chess player Bronstein once asked the physicist Einstein: "Does time exist independently of the person? I have read at Aristotle and Kant that - does not exist."
Einstein answered honestly: "Science believes that time is an objective phenomenon, however, if you look closely, the time, as the Ancient Greek Aristotle really noticed, is being counted by a person, not an alarm clock, that is, all others cannot measure time; and this means that time, without a person, essentially no one needs! Only you, Bronstein, don"t tell any of the scientists about my doubts, otherwise they will batter me".

The physicist Einstein once asked the chess player Bronstein the tricky question: "What is the difference between a radio receiver and a person, if we exclude the obvious liveliness of any person?"
Bronstein was not taken aback, and he casually threw: "By nothing! because without a common frequency basis of the signal, neither the radio receiver nor the person can catch anything. " Einstein, who had a radio receiver with an antenna for picking up radio waves carrying his favorite musical programs, did not object to his own frequency base, although it was out of visibility range.

Philosophers once turned to Tolstoy with the question: "Do things really exist or are they the product of our sense organs?"
The thinker's answer looked completely unusual: "It is quite possible a situation that looks rather strange to us, namely: when do things exist and at the same time do not exist? This possibility appears if you imagine that everything is merged together in infinity, in which there is no time. But the objective world can be "pull out" for existence from the infinity, which is potentially both everything and nothingness. However, objects merged together in the eternal cannot be "pulled" out of the original, even if one can recognize them. Therefore, around us we see only copies. Things themselves remain in infinity in a cohesive state, just like consciousness, and along with that, by means of the copies of particles of consciousness, things appear, as a result, in the form of an environment surrounding particles of consciousness outside and inside. That is, in the manifested reality, objects from infinity do not appear as such, but they are nonetheless present in this reality in the form of informational copies that are constantly updated through the senses, being presented to living beings after their processing in the appropriate centers (the brain for a person) as concrete things and phenomena, just as radio signals are converted into a visible image on the screen".

Why did all revolutions and upheavals, the purpose of which was a just harmonious society, invariably fail?" - Gorky addressed Tolstoy.
"We know from the history of the development of the human community (civilization), - said Tolstoy, - that all attempts to implement theories of harmonization of the human hostel on certain principles - from the State of Plato to the communist society of Marx or the fair anarchic self-government of Kropotkin - have always ended in failure.
After all the uprisings, coups and revolutions, society has always returned, like a toy-weeble, to well-known forms of government, the main function of which is to maintain the existing system with the help of violence and various forms of deceiving the population - from religious dogmas to direct falsifications.
Be that as it may, a community in the form of a state does not fall into chaos, does not fall apart, despite its unfair structure, in which the state is ruled, as a rule, not by the best, but the worst - hypocritical, unscrupulous, arrogant, cunning, and together with those are energetic, communicative individuals with a cold, predatory mind, caring primarily about themselves and their own "clan".
In fact, no theory of social development can explain this constant return of state or parastatal entities after any cataclysms to the former state.
Only the fact of retention and development of any community only in conditions of an unjust (contradictory) social structure is stated. - with the poor and rich, humiliated and noble, destitute and prosperous, listless and energetic, smart and stupid, and other people completely different in their properties, in the "eternal" struggle of some for the preservation of captured earthly goods, and others - for the weaning of these goods in own benefit.
Be that as it may, the ruling elite of any state under the conditions of competition of various states is forced, under the threat of conquest or absorption, to strengthen the foundations, improve the structure of the state, put forward certain ideas to rally the population, that cannot but be attributed to the development of society.
At one time, Kant drew attention to the unchanging antagonism of people in society, pointing out that an idyllic existence without struggle means complete stagnation and a halt in the development of society.
Therefore, a harmonious society, for example, the communism of Marx, cannot be, in principle!
Thus, injustice in all spheres of life, the preservation and consolidation of actual inequality in society, the constant use of violence, misinformation, the spread of all kinds of religious and social sectarianism, the oppression of the weak and defenseless at all times, paradoxically, in their negative totality is as an unchanged base for the social and technological development (progress), although, at the same time, it should be noted the enduring role of countering to rulers with side of the "humiliated and insulted", as well as with side of the numerous sincere fighters for justice and universal harmony, which does not allow a stratified society to stop, continuously "mixing" this society.
It is this everlasting antagonism, which is manifested discreetly for each person and each community in the form of a struggle of self-consciousness, demanding justice and harmony, and animal consciousness, wanting comfort and power, as can be seen, that is the true ground for the development of society. As a result, savagery, cannibalism and barbarism gradually and to a large extent were replaced for more than 1/7 of the world's population a relatively comfortable existence in direct contact with cultural values, technological innovations, which is provided and supported by a satisfactory educational level".

