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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.

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
Men
Hand
Searched
Time
Found
Served
Hands
Lacking
Part
Affairs
Wells
Merit
Well
Affair
Always
Manage
Never
Produce
Assuredly

More quotes by Catherine the Great

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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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All punishments by which the human body might be maimed are barbarbarism.
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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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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.
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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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[On Peter III:] He did not have a bad heart but a weak man usually has not.
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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 am one of the people who love the why of things.
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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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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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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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Don't worry about things you cannot alter
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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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Men make love more intensely at 20, but make love better, however, at 30.
Catherine the Great
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The laws ought to be so framed as to secure the safety of every citizen as much as possible. ... Political liberty does not consist in the notion that a man may do whatever he pleases liberty is the right to do whatsoever the laws allow. ... The equality of the citizens consists in that they should all be subject to the same laws.
Catherine the Great
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Nothing is more difficult, in my opinion, than to avoid something that fundamentally attracts you.
Catherine the Great
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Any man who doesn't partake in cigar smoking is nothing more than a weak-willed, meandering oaf, and I would never put my lips to those of any creature, man or beast, whose lips were not fresh awash in the currents of cigar smoke.'
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If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off.
Catherine the Great
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Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.
Catherine the Great
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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.
Catherine the Great