Catherine The Great Quotes

In my position you have to read when you want to write and to talk when you would like to read.

Tell a thousand people to draft a letter, let them debate every phrase, and see how long it takes and what you get.

The most sure, but at the same time the most difficult expedient to mend the morals of the people, is a perfect system of education.

I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper.

You should know our mania for building is stronger than ever. It is a diabolical thing. It consumes money and the more you build, the more you want to build. It's a sickness like being addicted to alcohol.

I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.

Your letter has drawn me from the solitude in which I had shut myself up for nearly nine months, and from which I found it hard to stir. You will not guess what I have been about. I will tell you for such things do not happen every day. I have been making a list of from two to three hundred radical words of the Russian language, and have had them translated into as many languages and jargons as I could find. Their number exceeds already the second hundred. Every day I took one of these words and wrote it out in all the languages which I could collect. This has taught me that Celtic is like the Ostiakian: that what means sky in one language means cloud, fog, vault, in others; that the word God in certain dialects means Good, the Highest, in others, sun or fire...I asked Professor Pallas to come to me, and after making an honest confession of my sin, we agreed to publish these collections, and thus make them useful to those who like to occupy themselves with the forsaken toys of others.

- Letter from Catherine the Great, dated 9 May 1785, from Curious Versions of Modernity, D.l. Martin, MIT Press 2011

All this is only for the mice and myself to admire!

A great wind is blowing and that either gives you imagination ... or a headache.

Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful. Marguerite, Countess of Blessington I praise loudly; I blame softly.

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.

One cannot always know what children are thinking. Children are hard to understand, especially when careful training has accustomed them to obedience, and experience has made them cautious in their conversation with their teachers. Will you not draw from this the fine maxim that one should not scold children too much, but should make them trustful, so that they will not conceal their stupidities from us?

I am one of the people who love the why of things.

Self-interest usually brings injustice with it.

If Russians knew how to read they would write me off.

You were in a mood to quarrel. Please inform me once the inclination passes.

Madame, you must be gay; only thus can life be endured. I speak from experience for I have had to endure much, and have only been able to endure it because I have always laughed whenever I had the chance.

Happiness and unhappiness are in the heart and spirit of each one of us: If you feel unhappy, then place yourself above that and act so that your happiness does not get to be dependent on anything.

I sincerely want peace, not because I lack resources for war, but because I hate bloodshed.

I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly.

The more a man knows, the more he forgives.

I will live to make myself not feared.

All punishments by which the human body might be maimed are barbarbarism.

I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.

A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.

God, grant us our desires, and grant them quickly.

Don't worry about things you cannot alter