Frederick the Great

I am the one and only Frederick the Great of Prussia, the first servant of the state. The people are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Frederick the Great: A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.Frederick the Great: Fortune has turned her back on me. She has it in for me; she is a woman, and I am not that way inclined.Frederick the Great: 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.Frederick the Great: An educated people can be easily governed.Frederick the Great: Books make up no small part of human happiness.Frederick the Great: The more I see of men, the better I like my dog.Frederick the Great: I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.Frederick the Great: He who defends everything, defends nothing.Frederick the Great: Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.Frederick the Great: If soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.Frederick the Great: Ihr verfluchten Kerls, wollt ihr denn ewig leben?Frederick the Great: You are the arbiter of your own destiny: honours and rewards await the execution of glorious deeds.Frederick the Great: It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country as a consequence. Everybody is using coffee; this must be prevented. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer, and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be relied upon to endure hardships in case of another war.Frederick the Great: Great advantage is drawn from knowledge of your adversary, and when you know the measure of his intelligence and character, you can use it to play on his weakness.Frederick the Great: Being goal directed is not enough to conquer your enemy. To achieve your goal you need to know and be able to utilize all the resources available to you. This includes the knowledge of all those available to you as well as using the physical resources and those who control them.Frederick the Great: A man with his heart in his profession imagines and finds resources where the worthless and lazy despair.Frederick the Great: I am up and about when I am ill, and in the most appalling weather. I am on horseback when other men would be flat out on their beds, complaining. We are made for action, and activity is the sovereign remedy for all physical ills.Frederick the Great: Theologians are all alike, of whatever religion or country they may be; their aim is always to wield despotic authority over men's consciences; they therefore persecute all of us who have the temerity to tell the truth.Frederick the Great: Christianity is an old metaphysical fiction, stuffed with fables, contradictions and absurdities: it was spawned in the fevered imagination of the Orientals, and then spread to our Europe, where some fanatics espoused it, where some intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and where some imbeciles actually believed it.Frederick the Great: You will certainly grant me that neither antiquity nor whatever nation has devised a more repulsive and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating your God. This is the most disgusting dogma of Christian religion, the greatest insult to the Highest Being, the climax of madness and insanity.