Catherine The Great Quotes

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? ~ Catherine The Great

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. ~ Catherine The Great

A great wind is blowing and that either gives you imagination ... or a headache. ~ Catherine The Great

It was not the lover she regretted,' wrote a Swiss imperial tutor, who understood their relationship. 'It was the friend. ~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

You were in a mood to quarrel. Please inform me once the inclination passes. ~ Catherine The Great

Let me say to you what I said once, in an entirely different context to Catherine the Great," Magnus declared. "My dear lady, you cannot afford me,and also, please leave that horse alone. Good night. ~ Cassandra Clare

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. ~ Catherine The Great

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

I am one of the people who love the why of things. ~ Catherine The Great

If Russians knew how to read they would write me off. ~ Catherine The Great

I sincerely want peace, not because I lack resources for war, but because I hate bloodshed. ~ Catherine The Great

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. ~ Catherine The Great

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

In my position you have to read when you want to write and to talk when you would like to read. ~ Catherine The Great

Don't worry about things you cannot alter ~ Catherine The Great

I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper. ~ Catherine The Great

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster. ~ Catherine The Great

I have a background in theater. At the time I read 'The Loved Ones' script, I was playing Catherine the Great of Russia onstage. Straight after that, I played Stella in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and Isabella in 'Measure for Measure.' ~ Robin McLeavy

A letter from 15 year old Sophia - later Catherine the Great - to her father:
My Lord: I beg you to assure yourself that your advice and exhortation will remain forever engraved on my heart, as the seeds of the holy faith will in my soul, to which I pray God to lend all the strength it will need to sustain me through the temptations to which I expect to be exposed... I hope to have the consolation of being worthy of it, and likewise of continuing to receive good news of my dear Papa, and I am, as long as I live, and in an inviolable respect, my lord, your Highness's most humble, most obedient, and faithful daughter and servant, Sophia. ~ Robert Massie

All this is only for the mice and myself to admire! ~ Catherine The Great

All punishments by which the human body might be maimed are barbarbarism. ~ Catherine The Great

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

Potemkin suffered bitterly from having nothing left to want. For when dreams turn into reality, there is an empty spot where the dreams used to be, and Potemkin had no dreams left. ~ Eleanor Herman

Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great. ~ Clement Attlee

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

[The eighteenth century] was the century, as we are frequently told, of women - the intellectual life of women in salons, women wielding unseen influence, women as members of academies, theatrical productions whose success depended on the power of actresses to charm; in the economic sphere, financiers amassing great fortunes in order to marry their daughters into the aristocracy, and women ruling over whole peoples and empires: Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Queen Elisabeth Farnese of Spain, as well as the likes of Mme du Pompadour and Mme du Barry. It was as if some residual matriarchy - the oldest culture of the Mediterranean - was struggling to emerge from the blood and the collective unconscious; as if the time would one day return when, in every tribe, it was the women who possessed wealth and power and the men who 'married out', moving into the wife's extended family, where they became gentle, pampered, more or less superfluous drones. [...] In the century of women, it was inevitable that these erotic legends should attach themselves to the outstanding female figures of the time [...] and all this applied even more strongly in France. It was there that women reached the greatest positions of power, and there that this erotic momentum was at its strongest, by virtue of the traditions and nature of the French people. ~ Antal Szerb

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. ~ Catherine The Great

God, grant us our desires, and grant them quickly. ~ Catherine The Great

I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them. ~ Catherine The Great

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 ~ Catherine The Great

The more a man knows, the more he forgives. ~ Catherine The Great

I will live to make myself not feared. ~ Catherine The Great

I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly. ~ Catherine The Great

Self-interest usually brings injustice with it. ~ Catherine The Great

To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me. ~ Robert K. Massie

A great man will experience more failures than successes. If we lived for the successes, we would have all killed ourselves by now. ~ Andrew Sturm

[W]hat have we done with our forests? Chopped them, and burned them, and wasted them; and now almost the last of the great stands of timber are here on the Pacific slope. We are in the center of the best of them. Probably nowhere on earth does there exist a forest to compare in continuous grandeur and unqualified beauty with the Redwoods that are found along the Eel River and to the north. ~ Madison Grant

To depart without giving a reason why is to leave a curse on those you leave behind. Questions linger: Why didn't i realize something was wrong? What could I have done differently? Was it my fault? And, of course, the dead don't reply. So there's basically no way to lift the curse. Time is a great healer, but an imperfect one, as anyone who has ever been assaulted in the dead of night by uneasy, shameful feelings knows. Even those memories consigned to oblivion by the conscious mind may still be in there somewhere, lurking, never completely forgotten by the unconscious mind. ~ Project Itoh

When the Holy Spirit does his work of regeneration in the hearts of men he does not come on them with great powerful feelings and emotions which cannot be resisted. He does not possess men as evil spirits take possession of their victims. ~ John Owen

In the cycle of a great civilization, the artist begins as priest, and ends as a clown or buffoon. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

It is possible for music to be labeled "Christian" and be terrible music. It could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled cliches. That "Christian" band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren't a great band. It is possible for a movie to be a "Christian" movie and to be a terrible movie. It may actually desecrate the art form in its quality and storytelling and craft. ~ Rob Bell

Joseph Smith visited me a great deal after his death, and taught me many important principles ... Among other things, he told me to get the Spirit of God; that all of us needed it ... He said, "I want you to teach the people to get the Spirit of God. You cannot build up the Kingdom of God without that." ... But how is it with the Holy Ghost? The Holy Ghost does not leave me if I do my duty. It does not leave any man who does his duty. ~ Wilford Woodruff

I think most people, if I asked, would say, "Yes, of course I believe." But I think for a great many of them it doesn't really make much difference in terms of either what they do with their lives or with their own inner well-being. They believe because so did grandfather, and that's the same church they've been going to all these years. ~ Frederick Buechner

It's funny, really: the older you get, the more you know about the world. The synapses in your brain fire at a higher level and quicker function, your knowledge expands. But you lose part of yourself, that part able to imagine great armies that wait for nothing more than your command; the dragon that hides under your bed that only you can see, its long emerald tail flashing in the darkness; the ghost that lives in your attic that only moans at 3:23 in the morning. When you lose that innocence, the world's hues become dark and muted, and you know that dragons aren't real. There is no army. There is no ghost in the attic. But when you're nine? When you're nine, it's all probable, it's all realistic, and even more so, it's all true. ~ T.J. Klune

In Britain, the great hidden secret of talking animals and children's literature is how political it was in its bones, beneath the obvious cuteness. ~ Andrew O'Hagan

When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great. And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons- but one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons! ~ Georgette Heyer

From the fitness of the Universe to its end you infer the necessity of an intelligent Creator. But if the fitness of the Universe, to produce certain effects, be thus conspicuous and evident, how much more exquisite fitness to his end must exist in the Author of this Universe? If we find great difficulty from its admirable arrangement, in conceiving that the Universe has existed from all eternity, and to resolve this difficulty suppose a Creator, how much more clearly must we perceive the necessity of this very Creator's creation whose perfections comprehend an arrangement far more accurate and just. ~ Christopher Hitchens

It was a great place to grow up. There were always kids around in our neighborhood. We had a basketball hoop in the back of our house, a little front yard where you could get touch football games going. I know you think of it as a big city, but it was fun for me to grow up in New Orleans. I remember it as a very normal childhood. ~ Eli Manning

The possession of a great many things, even the best of things, tends to blind one to the real value of anything. ~ Holbrook Jackson

The first time I heard Johnny play at the Fillmore East, I wasn't really impressed. He had come on the scene with everybody telling me how great he was, and I didn't hear it. ~ Rick Derringer

There is no legimate actor who can resist the powerful lure of the movies. It isn't the money that fetches him. It isn't the great publicity. It is simply this: the movies enable an actor to look at himself. ~ George Jean Nathan

he affected great piety (as became a pilgrim), although unable to read the inspired words of the Prophet. ~ Jose Conrad

Being with a friend in great pain is not easy. It makes us uncomfortable. We do not know what to do or what to say, and we worry about how to respond to what we hear. Our temptation is to say things that come more out of our own fear than out of our care for the person in pain. Sometimes we say things like 'Well, you're doing a lot better than yesterday,' or 'You will soon be your old self again,' or 'I'm sure you will get over this.' But often we know that what we're saying is not true, and our friends know it too.
We do not have to play games with each other. We can simply say: 'I am your friend, I am happy to be with you.' We can say that in words or with touch or with loving silence. Sometimes it is good to say: 'You don't have to talk. Just close your eyes. I am here with you, thinking of you, praying for you, loving you. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

These mountains were given to us by the Great Chief so that we might never be depressed. ~ David Daniels

Before he went away, he had heard all about the self-made girl, and there was something in the picture that strongly impressed him. She was possible doutbless only in America; American life had smoothed the way for her. She was not fast, nor emancipated, nor crude, nor loud, and there wasn't in her, of necessity at least, a grain of the stuff of which the adventuress is made.
She was simply very successful, and her success was entirely personal. She hadn't been born with the silver spoon of social opportunity, she had grasped it by honest exertion. You knew her by many different signs, but chiefly, infallibly, by the appearance of her parents. It was her parents who told her story; you always saw how little her parents could have made her. Her attitude with regard to them might vary in different ways. As the great fact on her own side was that she had lifted herself from a lower social plane, done it all herself, and done it by the simple lever of her personality, it was naturally to be expected that she would leave the authors of her mere material being in the shade.
(…)
But the general characteristic of the self-made girl was that, though it was frequently understood that she was privately devoted to her kindred, she never attempted to impose them on society, and it was striking that, though in some of her manifestations a bore, she was at her worst less of a bore than they. They were almost always solemn and portentous, and they were for the most part of a d ~ Henry James

However passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of "indifferent" nature: they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end. ~ Ivan Turgenev

Peter's hands had ceased trembling. He had been granted perspective. This was not Gethsemane: he wasn't headed for Golgotha, he was embarking on a great adventure. He'd been chosen out of thousands, to pursue the most important missionary calling since the Apostles had ventured forth to conquer Rome with the power of love, and he was going to do his best. ~ Michel Faber

Whenever something great happens, you're always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself. ~ Sarah Dessen

You but winnowed out those who have made their pride a funeral shroud." Jaren met Rain's eyes. "Our world has changed, Feyreisen. I have watched great Fey cities die, seen our forests fade back into desert, and listened to my shei'tani weep for the children her womb will not bear. It seems to me when the ways of the past lead only to death, then change is the only hope for life. ~ C.L. Wilson

The thing I love about political interviews is, if you're really prepared, you can make great headway because these are the people for whom, theoretically at least, the buck stops. ~ Soledad O'Brien

But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Built at a time when servants had servants who had servants, there'd been a whole thriving community in the great house to wait upon the tiny family perched on top like a hut on a mountain. ~ Josa Young

I feel something troubling inside of me which scares me, an exhausting violence. But I accept the great adventure of being me. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

What is it in fact, this learning to fly? To be precise, it is 'to learn NOT to fly wrong.' To learn to become a pilot is to learn - not to let oneself fly too slowly. Not to let oneself turn without accelerating. Not to cross the controls. Not to do this, and not to do that ... To pilot is negation. ~ Henri Mignet

I think that every record label has its trials and tribulations, its ups and downs. The only thing you can do is hope to recognize what it is that makes you great, and to try and continue to capture it. ~ El-P

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Is there anything more true than human pain? Is there anything more sincere than the cry for help from those who suffer? Only a great wave of mankind's pity can surmount an immense wave of human misery? ~ Ignacy Jan Paderewski