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I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

Catherine the Great

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Catherine the Great
Age: 67 †
Born: 1729
Born: May 2
Died: 1796
Died: November 6
Art Collector
Former Emperor Of All Russia
Monarch
Politician
Stettin
Ekaterina Alexeyevna
Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst
Empress Catherine II
Екатерина II Великая
Czarina of Russia Catherine II
Empress of Russia Catherine II
Catherine II
Ekaterina II of Russia
Catherine the Great
Business
May
Ordinarily
Kindly
Terribly
Obliged
Gentle
Line
Lines

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If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off.
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bad news travels faster than good.
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the title of Queen rang sweet to my ears, child though I was. ... This idea of a crown began running in my head then like a tune, and has been running a lot in it ever since.
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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.
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I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper.
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I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.
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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.
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The trouble is that my heart is loath to be without love even for a single hour. ... If you want to keep me forever, then show as much friendship as love, and more than anything else, love me and tell me the truth.
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Your wit makes others witty.
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Tell a thousand people to draft a letter, let them debate every phrase, and see how long it takes and what you get.
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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.
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All punishments by which the human body might be maimed are barbarbarism.
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Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.
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If I may venture to be frank I would say about myself that I was every inch a gentleman.
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To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited.
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[On Peter III:] He did not have a bad heart but a weak man usually has not.
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A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.
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Experience shows that the frequent use of severe punishment has never rendered a people better. The death of a criminal is a less effective means of restraining crimes than the permanent example of a man deprived of his liberty during the whole of his life to make amends for the injury he has done to the public.
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I am one of the people who love the why of things.
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Assuredly men of merit are never lacking at any time, for those are the men who manage affairs, and it is affairs that produce the men. I have never searched, and I have always found under my hand the men who have served me, and for the most part I have been well served.
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