What, then, is the meaning of human existence?" - Gorky asked.
"The true meaning of the existence of man and mankind, - Tolstoy continued, - consists in the development of consciousness, and not in the acquisition of benefits, not in the development of technology, science, not in the strengthening of a particular social system, not in creating a "fair" order defined by someone.
All of it are chimeras, but along with that - the means, since the development consists in that, so that among chimeras, or rather, in a contradictory world, adequately determine oneself, trying not to give in to promises and seductions.
Everything, that seems as such important, indispensable, unconditional - will pass, disappear, crumble to dust. Only the ever-evolving consciousness will remain in the multitude of living beings in the environment formed by it, both in the quality a single consciousness and as an individual consciousness- in separateness".

“Why is such beautiful and optimistic theory as humanism crashes all the time?" Gorky asked the next question.
The answer was this:
"As well as racial theories, humanism, which, by determination, is atheistic, i.e. looks for a support not in God, and in the person, is absolutely inadequate, though at first sight it is very nice, owing to proclamation by it of the slogan: to determine the meaning and forms of own life must the person himself, living in the spirit of reason and using of own abilities.
As it occurs always, the support of theorists of humanism on the person, on his elevation at once leads humanism into the deadlock.
First, the vast majority of people, who are not worse than the others, is forced to live in inhuman conditions, often - in hunger and cold; they - on the brink of survival - are not capable to life in the spirit of reason and use of own abilities, which still should be to determine, that is very difficult in case of the actual absence of an education system and on the verge of survival. I.e. the theory of humanism is elitist, and it in this regard is distracted from the human race in its majority.
Secondly, construction of humane society by means of the ethics, based on humanitarian values in the spirit of reason and free search, suffered a complete collapse: the richest society in the face of Western countries, robbing the underdeveloped countries, and having the high level of life, nevertheless, is in a deep ideological and economic crisis, and decays.
The person in the countries of "golden" billion is reduced to a pathetic, selfish being in the conditions of false democracy, he stops in the development, "going in cycles" on consuming of the electronic and information novelties of civilization devouring all his free time. Any protests are senseless or are cruelly suppressed. He becomes indifferent and incapable for decisive actions, pliable to the false propaganda of the fallacious values of technocratic society, - typically the consumptive.
On the other hand, poor in the majority the Muslims making the considerable part of the population of Earth, turned out as anti-humanists in their aspiration to dilapidated religious dogmas, contradicting as to reason, and to liberty of the relations, search of new values and development. The elite of the Muslim countries, in effect, tries violently to force other people to accept these medieval views pulling the world to uniformity, wildness and autocracy.
Third, humanism is not able to solve the problem of choosing between the interests and needs of the person and groups of people.
Recognizing the intrinsic value of the human person, humanism leads to self-centeredness, destroying naturally and temporally limited to the identity of the person, not capable to become the superman at all efforts to that end.
The recognition by humanism as primary these or those the group interests and values means a direct way to totalitarianism and reducting of the person thereby to nothing.
Fourth, humanism denies religious values, repelling the most people away from self, inasmuch in the depths every human being feels his own weakness, limitation, mortality and cannot do without the support even and the fictitious external forces.
Thus, recognition of intrinsic value of the person as a pearl of Creation without appeal to his basis - to consciousness, turns out both senseless, and useless.
It is confirmed also by practice: freedom, happiness, development, despite all efforts of humanists, remain on the sidelines, and dominate, in fact, only thirst of a profit, consciousness of own superiority, utilitarianism, i.e. the structures of power implement a transfer by of false values into the values, determining life. Thereby is formed some kind of cancer tumor which is corroding the person and his civilization quickly".

"Leo, - said Gorky - I am interested in the true origin of good and evil, because they unlikely exist outside the human dormitory".
Tolstoy thought, and answered as follows: "In an archaic society, private property was absent, since products, things were distributed equally to everyone. This approach was dictated by the survival of the entire community due to the low productivity of the same things and food. Naturally, consumable things and products were considered a boon for everyone. Therefore, the term "good" since then has two meanings: good-goods-things and good-blessing-boon-charity-goodness.
In Russian the term "good" and now is understood, on the one hand, as the things, property, prosperity; and on the other hand, as goodness, kindly, the useful, the honest.
In English, like the Russian language, the term "good" is understood and now as things, products (goods), as well as goodness, well, boon (good).
Thereby, the notion "good" has meaning not only as things, products, but it was being transformed to the terms "kindly", "kindness", "goodness", i.e. into a certain positive moral category.
However, this initial attitude towards consumption of objects and products in the form of common ownership during developing the trade relations, forming States, different classes and estates begins to lose its original meaning, turning from good for everybody in property for individual owners.
Thus, good-thing in developed society begins to be understood not as common good, but as the good for specific (private) owners of things. In other words, the good (possessions, ownership) turns into representation of people in use of this good (property) only for the good of the owners.
Similar process of transformation of "good" in "property" happened not only in Russia. For example, in English a good with the insignificant addition "s" (goods) is interpreted as product, cargo, ware, stuff and property.
Apparently, for elimination of an ambiguity of the term "good" in Russian language has emerged such notions of common good as "well", "perfectly", and in English language - the term "well" (perfectly, successfully).
Naturally, people, deprived of property at its division or received its not enough have considered such situation for themselves as unfair, false, inhuman that couldn't but cause in them disappointment and its extreme expression - evilness. All these terms in different languages have related roots, and their meaning comes down to bad relations, the reason which is the varying degree of possession of property.
Therefore, most likely, the term "evil" has arisen during formation of the proprietary relations with fixing of a certain possession by laws in a counterbalance to the word "good". These terms have expressed thereby the opposite relation of people to property, which, on the one hand, can be by good in the sense of the common good or good for its owner, but, on the other hand, a vexation for the unjustly deprived by property, provoking thereby irritation and hatred, which can be generalized by the term "evil".
So, the same formation - things - in the different relations produced two polar notions, which both in religion, and in morals turned into allegedly eternally existing categories - good and evil. Their different interpretation doesn't change an original sense of these categories because as it was stated above, these notions arose concerning the possession, which was absent up to the stage of formation of civilization".

"What is the essence of liberty, and how is it manifested?" - Gorky asked Tolstoy the next question.
Essence of liberty is comprehended for a person only in the representation of the same person, who is not that other, as the combination of the lowest and highest forms of consciousness in the form of organic compounds of a body. Therefore, all actions of a person are expressed in the interweaving of the instinctive and the comprehended.
For any kind of consciousness in the living being liberty is the internal state caused by the imperishable own activity which is shown in permanent dissatisfaction with oneself. This dissatisfaction leads any living creature forward, being reflected in conscious and unconscious actions, in particular, for a person, to the overcome the incessant resistance of the environment, and a kind of "the drive belt" for the instinctive actions of a person in order to resolve his unconscious dissatisfaction with the situation, or the impetus for action is the subconscious persistence, whereas a similar impetus, but already to the actions to overcome the conscious dissatisfaction in his self-consciousness is the will.
In the lowest consciousness liberty in action is manifested instinctively, i.e. without an explicit goal, by trials and errors.
Liberty in action is manifested by the highest consciousness as the volition - in the form of the aspiration to the scheduled purpose. This type of consciousness is already capable to qualify, i.e. to understand the restrictions of aspirations to the scheduled purposes as the captivity, and the release from these shackles as liberty "from", naming therefore this liberation as independence, which can be reached by the conscious effort in the form already the will in certain direction.
Besides, a person acquires the ability to select from some set what more corresponds to his interests as at present, and also in the future. In other words, thanks to consciousness he finds the ability to regulate and plan the life as he wants, but taking into account own surrounding, and evaluating consequences of scheduled acts in advance, i.e. understanding what will have to answer for them as the front of himself and in front of own surrounding.
However, this essential adding in consciousness of the living being (self-consciousness), who allows it to comprehend self and, apparently, to behave reasonably and responsibly, in no way diminishes the action of the lowest (animal) consciousness, which at any moment can start blocking all sorts of aspirations of highest consciousness, if only will seem to it, that they are contrary to human survival, or even if they can impair the quality of his life.
Nevertheless, a person, who represents the lowest and the highest consciousness, merged together in the form of a body, is material manifestation of action of liberty as in instinctive and conscious aspirations. Internal contradictoriness of these aspirations and at the same time their unity in a common base doesn't allow to determine actions of a person as purely conscious or purely unconscious. Therefore, accurately to predict actions of any person or to predetermine them is impossible, and in this also is manifested liberty.

"Leo, how do you feel about the Marxist idea that liberty is the cognized necessity," - Gorky asked the next question.
“The explicit impossibility for a person to escape from public and natural fetters, - Tolstoy began to develop his thought, - led, as it seems at first sight, to the fruitful idea: liberty is the cognized necessity.
However, this restriction of liberty in favor of some order doesn't explain ways of this cognition – necessity in a type of order, organization is manifested everywhere, but everything can't be cognized - neither in one human life, nor in life of many generations, especially as everything continuously changes, and on the cognition is required time.
Besides, this purely external interpretation of liberty can cause bewilderment due to the fact that even if to admit of knowing or understanding of all restrictions, with which are encountered a person, it is possible to qualify such cognition only as humility before external thingness factors, which thereby are admitted as primary.
Similar approach, in effect, denies development and can result not to liberty, but to the thought of release from similar oppression only after death, or to the paranoid idea that the course of soulless things must determine (to dictate) all motions of a person.
Last automatically assumes the totalitarianism in the public relations, which is trying to deprive of a person and liberty, and independence that leads it as a result to crash. A notable illustration of this result is the drop during not so long time almost all Marxist regimes that have adopted this "remarkable" formula of liberty.
This kind of result again shows the inadequacy of the domination of things over consciousness, which arranges the world for self, starting since the formation of things on own understanding, that is, in accordance with the existing form-building abilities at him.
Whatever it was, but a person in the habitat is associated with it not only by the genetic memory, he gets the in the course of the maturation, development a whole range of household and religious precepts, cultural principles; willy-nilly, he is forced to follow the customs of the current social environment. On this basis and owing to an own experience of life a person works out certain habits, which he follows all the life.
Thus, all this complex of communications with the environment holds a person within a certain order, and he is forced to follow by this order.
However, necessity exists for consciousness only in order for to overcome it.
If animals participate in this process not being aware of themselves, without separating in own consciousness from the environment, but, nevertheless, anyway change the environment, and change with it, possessing thereby, as the living beings, by rudiments of liberty, but to a person, as to the living being, which understands oneself, is capable not only to follow a habit, to established communications, i.e. - to necessity. He lowers self by this adherence to the habits actually up to animal level. Of course, the habit in the basis is the repulsion of new, unclear and frightening. The habit calms a person. But, anyway, the repose relaxes the person. He begins to lag behind from changes, which appears indispensably in life, in the environment, whereas dissatisfaction, activity force a person not only to move from place to place, to change a profession, religion, but also to consciously improve way of life, to acquire additional knowledge, to invent, extracting from self not only emotions and rational actions, but also the feelings, thoughts contradicting the existing order.
This dissatisfaction of consciousness, aspirations for the new is fueled by the ongoing changing flows of information, penetrating the whole being of a person, which he can interpret, possessing self-consciousness, in different ways, to the best of his understanding. Thereby each person inevitably commits all the time of oscillations from a habit to destruction of an order, to the release from it. Having set one and having joined to it, it begins to be weighed upon it sooner or later, and decides to change it despite all the resistance of own external conservative nature.
As a result of the emergence of the new originate additional communications, is being expanded the cognitive environment, that means the continuous increment of information flows, to which has to be adjusted every person.
So occurs, a person wants this or not, the change of his own consciousness, that in fact, and is required for consciousness itself”.

"What does responsibility mean in the context of one way or another of free human activity?" - Gorky's question followed to Tolstoy.
“If both sides of "coin" of liberty for a person are activity and independence, - answered Tolstoy, - then, at least, the responsibility can't but be as an edge of this coin.
Each person tries to comprehend the actions, aiming to reach in them maximum efficiency in achievement of a goal. The people, surrounding him, can have opposite aspirations. The consensus isn't always achievable here. Therefore, efficiency of actions of one person can do much harm others and even to him in the future. There is no output from this situation and it is necessary to be responsible for deeds sooner or later.
Life isn't measured by successes and failures, inasmuch each human life is specific manifestation of consciousness, for which is important the process, but not local results. A person, as a rule, does not understand this, being indignant on an assemblage of misfortunes which are falling down on him, utter darkness of his short existence, coming to the end with diseases and death, regardless of, he is rich or it is poor, smart or silly, experienced or careless, visionary or obedient to destiny.
A person finds the consolation in necessity (fatum, fortune, destiny, God or yet something exterior, outside, but not in himself), justifying own limitation and insolvency by circumstances, which always are, and from which he depends.
In other words, a person tries thereby to avoid of the responsibility for the decisions, without wishing to take it over.
A person doesn't understand that he creates the circumstances oneself, in order that his consciousness tested through him itself in them. During these tests his own consciousness can express itself in interaction with surroundings and understand own weak and strong sides, answering one way or another for their actions.
Therefore, responsibility is a certain promise of consciousness to self to pass the alleged tests both with waiting of a certain reaction of surroundings, and with readiness to accept any consequences of what is undertaken. Possible consequences consist in fulfillment of the promise, in cancellation from execution of promise, in fiasco of the enterprise.
The responsibility is connected directly to experience, inasmuch the accumulation of life experience represents, in effect, the gradual mastering by ability to be taken into account of the reaction of surroundings concerning own acts in combination with adequate planning of own actions.
The responsibility is reflected for the consciousness in censure or in approval of itself both on character of promises, and by results of own acts, that there is that other as the manifestation of conscience, i.e. the true assessment of own acts.
In particular, for showing the weakness and conformism consciousness in a person has to answer rolling away to its former positions and starting all anew, rebuking itself.
As for the irresponsibility, it is deception of oneself, so how the irresponsibility consists in false promises, impunity for which is impossible – an order hinders by it.
Violation of an order as a result of the irresponsible acts turns out for the irresponsible personality as chaos, which it didn't expect and in which heit is being lost, without being able without appropriate preparation be applied for new circumstances and, the more so, to overcome them.
It follows that the responsibility for own actions comes sooner or later.
It means: there is no absolute liberty and independence neither in mind, nor in acts, and liberty for the person in life actually is an opportunity conscious manifestation of the activity in frames necessity (this or that dependence), for any extension which (these frames) to be held responsibility.
However, here dominates the activity (consciousness), which oneself initially puts to itself this framework (but not falls into them by accident), and, therefore, initially willing to take the responsibility.
Another matter, how adequately each human life proceeds, but it isn't necessary to lament here because the source of liberty is consciousness, which always is present in the person, determining indispensable presence of liberty in him.
Though, of course, the equality sign between a person and consciousness can't be set, so how the person is natural restriction of consciousness for development and expression of consciousness together with development of the person. Therefore, this restriction (the person) can't be eliminated, but attempts of an output from this restriction by consciousness proceed in beingness eternally, i.e. in time which each person separately and by all set of reasonable beings creates, without suspecting about this.
As a result, no matter how weak was a person and no matter how peculiar to him were attempts to evade from activity and by that - from responsibility, he inevitably fails in them that is determined by his own initial essence.
Thus, the result of life, concerning development of each individual consciousness, is determined by finding by a person of an optimum combination of own dissatisfaction in the form of desires, aspirations to these or those goals with the available set of opportunities and own characteristic features (the present frames of the reality, or order), which should be used, from which is necessary to be exempted or by which can be neglected, as well as by the attitude towards results of own activity, for which will have to bear the response. The deviation from an optimum means that a person had not found himself in life, or rather, didn't identify the true building of own consciousness in the relation to surroundings and didn't add to it new properties.
This means that he has not solved the task set by his own consciousness before him.
Be that as it may, search of himself is a real face of liberty of a person in beingness that distinguishes him from the other living beings, who do not comprehend of themselves in beingness and therefore deprived of an opportunity consciously to look for and find themselves in the world”.

Gorky said with interest: "Why do people invariably compete with each other and even fight with themselves, as well as treat one another with hatred, often for no apparent reason?"
Tolstoy answered at length: “Every person has the highest consciousness, but he cannot do without the lowest one - the animal, and they are basically antagonistic, converging only in situations of interest of both in pragmatic activities related to reproduction and survival, but diverging in almost everything else, because the lowest consciousness considers the striving of the highest consciousness for any goals that are not related to the improvement of the reproduction and consumption of sensations, useless, often harmful, and as far as possible for it, prevents their implementation.
Thus, the prototype of a person with both programs of consciousness already existing in him is gradually being formed in his communities precisely, on the one hand, as a being with self-awareness, and, on the other hand, this creature remains natural.
Such duality is the reason for the struggle of these opposite principles in a person, which provides the main life conflicts, and therefore the development of consciousness against the background of a raging life, tragic, as a rule, for a person, but changing consciousness, keeping, nevertheless consciousness by eternal".

Bronstein once asked Albert Einstein a very difficult question: "Does consciousness exist by oneself or not?"
Einstein replied as follows: "Consciousness (the active) doesn't exist on its own and can't be manifested out of the world, out of time, inasmuch this free, dynamic, thinking, solving, communicating, creative and developing formation without things is not able to employ own forces and numerous abilities, since there is no place to realize them. At this consciousness isn't incorporeal, so how in this case no interaction with the things can happen. Therefore, consciousness is nothing else than the active, material, live, thinking and in certain relation - producing echelon of Creation".

Bronstein was still not tired of asking questions, and his next question was: "What is secondary - consciousness or the natural process of changing everything?"
“The statement that consciousness in the process of perception of reality by living beings is secondary, and the true reason for the emergence of consciousness, together with its characteristic perception of the world, is the natural process of evolutionary change, is inadequate because the exclusion of consciousness from the root cause of the changing picture of reality arising in a living being immediately deadens these changes, which by themselves, that is, without living beings, are not needed (they are absent, as there are no things without consciousness) and do not carry with themselves anything, all the more since no change in things, even if it were, gives no alive", said Einstein.

“What does consciousness do in the world as a whole? - continued to ask questions Bronstein.
"The human consciousness in its highest expression - Einstein replied - never wishes simply to adapt to the current situation and to following to its changes automatically, as it is characteristic, for example, for animals, but, unlike them, it uses goal-setting, which can be and non-utilitarian. Therefore, it is always virtually free, but, being in a person during his life, the consciousness, as a rule, is depressed by almost everything and constantly suffers from it, no matter whether rich, poor, sick or healthy. However, consciousness does not lose the presence of spirit, but somehow tries to break out of the bonds of the established order. Here it is in its highest expression irreconcilable with the lowest consciousness, , and in this struggle alternately wins that one or the other. The period of compromise and hypocrisy in man, in fact, corresponding to agreement with the environment, that is characteristic of any living being, which never opposes itself to it, is replaced by the reverse - the unwillingness to adopt to the situation, by the attempts to change it under oneself, to their true experiences, intentions, projects, competing with other subjects of action, winning or losing".

