Peter the Great — "I desire that the people should learn and become more enlightened, but I cannot …"
I desire that the people should learn and become more enlightened, but I cannot force them to it.
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More from Peter the Great
"The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know."
"I am a worker and I need assistants."
"I have undertaken to reform my people, and I am not afraid of anyone."
"We need not only to learn, but also to teach others."
"I am not afraid of death, but I would like to live a little longer."
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.