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Attributed quotes — Frederick II of Prussia

1712–1786 Germany

← All quotes by Frederick II of Prussia

10 quotes

If my soldiers began to think, not one would remain in the ranks.

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Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.

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If I had a province to punish, I would let it be governed by philosophers.

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Je puis vous assurer, par mon expérience personnelle, que ce plaisir grec est peu agréable à cultiver.

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Like a long boat which follows in the wake of the warship to which it is tied.

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Rascals, would you live forever?

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

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They were stronger than Turk and Saracen, but not than Hunger and Disease. Leaders did not know then, as our little Friend at Berlin came to know, that “an Army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly."

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"My people and I," he said, "have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please."

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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. Attributed in "The West and the Rest", by Niall Ferguson, Penguin 2011 (Kindle edition).

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Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Frederick II of Prussia (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.