Catherine The Great's Quotes & Sayings

If Russians knew how to read they would write me off. — Catherine The Great

What right can give anyone authority to inflict torture upon a citizen when it is still unknown whether he is innocent or guilty? — Catherine The Great

While he digs he is free to let his mind wander, and he dreams his kingdom of pear trees in the orchard across to his left, growing skywards, gnarling, putting forth fat green soft fruits with ease each year. The trees that already grow in the orchards he loves almost as women in his life; the Catherine pear, the Chesil or pear Nouglas, the great Kentish pear, the Ruddick, the Red Garnet, the Norwich, the Windsor, the little green pear ripe at Kingsdon Feast; all thriving where they were planted in his father's ground at Lytes Cary before the management of the estate became his own responsibility as the eldest son. So much has happened these last six years since his father handed over and left for his house in Sherborne: there have been births and deaths - Anys herself was taken from him only last year. But the pear trees live on, reliably flowering and yielding variable quantities as an annual crop that defines the estate, and he has plans to add more. — Jane Borodale

The Christian tradition was passed on to me as a great rich mixture, a bouillabaisse of human imagination and wonder brewed from the richness of individual lives. — Mary Catherine Bateson

The great reward given to intelligent people is that they can invent all the rules and equate any dissent with stupidity. — Catherine Lowell

Self-interest usually brings injustice with it. — Catherine The Great

I cannot but think that it would be a great step if mankind could familiarise themselves with the idea that they are spirits incorporated for a time in the flesh re spirits incorporated for a time in the flesh. — Catherine Crowe

God, grant us our desires, and grant them quickly. — Catherine The Great

But, people are recognizing me more. Sometimes fans just approach me on the street and say how much they love the show. It's great to get that kind of feedback. — Catherine Bell

There's something about standing on the top of a mountain you personally climbed at great sacrifice. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

My children are all doing just fine. The mountain dogs are great in this weather. The yorkies are freezing. — Catherine Crier

A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache. — Catherine The Great

In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions. — Catherine The Great

If you want more people to come to the theatre, don't put the prices at £50. You have to make theatre inclusive, and at the moment the prices are exclusive. Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people in the right parts. Stunt casting and being gimmicky does the theatre a great disservice. You have to lure people by getting them excited about a theatrical experience. — Catherine Tate

Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don't wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work - to wake people up. — Catherine Booth

Catherine the Great, like others of her kind, did not succeed in imparting greatness to her descendants. — Katharine Anthony

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster. — Catherine The Great

You should know our mania for building is stronger than ever. It is a diabolical thing. It consumes money and the more you build, the more you want to build. It's a sickness like being addicted to alcohol. — Catherine The Great

Powerful women are either sexually voracious rulers like Catherine the Great or Elizabeth I, or treacherous bitches like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy — Bill Gates

Margaret Thatcher had more impact on the world than any woman ruler since Catherine the Great of Russia. Not only did she turn around - decisively - the British economy in the 1980s, she also saw her methods copied in more than 50 countries. — Paul Johnson

I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his. — Catherine The Great

It was not the lover she regretted,' wrote a Swiss imperial tutor, who understood their relationship. 'It was the friend. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

Nothing is more difficult, in my opinion, than to avoid something that fundamentally attracts you. — Catherine The Great

All this is only for the mice and myself to admire! — Catherine The Great

The title of Queen rang sweet to my ears, child though I was ... This idea of a crown began running in my head then like a tune, and has been running a lot in it ever since. — Catherine The Great

Madame, you must be gay; only thus can life be endured. I speak from experience for I have had to endure much, and have only been able to endure it because I have always laughed whenever I had the chance. — Catherine The Great

I wrote a one-act play - I can't remember the name of it, but it was really about the way women are perceived as leaders. In the play, Catherine the Great would say things like, "You know, John F. Kennedy had extramarital affairs and no one says anything. But I bang one horse and now I'm a horse banger for all eternity? That's it? That's what I am?" — Tina Fey

Healing happens when we recognize that the world our ego sees is a world of projection. The world our soul perceives is a revelation of great truth, love and beauty. — Catherine Carrigan

Young Stalin Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner — Simon Sebag Montefiore

I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper. — Catherine The Great

The use of torture is contrary to sound judgment and common sense. Humanity itself cries out against it, and demands it to be utterly abolished. — Catherine The Great

One cannot always know what children are thinking. Children are hard to understand, especially when careful training has accustomed them to obedience, and experience has made them cautious in their conversation with their teachers. Will you not draw from this the fine maxim that one should not scold children too much, but should make them trustful, so that they will not conceal their stupidities from us? — Catherine The Great

