Catherine II > Quotes

“A great wind is blowing and that either gives you imagination...or a headache.”
― Catherine the Great

“I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper.”
― Catherine the Great

“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

“I praise loudly. I blame softly.”
― Catherine the Great

“I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”
― Catherine the Great

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

“You can be a murderous tyrant and the world will remember you fondly but fuck one horse and you will be a horse fucker for all eternity.”
― Catherine the Great

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

“Very early it was noticed that I had a good memory; therefore I was insistently tormented with learning everything by heart.”
― Catherine the Great, The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

“One cannot always know what children are thinking. Children are hard to understand, especially when careful training has a custom them to obedience and experience has made them cautious in conversation with their teachers.”
― Catherine the Great

“Do not leave the people to think.”
― Catherine the Great

“On reading this letter, you may ask: why was it written? To this I answer: so that you should have confirmation of how I think about you; for towards you I am always well-disposed.”
― Catherine the Great

“The more a man knows the more he forgives.”
― Catherine the Great, Voltaire and Catherine the Great: Selected Correspondence

“A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.”
― Catherine the Great, The Memoirs of Catherine the Great