Peter the Great — "It is my great desire to reform my subjects, and yet I am ashamed to confess tha…"
It is my great desire to reform my subjects, and yet I am ashamed to confess that I am unable to reform myself.
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More from Peter the Great
"I would rather have a few good men than many bad ones."
"It is not the number of soldiers, but the skill of the generals that determines victory."
"I do not know what is good for Russia, but I know what is not."
"It is a great sin to torture animals without need."
"The pen is mightier than the sword, but only if the sword is at the service of the pen."
About Peter the Great (1672-1725)
Russian tsar (1682-1725) who Westernized Russia, founded St. Petersburg, and built Russia into a European great power. Closely associated with Catherine the Great (later Westernizing Russian empress). For an intellectual contrast, see Old Believers, Russian Orthodox traditionalist movement that rejected Patriarch Nikon's reforms and Peter's modernization — Peter's beard-shaving decrees, Western dress laws, and calendar changes triggered a religious-cultural schism — the founding poles of Russia's eternal 'European modernity vs Slavic tradition' debate that runs through Slavophiles, Solzhenitsyn, and contemporary Putin-era ideology.