I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
[Moi, je serai autocrate: c’est mon metier. Et le bon Dieu me pardonnnera: c’est son metier.]
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
(Attributed)
Quotations by:
Catherine II (the Great)
I do not love strife, because I have always found that in the end each remains of the same opinion.
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
(Attributed)
Quoted in Katherine Anthony, Catherine the Great (1926).
I praise loudly, I blame softly.
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
Letter (23 Aug. 1794)
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 II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
Letter to Baron F. M. Grimm (1878)
A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
Letter to Baron Friedrich von Grimm (29 Apr 1775)
(Source)
In the Collections of the Imperial Society of Russian History, Vol. 23, Catherine the Great, Letters to Grimm, quoted in Gamaliel Bradford, Daughters of Eve (1930).