Fryderyk II Wielki: Cytaty po angielsku

Cytaty po angielsku.
Fryderyk II Wielki: 93 cytaty7 Polubień

“Machiavel's The Prince is to ethics what the work of Spinoza is to faith. Spinoza sapped the fundamentals of faith, and drained the spirit of religion; Machiavel corrupted policy, and undertook to destroy the precepts of healthy morals: the errors of the first were only errors of speculation, but those of the other had a practical thrust. […] I always have regarded The Prince as one of the most dangerous works which were spread in the world; it is a book which falls naturally into the hands of princes, and of those who have a taste for policy. […] There is a real injustice in concluding that the rotten apples are representative of all of them.”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Foreword
Anti-Machiavel

“As to your Newton, I confess I do not understand his void and his gravity; I admit he has demonstrated the movement of the heavenly bodies with more exactitude than his forerunners; but you will admit it is an absurdity to maintain the existence of Nothing.”

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Frederick II of Prussia

Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 221 from Frederick to Voltaire (1777-11-25)

“If the men were without passions, it would be forgivable to see Machiavel try to give some to them; he would be the new Prometheus bringing celestial fire to breathe life into robots. But no man is without passions. When they are moderated, they are the heart of the enterprise; but when the brake is stripped of them, they are its destruction.”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Źródło: Anti-Machiavel, Ch. 6 : New States That The Prince Acquires By His Valor And His Own Weapons

“But France's powerful armies, and a very large number of fortresses, ensure that the French Sovereign will possess the throne forever, and they do not have anything to fear now concerning internal wars or their neighbors invading France.”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Źródło: Anti-Machiavel, Chapter IV

“We humans are foolish in many ways: we want to conquer all as if we had all time, as if our lives did not have any end. Thus, our real time passes too quickly, and often when one believes that they are working only for themselves, they are in fact working for unworthy or ungrateful successors.”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Źródło: Anti-Machiavel, Ch. 5 : How It Is Necessary To Control The Cities, Or The Principalities, Which Are Controlled By Their Own Laws Before They Were Conquered

“(About Cesare Borgia) What cruelties were not the result of his? Who could count all his crimes? Such was the man that Machiavel prefers to all the great geniuses of his time, and to the heroes of antiquity, and of which he finds the life and action make a good example for those that fortune favors.”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Źródło: Anti-Machiavel, Chapter VII

“Do you think I take any pleasure in this dog's life, in seeing and causing death in people unknown to me, in losing friends and acquaintances daily, in seeing my reputation ceaselessly exposed to the caprices of fortune, in spending the whole year with uneasiness and apprehension, in continually risking my life and my fortune? I certainly know the value of tranquility, the charms of society, the pleasures of life, and I like to be happy as much as anybody. Although I desire all these good things, I will not buy them with baseness and infamy. Philosophy teaches us to do our duty, to serve our country faithfully at the expense of our blood and of our repose, to commit our whole being to it.”

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Frederick II of Prussia

Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 141 from Frederick to Voltaire (1759-07-02)

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

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Frederick II of Prussia

On the decline of the Dutch Republic subject to British power
Attributed in T. C. W. Blanning, The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2000)
Attributed

“It has been said by a certain general, that the first object in the establishment of an army ought to be making provision for the belly, that being the basis and foundation of all operations.”

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Frederick II of Prussia

Military Instructions (1747), Article II: Of the Subsistence of Troops, and of Provisions http://www.sonshi.com/frederickthegreat1-2.html

“"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?”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Źródło: Anti-Machiavel, Ch. 3 : Mixed Principalities

“It is a fact that princes who try to raise other princes with violence, end up destroying themselves.”

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Frederick II of Prussia książka Anti-Machiavel

Źródło: Anti-Machiavel, Ch. 3 : Mixed Principalities

“If I had a province to punish, I would let it be governed by philosophers. Attributed in The Orthodox churchman's magazine; or, A Treasury of divine and useful knowledge”

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Frederick II of Prussia

1803
Attributed

“A single Voltaire will do more honor to France than a thousand pedants, a thousand false wits, a thousand great men of inferior order.”

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Frederick II of Prussia

Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 48 from Frederick to Voltaire (1740-01-06)

“(About the battle of Kunersdorf) "I shall not survive this cruel misfortune. The consequences will be worse than defeat itself. I have no resources left, and, to speak quite frankly I believe everything is lost. I shall not outlive the downfall of my country. Farewell, forever!"”

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Frederick II of Prussia

[Holmes, Richard, John Pimlott, 1999, The Hutchinson Atlas of Battle Plans: Before and After, Taylor & Francis, 9781579582036, http://books.google.com/books?id=FB1zBuyCQF0C&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=%22I+shall+not+survive+this+cruel+misfortune&source=bl&ots=ovyO1BCrCg&sig=_acnLcNlnOwVb44Nw-whp8S3Slk&hl=en&ei=pyFKS6SGGcPVlAfQv7wX&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20shall%20not%20survive%20this%20cruel%20misfortune&f=false]

“Neither antiquity nor any other nation has imagined a more atrocious and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating God.”

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Frederick II of Prussia

This is how Christians treat the autocrat of the universe.
Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 215 from Frederick to Voltaire (1776-03-19)

“But a prince, when he binds himself, does not bind himself alone, otherwise he would be in the same position as a private individual. Instead, he exposes great countries and great provinces to a thousand misfortunes. Therefore, it is better that he should break his contract rather than that the people should perish.”

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Frederick II of Prussia

Historie vom Jahre 1746, quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 82