Catherine the Great was Empress of All Russia whose thirty-four-year reign championed the Russian Enlightenment, expanded imperial borders to the Black Sea and Crimea, founded the Hermitage Museum, and transformed Russia into a dominant European superpower.
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Empress of All Russia (1762–1796) and Enlightened Monarch
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Honor the extraordinary legacy of Catherine the Great on November 17 with these curated quotes, philosophical reflections, and heartfelt tributes celebrating their monumental impact on Empress of All Russia (1762–1796) and Enlightened Monarch.
“I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.”
“Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.”
“A great wind is blowing, and that either gives you imagination or a headache.”
“I praise loudly, I blame softly.”
“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
“My motto is to do good to the greatest number of people possible.”
“I may be kind, but I am firm. I know how to listen, but I know how to decide.”
“Study was my only friend, my only comfort, my only companion through long years of solitude.”
“My object was, by my example, to save from death the multitude of my subjects who, not knowing the value of inoculation, were terrified of it.”
“You philosophers are fortunate people: you write on paper, but I, poor empress, write on human skin, which is far more irritable and sensitive.”
Empress of All Russia (1762–1796) and Enlightened Monarch