“How does a person know himself, things and everything else?” - Bronstein asked.
Einstein replied: "In order to recognize oneself or any other object, a person must have certain form-building abilities. Then he will find in everything that is displayed, for example, in the mirror, that totality of data, which will be represented for consciousness of the concrete person into the form of that he searches, for example, - into his own shape, that is, he will receive the concrete information. Only this property of human consciousness can lead him to acquire adequate information, in particular, about himself in the mirror. This property of consciousness is realized through the corresponding set of sense organs.
Other living beings do not recognize themselves in the mirror, that is, they are not able to identify their own image with themselves, but, nevertheless, they recognize in accordance with the degree of their own intelligence that they need to keep themselves in existence; in other words, these creatures live without understanding themselves, but only experiencing sensations, however, it is this ability to sense holds all living things in existence - the living beings do not want to lose sensations.
If we return to the analogy with a mirror, then its surface itself is empty - it is nothingness without relation to something or somebody. But this surface is filled with one or another content in the form of images if consumers of this content begin to contact it, highlighting familiar forms on this surface and missing an unfamiliar that their consciousness cannot decipher. Then this nothingness gives everything that consumers can identify in it".

"How else can a person be characterized briefly but completely?" - Bronstein asked the new question.
"Each person possesses the highest form of matter from all available its forms just because he is a self-conscious being with the greatest possible level of liberty. Eventually he isn't subordinated to anybody and disposes by himself, so how he initially in the consciousness "throws" oneself only into such world, in which he can realize oneself purposefully so, as he only can so far in the conditions of the resisting environment, which includes and his direct competitors, the same, as he himself. The person differs exactly by this from all other living beings, also having consciousness, but the lower level, which only are being adapted to the environment, which is being formed by them with the participation of a single consciousness, - from bacteria to the highest mammals".

Then Bronstein asked Einstein the following question: "How is the picture of the world formed for human consciousness?"
The answer was this: “For the human consciousness, the changing picture of the world in the form of phenomena, but not essences of deep levels, is formed not by feelings or thinking, although they are means, but it as a whole is a product of the process of processing incoming information in a person, similar to, which occurs in any living being; the only difference is that the human consciousness is able to separate itself from reality and interact with it already on this new basis - the basis of its own self-consciousness, purposefully using memory, thinking abilities, speech, various kinds of communications, imagination, experimental data, and all this - against the background of emotions, and not with the help of only instinctive-reflex actions".

Not satisfied with this, Bronstein asked Einstein a new question: "Is immortality possible for a person?"
Einstein formulated his answer as follows: “Immortality for a person is not only impossible, but also meaningless, since consciousness makes him thinking and active in his own individuality understood by him, and the human body is only an instrument of consciousness.
The loss of a body for an individual consciousness means by no means a catastrophe, but a transition of the same consciousness to a new life in a different body, then to the next life, and so on. That is, human consciousness in its individuality thereby acquires not only immortality, but also countless new lives".

Bronstein continued asking out of pure interest: "Tell, Albert, is it possible to prove that Everything and Nothingness is the same?"
Einstein replied: “Since we are in Creation, then there is Everything, since man contains everything in himself as a microcosm - both things (matter) and consciousness, but Everything can appear only from Nothingness. In other words, Everything should always be, as and Nothingness, but jointly. Hence, Everything and Nothingness coincide. However, Nothingness is non-being, and Everything is beingness. Therefore, non-being, remaining nothing, is manifested by being, which must have a basis that is nothing integrally. This means that the pure Nothingness is also represented by the integral Nothingness, which in a divided state is manifested ultimately as Everything of one sign and Everything of the opposite sign. Then the divided Everything in conjunction give a total of zero. So really Everything is Nothingness, and vice versa".

"Albert, explain to me, when does time become objective for a person?" - Bronstein again stuck with a question to Einstein.
“The fact that time is a product of the activity of consciousness, that is, - the process of receiving information by it, although it proceeds without the participation the will of a living being (the senses and processing centers of the organism work automatically), and does not exist by itself, is confirmed, in particular, by the disappearance of time for a particular person in a dream or fainting, acceleration of the passage of time towards old age, by slowing down time under strong stress, when the speed of processing incoming information increases in tens times, etc. A change in the speed of the "flow" of time for a particular person, or his own time, can be qualified as a change of the volume of information processed by his centers or a change in the speed of its processing, that is not directly related to the "external" (astronomical) time, although each person believes the external, as if surrounding him, time, the only possible one. Therefore, a person considers the factor of changing the course of own time, which he does not know about, as a miracle or a completely inexplicable phenomenon.
Thus, the time of any living creature, in particular, and of a person, is in reality an information process, during which material objects are recognized by consciousness by sensations out of the surrounding by the means at his disposal (sensory organs in combination with centers processing incoming information).
In other words, time, as Kant noted at one time, is a condition for the idea of objects, that is, it is objective only for human consciousness”.

