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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.

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
Mean
Use
Effective
Rendered
Make
Means
Punishment
Frequent
Never
Experience
Permanent
Deprived
Men
Death
Crime
Crimes
Life
Shows
Example
Severe
People
Better
Liberty
Criminal
Whole
Public
Injury
Restraining
Done
Less
Criminals
Amends

More quotes by Catherine the Great

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I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper.
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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.
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Nothing is more difficult, in my opinion, than to avoid something that fundamentally attracts you.
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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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Don't worry about things you cannot alter
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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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Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.
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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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Men make love more intensely at 20, but make love better, however, at 30.
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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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it is better to inspire a reform than to enforce it.
Catherine the Great
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If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off.
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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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Your wit makes others witty.
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bad news travels faster than good.
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A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.
Catherine the Great
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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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If I may venture to be frank I would say about myself that I was every inch a gentleman.
Catherine the Great
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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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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