Peter the Great — "I have built a city, but I cannot build a people."
I have built a city, but I cannot build a people.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Peter the Great
"I have seen the future, and it is in the West."
"It is not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
"We need Europe for a few decades; then we must turn our back on it."
"It is better to have one good example than a hundred good rules."
"For you know yourself that, though a thing be good, if it be new, the people will not do it without compulsion."
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.