Bronstein's next question to Einstein was about the essence of Creation.
Einstein answered as follows: “Despite the fact, as I noted above, that Creation is zero in balance, it along with that is Everything, and therefore it cannot but manifest itself, demonstrating to itself in the face of consciousness Everything consistently and infinitely.
Creation, being everything and nothing, contains opposites and denies itself, since as the active it constantly strives for newness, destroying previous in itself and manifesting in this the freedom of consciousness. But all this past does not disappear without a trace, but is retained in the memory of consciousness.
Therefore, the dual system of Creation is active and passive; finite and infinite; changeable and constant; whole and a part; united and scattered; motionless and in motion; reasonable and dark; alive and dead; wishes and refuses; arises and fades away; one and the other; revives and dies; equal to itself and opposite; keeps its shape and spreads; it cannot be, but is; she wants to know everything about herself, but cannot because of her own infinity; the infinite in it denies the finite, but is not able to exist without it".

“Bronstein's questions were not over yet - he was very curious. "Albert," - he said, - why do we not manage to deliberately enter our own sleeps?"
“This impossibility of connection to dreams consciously, - Einstein noted, - is explained by the fact that dreams proceed outside self-conscious programs of human consciousness, i.e. outside the abstract thinking and logical designs, whose participation not only isn't required, but can interfere with procedure, inasmuch during a dream passes processing of the information, accumulated per day and its combining with the information which is already available in databases, similar to computer processing of accumulated data.
This practically computer processing of information corresponds to the standard programs which are available in consciousness at the level of the lowest consciousness (ordinary living beings) owing to what similar processing bears loading of ensuring normal functioning of an organism.
This processing carries the burden of ensuring the normal functioning of the body, which can be hindered by the thoughts and feelings of a person, tuned mostly to the external, which at best is indifferently to internal. Be that as it may, but consciousness, in addition to receiving external (current) information mainly through vision, which gives more than 80% of all information, also needs to systematize, archive, analyze the amount of information accumulated per day.
Only on the basis of this process, consciousness automatically (outside the target self-consciousness programs) can model subsequent standard human actions
Nevertheless, the models appearing during sleep in consciousness as well as flashing images, can unconsciously, and in certain cases and consciously to e reflected in active life, and not without success though in a basis of this success are pledged day works.
Whatever it was, but consciousness, in addition to receiving external (current) information mainly through eyes, which give more than 80% of all information, has also to systematize, to archive, to analyze information volume accumulated during the day. Only on the basis of this process consciousness automatically (outside target programs of self-consciousness) may to model the subsequent standard actions of the person.
Self-consciousness, which often borders on stupidity, prejudices, exaggerations and self-conceit, i.e. by significant distortion of the arriving and available information, cannot but prevent to this information procedure. In other words, manifestation of self-consciousness in the subject in sleep owing to personal, corporate, emotional, cultural and other preferences would not allow him to approach an assessment of all array of the saved-up information objectively, from adequate processing which depends not only the future behavior of the person, but also his functioning as a live organism.
Thus, in sleep consciousness excludes distortions which are shown in the person through his self-consciousness – let this remarkable being is aware himself after awakening in the course of fight and development in which mistakes can only spur the ingenuity”.

Bronstein's next question contained the following idea: "Why is it that so few people can remember what happened to him on some days and hours 5, 10 or more years ago, and even a month ago?"
Overwhelming number of people, - Einstein replied, - almost all time of their lives, carried out in such monotonous activity, not demanding adoption of important decisions and abstract reflections on the basis of analytical-synthetic work of consciousness, i.e. understanding of own activity. This activity in work and life is reduced thereby to daily repetitions, forming habits, the exit beyond limits of which is very difficult and turns out not often.
Exactly this factor explains the fact that the days and years merge into one stream, and the person can't remember what happened to him in the summer ten years ago or winter of last year or even a month ago.
Similar life actually doesn't demand self-consciousness in the form of original projection, so as does not bear in itself "ocean" of plans, and is based on habit. It doesn't even require a high intelligence.
Therefore, such life can be compared to a day dream, at which self-consciousness is disconnected for the most part, i.e. the main programs of self-consciousness are transferred into the "sleeping" mode: there remains only intelligence, which provides the viability of a body and routine activity of the person.
However a person wouldn't be as such, if he "was in a dream" all the time, i.e. he has been using practically only the lowest consciousness and the mode of habits, equating oneself to the animals.
Any person, even the most humiliated and undeveloped, is able to recall always, maybe, the few, but significant episodes in his life. And he recalls them, precisely because in these times he acted creative: had being taken important (projective) solutions, had been surprised to something unique, had been outraged by unfairness, had being committed the fatal errors, had meetings with unusual people and phenomena, had loved, had suffered.
In such affairs it is impossible to do without self-consciousness, inasmuch is necessary to correlate with self this visible, i.e. to commensurate this visible with own abilities, will, determination, impressionability.
It is during these periods of “waking up” that self-awareness in a person is most clearly manifested, which means his truly free expression, that is, a refusal to act according to the established rules, often astonishing him, and therefore memorable".

