Tsar Nicholas Ii Quotes

Maria cries unashamedly on my shoulder while I whisper and pet her cheek, but Anastasia grips my other hand and stares fiercely back at our Alexander Palace with her wet blue eyes until it is no more than a lemon-colored speck against the sunrise. ~ Sarah Miller

Given the gruesome fate of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, and the fact that five of the previous 12 Romanov rulers were also murdered, it is easy to regard Russia's imperial dynasty as cursed. ~ Saul David

I'll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing. ~ Sarah Miller

There was a happy irony in the first cousin of the autocratic Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II (with whom George bore a striking resemblance) furthering British democracy. ~ Paul Ham

My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late
our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten. ~ Sarah Miller

The tsar [Nicholas II] is not treacherous but he is weak. Weakness is not treachery, but it fulfils all its functions. ~ Wilhelm II

There is no justice among men. ~ Nicholas II

I do not rule Russia: ten thousand clerks do. ~ Nicholas II Of Russia

It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens. ~ Sarah Miller

Music herself should be silent when Nicholas speaks. (on why he had stopped playing during a performance with Tsar Nicholas I in attendance) ~ Franz Liszt

All around me is cowardice and deceit. ~ Nicholas II Of Russia

With tears in her eyes, Alexandra assured him that the husband and father was infinitely more precious to her than the tsar whose throne she had shared. Nicholas finally broke. Laying his head on his wife's breast, he sobbed like a child. ~ Robert K. Massie

She leads me to a parlor room, where tailors are pinning up a white, lacy gown, with long sleeves and a layered skirt, made in the style of the year 1917. The same year the Romanov Empire fell. At their request, I slip it on and step on a stool in the middle of the room. My throat clenches when I gaze into the golden mirror. I'm a living impression of Empress Alexandra, wife of Nicholas II. I look like I've stepped out of the black-and-white pictures and transported myself to another time. ~ Megan Linski

I am just a plain, common man. ~ Nicholas II Of Russia

I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am. ~ Sarah Miller

This praise of his strategic abilities was especially pleasing to [Tsar] Nicholas, because, though he was proud of his strategic abilities, at the bottom of his heart he was aware that he had none. And now he wanted to to hear more detailed praise of himself. ~ Leo Tolstoy

We should be used to it," Tatiana reasons. "There have always been lines separating us from the rest of the world, whether they were satin ribbons or iron rails. ~ Sarah Miller

I do not rule Russia. 10,000 clerks do. ~ Nicholas II Of Russia

Yes, what would Russia be without me?" he [Tsar Nicholas I] said to himself, again sensing the approach of the unpleasant feeling. "Yes, what would, not just Russia, but Europe be without me?" And he remembered his brother-in-law, the king of Prussia, and his weakness and stupidity and shook his head. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The so-called "breeding" of the tsar, his ability to control himself in the most extraordinary circumstances, cannot be explained by a mere external training; its essence was an inner indifference, a poverty of spiritual forces, a weakness of the impulses of the will. That mask of indifference which was called breeding in certain circles, was a natural part of Nicholas at birth. The ~ Leon Trotsky

That debauchery was not a good thing in a married man did not even occur to him [Tsar Nicholas I], and he would have been very surprised if anyone had condemned him for it. But, even though he was convinced that he had acted as he ought, he was left with some sort of unpleasant aftertaste, and, to stifle that feeling, he began thinking about something that always soothed him: about what a great man he was. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The constant, obvious flattery, contrary to all evidence, of the people around him [Tsar Nicholas I] had brought him to the point that he no longer saw his contradictions, no longer conformed his actions and words to reality, logic, or even simple common sense, but was fully convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and inconsistent with each other, became sensible, just, and consistent with each other only because he gave them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The man who did the shooting was a civilian, Peter Kakhovsky, a gifted intellectual of extreme purity of motive in whom the conviction of the necessity of regicide burned with a gem-like flame. Determined to kill, expecting to die, this brilliant and terrible apparition, his slender form bundled up in a sheepskin coat, his delicate features surmounted by a shabby top hat, shot to kill with that indiscriminate ruthlessness which was later to characterise a whole generation of revolutionary terrorists. If he could not yet murder the Tsar, he would do the next best thing. ~ Edward Crankshaw

