Students always feel whether the quality of how they're being taught is up to par. … They … should strive therefore to be treated accordingly. … In the dormitories students should create living conditions that they like. … They should take responsibility … If you do not take responsibility, you will not be granted any liberties by anyone. … Unfortunately, this is not very developed here in Russia.

If you take the responsibility upon yourself — this is it. … The main task is to ensure life is interesting and joyful, and that you are afraid of noone. … Chekhov has written that his whole life he squeezed the slave out of himself — one drop at a time. … You … should be able to stand up for yourself.

The human historical process started with the battle for pure prestige, in which the aristocratic master sought recognition for his willingness to risk his life. By overcoming his nature, the master showed he was the freer and more authentic human being. But it was the slave and his work, not the master and his fighting, that propellered the historical process forward. The slave initially accepted his slavery out of fear of death, but unlike Hobbes's rational man seeking self-preservation, Hegel's slave was never content with himself. That is, the slave still possessed thymos, a sense of his own worth and dignity, and a desire to live something other than a merely slavish life. His thymos was expressed in the pride he took in his own work, in his ability to manipulate the "almost worthless materials" of nature and transform them into something bearing his imprint. It was also revealed in the idea he had of freedom: his thymos led him to imagine the abstract possibility of a free being with worth and dignity, long before his own worth and dignity were recognized by anyone else. Unlike Hobbes's rational man, he did not try to repress his own pride. On the contrary, he did not feel himself a full human being until he had achieved recognition. It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master. It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master.