General Sayings

I have conquered for myself, but I have conquered for Russia.

The three greatest follies of mankind are: love, ambition, and the desire to govern.

The strong eat the weak. That is the law of nature.

Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.

When a man is in a rage, there is no sense in arguing with him.

Man is an animal that needs a master.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State 'What does it matter to me?' the State may be given up for lost.

Cogito, ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.)

Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.

For a man who wishes to make a profession of good in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are only rather thoughtless: the old ones are corrupt.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

I can think of nothing else than this machine.

The being who can govern itself, has an empire which the most despotic monarch cannot boast.

For I assure you, I never did set the King's Highness's pleasure above my conscience.

There are some people who, if they don't get a little drunk, say nothing at all worth hearing.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

The African is lazy, crafty, negligent, and governed by caprice.

The heart is the beginning of life; the sun of the microcosm.