Read the book, Shadow over the Winter Palace," Sam Hugh explained. "It's about the Russian Czar Nicholas II and his crazy wife." Of course, Santos ~ Anita Paddock

Lord, save Russia and bring her peace. ~ Nicholas II Of Russia

What's it like to live forever?
Nicholas almost dropped the glass he had been holding. "What?"
"What's it like to know you will never die?"
He should have known, he thought. She was a smart woman.
"Lonely." He said answering truthfully.
He sighed. "It's not romantic, or fun, or even exciting., It's just lonely. I have watched
everyone that I have ever loved, die. My family, my friends, my lovers and neighbors. It
is not a fate I would ever wish on my worst enemy. ~ Grace Willows

It's easy to joke when you don't care any more. I'm not saying it didn't hurt me, because it did. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I was in the drama club, and I was one of seven co-presidents of the student body. Students elected me - I don't know why! ~ Nicholas Braun

I think, internally, we Catholics have known this for a long time. I think we're just thrilled and grateful that the rest of the world now is sharing in the esteem and gratitude that we've had for Pope John Paul II for 26 and a half years. ~ Chris Matthews

One of its major recent thrusts has been to place a greater priority on what it calls the "freshness" of the pages it recommends. Google not only identifies new or revised Web pages much more quickly than it used to - it now checks the most popular sites for updates every few seconds rather than every few days - but for many searches it skews its results to favor newer pages over older ones. ~ Nicholas Carr

The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom. He did not use the notion of the Procrustean bed, but he outlined it perfectly. His argument is that they repress children's natural biophilia, their love of living things. But the problem is more general; soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error, the antifragility, from children's lives, move them away from the ecological and transform them into nerds working on preexisting (soccer-mom-compatible) maps of reality. Good students, but nerds--that is, they are like computers except slower. Further, they are now totally untrained to handle ambiguity. As a child of civil war, I disbelieve in structured learning . . . . Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all those things that make life worth living, compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of an empty-suit CEO with a preset schedule and an alarm clock. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We believe US threats of an approaching World War III and their use of Iran's nuclear issue as an excuse is another form of American insanity. ~ Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

Such was the end of Philip (II, king of Macedonia) ... He had ruled 24 years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire among the Hellenes (Greeks), while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy. ~ Diodorus Siculus

Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Even the most ordinary things can be made extraordinary simply by doing it with the right people. ~ Nicholas Sparks

You always liked disasters. You liked Grease II ~ Andy Warhol

The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In fact, the converse is true: At a time when the United States has been called on for a level of moral leadership, vision and inspiration not seen since World War II, we cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity. ~ Adam Schiff

Man and wife were supposed to stay together because they'd made their vows in front of God and family. ~ Nicholas Sparks

It wasn't that he was a Confederate. Everyone in Gatlin County was related to the wrong side in the War Between the States. We were used to that by now. It was like being born in Germany after World War II, being from Japan after Pearl Harbor, or America after Hiroshima. History was a bitch sometimes. You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there. You didn't have to stay stuck in the past, like the ladies in DAR, or the Gatlin Historical Society, or the Sisters. And you didn't have to accept that things had to be the way they were, like Lena. Ethan Carter Wate hadn't, and I couldn't, either. ~ Kami Garcia

How did I go from 'Menace II Society' to 'Love Jones?' There wasn't a poetic moment or romantic bone in O-Dog's body. ~ Larenz Tate

People make fun of you for one reason: They want to get your temper flaring. If you can show them it doesn't bother you, the games over. ~ Nicholas L Vulich

The conviction which we must share and spread is that the call to holiness is directed to all Christians. This is not a question of privilege or of spiritual elitism. It is a question of a grace offered to all the baptized. ~ Pope John Paul II

I have a natural curiosity for people. ~ Nicholas Haslam

I look upon the People and the Nation as handed on to me as an responsibility conferred upon me by God, and I believe, as it is written in the Bible, that it is my duty to increase this heritage for which one day I shall be called upon to give an account. Whoever tries to interfere with my task I shall crush. ~ Wilhelm II