I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all. — Catherine The Great

Jack Campbell's dazzling new series is military science fiction at its best. Not only does he tell a yarn of great adventure and action, but he also develops the characters with satisfying depth. I thoroughly enjoyed this rip-roaring read, and I can hardly wait for the next book. — Catherine Asaro

He sang his last song. And the words of that have never been written down. But it was sweet and of great beauty, and those that heard it were changed utterly.
Some say it was the song that moves the stars. — Catherine Fisher

Enrich your soul in the great goodness of God: The Father is your table, the Son is your food, and the Holy Spirit waits on you and then makes His dwelling in you. — St. Catherine Of Siena

The most sure, but at the same time the most difficult expedient to mend the morals of the people, is a perfect system of education. — Catherine The Great

The great thing about having spent all this time on film sets is that I've been able to watch directors and how they work. I now know that this is what I want to do as well: to tell stories visually. But it's definitely my vision that I want to put across, nobody else's. — Catherine McCormack

I'm not -
Lady Macbeth
Lucrezia Borgia
Catherine the Great. I am
- a woman doing what she has to do. I am
- the woman you made me.
Elena is at war. — Don Winslow

If we are like God, we can only be God. Is that what you mean?"

"Oh, I think it is more than that. A robin is like a hawk, but it is also different. The Goddess Mother created us as reflections of herself. God to me is the Great Mother. God to me is the Old One. But it does not really matter; God is God. Life force is life force. God is the creator, the Great Spirit that permeates all of us. Once you truly understand that, Catherine, you realize that we are all part of one another, that we are in agreement on this wonderful, green earth, and that we live in a state of duality, a state of separateness that is not real. We are separated by an agreement called space and time. — Lynn V. Andrews

You know, Salma Hayek is a great cook, and she's a friend.. She's an amazing cook. If she opened up a restaurant, I would so get in on the coattails. — Catherine Keener

Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company. — Emily Bronte

I am deeply saddened to hear the news of Dan's passing. He was a dear friend for many years. Dan & his music will live on in the great songs he shared with us all. My sincere condolences go out to Catherine and the entire Peek family. May he rest in peace ... — Gerry Beckley

As modern tyrannies are swept away (and every honest heart delights), the quick-thinking servants of the world's great powers still proffer plans to intervene, to jostle, scheme and sponsor factions that they barely understand. — Catherine Merridale

It's easy to look back and think how we could make only the good things happen to us,' counseled Catherine, still swishing her mop to and fro, spreading dirty water instead of soaking it up. 'But that's not how we become ourselves. You are mad who you are by the bad stuff, the little things, as much as the great triumphs and big decisions. — Kate Jacobs

I knew, of course, that I should be well paid for my services, but I would gladly have accepted half the sum I expected if I could have had it that night, for our little treasury was wholly exhausted, and we had not sixpence to purchase a breakfast for the following day. When the great hall door shut upon me, and I found myself on the pavement, with all the luxury and splendour on one side, and I and my desolation on the other, the contrast struck me cruelly, for I too, had been rich, and dwelt in illuminated palaces, and had a train of liveried servants at my command, and sweet music had echoed through my halls. I felt desperate, and drawing my hat over my eyes I began pacing the square, forming wild plans for the relief or escape from my misery. ("The Italian's Story") — Catherine Crowe

Power without a nation's confidence is nothing. — Catherine The Great

I will live to make myself not feared. — Catherine The Great

Everyone has memories, Finn. Your prophecies are what matter. The visions that descend on you are the great gift and strangeness of the Starseer. They're unique. The people know that, the slaves and the warband, even Jormanric.It's in the way they look at you. Sometimes they fear you. — Catherine Fisher

The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you.
You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child.
If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper.
So you do it.
But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child ...
There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done.
And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God. — Catherine De Hueck Doherty

Before the Great Chicago Fire, no one took notice of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary, two Irish immigrants who lived with their five children on the city's West Side. — Karen Abbott

All punishments by which the human body might be maimed are barbarbarism. — Catherine The Great

I have a background in theater. At the time I read 'The Loved Ones' script, I was playing Catherine the Great of Russia onstage. Straight after that, I played Stella in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and Isabella in 'Measure for Measure.' — Robin McLeavy

The only way to get truly great intuitive information is to show up and get out of your own way. — Catherine Carrigan

Don't worry about things you cannot alter — Catherine The Great

One does not always do the best there is. One does the best one can. — Catherine The Great

