“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?”

“A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.”

“In January in Northern Russia, everything vanishes beneath a deep blanket of whiteness. Rivers, fields, trees, roads, and houses disappear, and the landscape becomes a white sea of mounds and hollows. On days when the sky is gray, it is hard to see where earth merges with air. On brilliant days when the sky is a rich blue, the sunlight is blinding, as if millions of diamonds were scattered on the snow, refracting light. In Catherine's time, the log roads of summer were covered with a smooth coating of snow and ice that enabled the sledges to glide smoothly at startling speeds; on some days, her procession covered a hundred miles.”

“The more a man knows, the more he forgives.”

“I praise loudly. I blame softly.”

“In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.”

“I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.”

“I beg you take courage the brave soul can mend even disaster. ”

“Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.”

“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.”

“I shall be an autocrat that's my trade and the good Lord will forgive me that's his.”