82 Quotes by Frederick the Great

It is enough", this malicious man tells us, "to extinguish the line of the defeated prince." Can one read this without quivering in horror and indignation?

Just as people are born, live a time, and die by diseases or old age, in the same way republics are formed, flower a few centuries, and perish finally by the audacity of a citizen, or by the weapons of their enemies. All has their period; all empires, and largest monarchies even, have only so much time: the republics feel continually that this time will arrive, and they look at any too-powerful family as the carriers of a disease which will give them the blow of death.

I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.

What is the good of experience if you do not reflect?

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.

A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.

Every man has a wild beast within him.

It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most persevering researches.

The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices.