"One of the main causes of the limitation of our intellectuals is the rush for modernity, the insistence to find out or at least have an idea about what has been written lately. "If I don't miss something." And in every field mountains of books are written. And all of them, judging by the ease with which they are mentioned in conversation, are accessible. Whatever you were talking about: "But have you read Celpanov, Kuhn, Breding *?" If you haven't read them, don't talk." And you must hurry to read them. But there are whole mountains. This haste and head-butting with trivial, tangled modernity excludes any possibility of serious, true, necessary knowledge. The error is so clear! We already have the result of the thinking of the greatest thinkers who have distinguished themselves in the course of thousands of years among billions and billions of people, and the result of their thinking has been sifted through the sieve of time. Everything that is mediocre has been thrown away, only what is original, deep, necessary has remained. The Vedas, Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao Zi, Confucius, Mencius, Christ, Mohammed, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus remained, and among the new ones: Rousseau, Pascal, Kant, Schopenhauer and many others. People who run after modernity know nothing about all this, they fill their heads with chaff, garbage that will be sifted and nothing will remain.
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Author
Leo TolstoyAll Translations
All Translations
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One of the main causes of the limitation of our intellectuals is the rush for modernity, the insistence to find out or at least have an idea about what has been written lately. "If I don't miss something." And in every field mountains of books are written. And all of them, judging by the ease with which they are mentioned in conversation, are accessible. Whatever you were talking about: "But have you read Celpanov, Kuhn, Breding *?" If you haven't read them, don't talk." And you must hurry to read them. But there are whole mountains. This haste and head-butting with trivial, tangled modernity excludes any possibility of serious, true, necessary knowledge. The error is so clear! We already have the result of the thinking of the greatest thinkers who have distinguished themselves in the course of thousands of years among billions and billions of people, and the result of their thinking has been sifted through the sieve of time. Everything that is mediocre has been thrown away, only what is original, deep, necessary has remained. The Vedas, Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao Zi, Confucius, Mencius, Christ, Mohammed, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus remained, and among the new ones: Rousseau, Pascal, Kant, Schopenhauer and many others. People who run after modernity know nothing about all this, they fill their heads with chaff, garbage that will be sifted and nothing will remain.
""Una din principalele cauze ale limitării intelectualilor noștri e goana după modernitate, stăruința de-a afla sau măcar de-a avea idee despre ce s-a scris în ultima vreme. „De n-aș rata ceva.“ Iar în fiecare domeniu se scriu munți de cărți. Și toate, dacă ne luăm după ușurința cu care sunt pomenite în conversație, sunt accesibile. Despre orice ai vorbi: „Dar pe Celpanov, Kuhn, Breding * i-ați citit? Dacă nu i-ați citit, nu vorbiți.“ Și trebuie să te grăbești să-i citești. Dar sunt munți întregi. Graba asta și împuierea capului cu modernitate trivială, încâlcită, exclud orice posibilitate a cunoașterii serioase, adevărate, necesare. Eroarea e atât de limpede! Avem deja rezultatul gândirii celor mai mari cugetatori care s-au distins în cursul a mii de ani dintre miliarde și miliarde de oameni, iar rezultatul gândirii lor a fost cernut prin sita vremii. Tot ce e mediocru a fost aruncat, a rămas numai ce e original, profund, necesar. Au rămas Vedele, Zoroastru, Buddha, Lao Zi, Confucius, Mencius, Hristos, Mahomed, Socrate, Marc Aureliu, Epictet, iar dintre cei noi: Rousseau, Pascal, Kant, Schopenhauer și mulți alții. Oamenii care aleargă după modernitate nu știu nimic despre toate astea, ei își impuie capul cu pleava, gunoi care se va cerne și din care nu va rămâne nimic."