“And what can be seen in relation to the actions of a subject, who is self-aware?” - Bronstein asked.
Einstein was quick to answer: “On one side, a person is a being, almost perfect, capable of incredible accomplishments, changing almost the entire world around him, improving the conditions of his own life, improving himself as a personality, as well as developing and trying to apply more and more benevolent social morality (Christ's Sermon on the Mount).
On the other hand, a person is, in comparison with the rest of the flora and fauna, a mere insignificance, afraid of both life and death, everything around him, and himself. At the same time, he spends almost all the time of his short life in a dream or half-asleep monotonous existence with rare creative "awakenings". Both the first and the second are determined to a large extent by an additional entity that somehow appeared in a person, namely: self-consciousness, placing a person in a mixed - artificial and natural - world created by him and his consciousness, where noone will help him, despite all his awareness, except for oneself and some of his fellow tribesmen. Self-consciousness "plunges" the resulting creature into a world that is disastrous by its obvious contradictions, just as a person who cannot swim is thrown into the water in the hope that he will swim out. And the most unbearable for him is that he, unlike other creatures in this world, understands the horror of his situation. In addition, self-consciousness that separates a person from the environment clearly interferes with his functioning as an ordinary living being, depriving the body of plasticity, organicity, ideality in actions and relationships. But all representatives of the rest of the fauna have these wonderful properties, which, without thinking about themselves, are like fish in water".

"What is the fundamental difference between a person and everything else?" - asked the next question Bronstein.
“The only difference between a man and a stone, bacteria, ram, etc., - continued Einstein, - is his understanding of himself as a separate and independent being in his activity.
The consequence of this factor is freedom of will inherent in a person (uncontrollability in self-consciousness), which manifests itself in purely individual purposeful actions both to achieve results useful for oneself, and completely meaningless and even harmful, which is not typical for any other living being, not to mention inanimate matter.
Thus, many actions of a person are unpredictable for himself, producing a great variety of different situations anywhere - from the production of material goods to science and culture, from politics to morality, from the sphere of feelings to lofty ideas.
The reason for the contradictory actions of a person, as shown above, is the presence in him of the lowest and highest forms of consciousness, as a rule, multidirectional and therefore conflicting, and do not give each other a clear primacy.
As a result, no harmony for a particular person and any of his communities in development is unattainable: here a person is always in the passive.
However, in these collisions of different people, the eternal consciousness can recognize and express itself through a person, albeit discretely (in separate lives, that is, without continuous smooth movement), but never stopping.
It can be said that in beingness formed by the active on the basis of the passive, an endless but discrete development of consciousness is achieved, that is, the true active of a person is manifested - his consciousness, without which he is only a clot of rapidly decaying organic matter.
A certain damage to a person turns into acquisitions for his consciousness.
In other words, consciousness creates for its representatives in beingness (living beings) and through them an environment acceptable for their existence, reaching through these beings and development, and expressing itself in real thoughts, feelings, actions and deeds.
But this existence is controversial and unstable for all living beings, since it is based on contradictions in consciousness itself, the forms of which can deny each other, as well as on contradictions between consciousness and things due to the activity of the former and the passivity of the latter.
The passive slows down the active, resisting it, but at the same time constitutes the necessary habitat for the unification of the active and the passive, the highest point of which is a person.
Thus, the roots of the antagonism of human existence go to the contradiction between the active and the passive".

“What then is God? - Bronstein asked again.
“I believe that God, if he exists,” Einstein replied, “enters into every person and at the same time captures all people, as if presenting them as a single person.
The manifested God extends to all being, thereby being infinite and all-pervading, manifesting himself among moving things in the space-time continuum, that is, using manifested beingness for own development thanks to its continuous change in the time he forms through living beings.
Therefore, it cannot be immutable.
Once the manifested God is constantly changing, striving for novelty, he cannot be omniscient and omnipotent, but he can strive for this in eternity, that is, for the unmanifest God of infinity outside time, containing in potency everything that is, and everything that is not yet, but that sooner or later will appear in one form or another according to with the necessity and the degree of development of the form-making abilities of a single consciousness, or the manifested God, which goes on endlessly, comprehending all the innumerable and diverse shades of being, making mistakes and correcting what was done, finding in this the charm of its own existence, more precisely, life in this ever-changing beingness.
Along with that, for his own implementation God in the form of a single consciousness must be divided in order to act through his particles in the finite, in particular, in mortal human beings, temporarily revitalizing them and making them reasonable to one degree or another, but not knowing that they are functioning, albeit of their own free will, but with the representation of the same God in every such intelligent being.
Everything else in beingness is the basis and condition for the development of particles of God, or a single consciousness, which is both divided and omnipresent, and single and integral, which is quite possible at different levels.
The manifested God is present not only one in an incomprehensible transcendental place in the form of an incomprehensible incorporeal, and does not form the world by his sudden command. He, in his indivisible unity with the unmanifest God of eternity, being his projection manifested in time, is a conscious and, to a certain extent, the leading link of being. In this way, beingness, incessantly forming in time turns out to be co-beingness for God.
Thus, God is single and divided in own hypostases for own manifestation and development in beingness, which is formed by him through his own particles".