Peter the Great — "For you know yourself that, though a thing be good, if it be new, the people wil…"
For you know yourself that, though a thing be good, if it be new, the people will not do it without compulsion.
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More from Peter the Great
"My 'good fortune' consisted in having received fifty blows when I was condemned to receive a hundred."
"I will open a window to Europe."
"I have cut off the beards of my boyars, but I cannot cut off their stubbornness."
"The pen is mightier than the sword, but only if the sword is at the service of the pen."
"I shall cut a window through to Europe."
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.