Perceptive people like you wound more easily than others. But if we're going to work on God's side, we have to decide to open our hearts to the griefs and pain all around us. It's not an easy decision. A dangerous one too. And a tiny narrow door to enter into a whole new world.
But in that world a great experience waits for us: meeting the One who's entered there before us. He suffers more than any of us could because His is the deepest emotion and the highest perception ... He doesn't just leave us and Himself in the anguish. At the point where His ultimate in love meets His total capacity to absorb and feel all our agony, there the miracle happens and the exterior situation changes. I've seen that miracle — Catherine Marshall

M. J. Putney has created true magic with this book, the kind that comes when you curl up in a comfortable armchair and let the story take your imagination away. Come visit an enchanted eighteenth-century England and meet two desperate lovers caught in the web of a sinister lord with great magical power. Romantic and lyrical, this tale will fill your reading time with pleasure. I loved it. — Catherine Asaro

You were in a mood to quarrel. Please inform me once the inclination passes. — Catherine The Great

I think my uncle was probably the biggest influence in my life. We grew up in the same house, and he was just a really great, hard-working, honest, ethical person. — Catherine Bell

If I may venture to be frank I would say about myself that I was every inch a gentleman ... — Catherine The Great

Middle children become great listeners. They understand the value of acknowledging others' positions and feelings, and use this information as ammunition to help them get what they want. — Catherine Salmon

You're not paying attention to me, are you?"
"Eh? What's that? Sorry, love, I didn't hear you. Wasn't paying attention. I had my eyes on your perfectly formed arse."
Catherine fixed him with a glare worthy of a Scottish schoolmaster. "This is serious business Jamie. If you've to pass for a Highlander, you've got to get the kilt just so,"
"Bah! You're a hoydenish vixen. You just want to ogle my knees."
"Nonsense. I'm sure you'll find the ah... freedom and... utility very appealing once you try it on."
"You mean you think I'll like the feel of the family jewels waving free?" Blushing, she spread both great kilts on the ground. "One lays down on it like so. Oh stop grinning, Jamie, and do try."
She was so earnest and eager in her lesson that he hadn't the heart to tell her he'd worn a kilt a time or two before. — Judith James

Well? I've had a great birthday so far. Are you going to make it the most memorable one of my life by telling me you love me back?"
~Isaiah Coulter — Catherine Anderson

Poor Hollywood! These things happen all over the world but what a great backdrop to have Hollywood in our movie. No, but I know people who divorce a lot ... and have really nice houses. But I didn't model the character on anyone in particular. And if I did, I would never tell the name. — Catherine Zeta-Jones

The unattainable was most desireable. The already attained was dull. — Eleanor Herman

When you do something that people watch and enjoy as children, that's great because it stays with you, throughout your life. The things you loved as a child stay with you, and so do the people who were in those things. — Catherine O'Hara

No one should judge that he has greater perfection because he performs great penances and gives himself in excess to the staying of the body than he who does less, inasmuch as neither virtue nor merit consists therein; for otherwise he would be an evil case, who for some legitimate reason was unable to do actual penance. Merit consists in the virtue of love alone, flavored with the light of true discretion without which the soul is worth nothing. — St. Catherine Of Siena

Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful. Marguerite, Countess of Blessington I praise loudly; I blame softly. — Catherine The Great

Creating my own roles, as an actor, is great. You're so at the mercy of other people, and you're waiting for a job. That's just a horrible way to live, so I just decided to take matters into my own hands, find my own projects, and create them myself, and then do other stuff that people might throw my way as well. — Catherine Bell

Let me say to you what I said once, in an entirely different context to Catherine the Great," Magnus declared. "My dear lady, you cannot afford me,and also, please leave that horse alone. Good night. — Cassandra Clare

I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them. — Catherine The Great

Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great. — Clement Attlee

It is a great delusion to suppose that flesh-meat of any kind is essential to health. Considerably more than three parts of the work in the world is done by men who never taste anything but vegetable, farinaceous food, and that of the simplest kind. There are more strength-producing properties in wholemeal flour, peas, beans, lentils, oatmeal, roots, and other vegetables of the same class, than there are beef or mutton, poultry or fish, or animal food of any description whatever. — Catherine Booth

Only a dreamer or a fool would pick a stock at random and expect it to take off like a space ship from its launching pad. Certainly this has happened - about as often as a dime-store clerk has become a Hollywood star or a boy born in a log cabin has been elected President of the United States - just often enough, that is, to keep alive the Great American Dream. — Catherine Crook De Camp

The world is a chessboard, Madam, on which we play out our ploys and follies. You are the Queen, of course. Your moves are the strongest. For myself, I claim only to be a knight, advancing in a crooked progress. Do we move ourselves, do you think, or does a great gloved hand place on our squares — Catherine Fisher

Mass badly celebrated is an enormous evil. Ah! it is not a matter of indifference how it is said! ... I have had a great vision on the mystery of Holy Mass and I have seen that whatever good has existed since creation is owing to it. — Anne Catherine Emmerich

I love 'The War Of The Roses,' especially as my husband is in it! I've often said to him it would be great to remake that with me and him in it, because then we could really get down to some serious business. — Catherine Zeta-Jones

I will not raise you up and give you a gun. I will not take you shooting and fawn over how great your aim is. I won't tell you how brilliant you can be or how many Marinos you can murder if you really put your mind to it. I won't walk you into danger and clap as you shoot to kill. I will take the gun from you and tell you you're a thousand times better without it. I will always take the gun from you, Sophie. I will always tell you that you don't need it. I will always support you, but I will never support that. Never. — Catherine Doyle

I praise loudly. I blame softly. — Catherine The Great

Besides,' she said, "it was not a hero I was thinking of. If anybody, it was Catherine Vernon." "Whom you don't like. These women, who step out of their sphere, they may do much to be respected, they may be of great use; but " "You mean that men don't like them," said Hester, with a smile; " but then women do; and, after all, we are the half of creation - or more. — Mrs. Oliphant

In my position you have to read when you want to write and to talk when you would like to read. — Catherine The Great

Playing half court or even organising a practise game against another team is a great way to train. It ensures a tough session and is often the best way to learn what works and what doesn't — Catherine Cox

You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings. — Catherine The Great

Potemkin suffered bitterly from having nothing left to want. For when dreams turn into reality, there is an empty spot where the dreams used to be, and Potemkin had no dreams left. — Eleanor Herman

Too great pity is the greatest cruelty. — St. Catherine Of Siena

She stared out. She saw a vastness, a rising shape, indistinct in the rain, gray in the misty drizzle. At first she had thought it was a cloud, a great bank of fog drifting up over the mountains, but now she realized with a cold awe that it was real, a vast building climbing the mountainside, rising in a countless series of rooms, stairways, balconies, and galleries, far away and immense, its topmost roofs white with snow. And up there, like a needle sharp with ice, one uttermost pinnacle flew the remote black pennant of the Watch.
The Tower of Song. — Catherine Fisher

When I talk to film students, I always say, 'Buy the DVDs and listen to the commentaries, look at the making of, look at the behind-the-scenes,' because that's such a great learning tool. — Catherine Hardwicke

Very early it was noticed that I had a good memory; therefore I was insistently tormented with learning everything by heart. — Catherine The Great

It is a great, a pleasant thing to have a friend with whom to walk, untroubled, through the woods, by the stream, saying nothing, at peace
the heart all clean and quiet and empty, ready for the spirit that may choose to be its guest. — Catherine Drinker Bowen

To her mind there was nothing of the infinite about Mrs. Penniman; Catherine saw her all at once, as it were, and was not dazzled by the apparition; whereas her father's great faculties seemed, as they stretched away, to lose themselves in a sort of luminous vagueness, which indicated, not that they stopped, but that Catherine's own mind ceased to follow them. — Henry James

Your wit makes others witty. — Catherine The Great

I grew up training and showing Arabs all over the US. Three of my four were bred on my farm in Texas. Thanks everyone! Hope you'll watch tomorrow. It's going to be another great look back. — Catherine Crier

I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly. — Catherine The Great

My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the King's wicked intention, the surprises which the King gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine. — Catherine Of Aragon

I am one of the people who love the why of things. — Catherine The Great

In great ceremony they entered the prison.
They were never to be seen again. — Catherine Fisher

Someone once said that to make a regular person laugh, you need to dress a guy up like an old lady and push him down the stairs. To make a comedy writer laugh, you have to push a real old lady down the stairs. I don't know who that's attributed to. I think it's Aristophanes. Or Catherine the Great. — Tina Fey

To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me. — Robert K. Massie

One of the marks of true genius is a quality of abundance. A rich, rollicking abundance, enough to give indigestion to ordinary people. Great artists turn it out in rolls, in swatches. They cover whole ceilings with paintings, they chip out a mountainside in stone, they write not one novel but a shelf full. It follows that some of their work is better than other. As much as a third of it may be pretty bad. Shall we say this unevenness is the mark of their humanity - of their proud mortality as well as of their immortality? — Catherine Drinker Bowen