Frederick II of Prussia Quotes (1712-1786)

“Just as people are born, live a time, and die by diseases or old age, in the same way republics are formed, flower a few centuries, and persih finally by the audacity of a citizen, or by the weapons of their enemies. All has their period; all empires, and largest monarchies even, have only so much time: the republics feel continually that this time will arrive, and they look at any too-powerful family as the carriers of a disease which will give them the blow of death.”

“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.”

“Compare Holland with Russia; you see only marshy and sterile islands in the former, which rise from the center of the ocean: a small republic which is only 48 miles length by 40 wide. But this small body is the very nerve-center of the region: immense people live in it, and these industrious people are both powerful and rich. They shook the yoke of the Spanish domination, which was then the most formidable monarchy of Europe. The trade of this republic extends to the ends of the world; and new trade appears almost immediately; it can maintain in times of war an army fifty thousand men, without counting a many and well maintained fleet.”

“The cruel man is of misanthropic temperament, and is a man of moods, oscillating from quiet brooding to sudden explosions. If a man like this does not fight this unhappy provision of his soul during his youth, under no circumstances could he a void becoming furious - and foolish. There are those who would leave it up to God, but to ensure justice on the earth, and not fob it off to the Divinity, it is mandatory that people know both virtue and its benefits, since the virtues lead to unity among them, not the war of all against all. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to conserve them, and show that crime can only return misfortunes and destruction, including of the criminal himself. Who is the last victim of his crimes.”

“Frederick is what the English call an ‘acquired taste’: repulsive on first contact, yet as one gets involved with him one becomes addicted to him and finds him arousing a sentiment that cannot be called love but that may possibly be stronger than love.”

“The essential character of modern German nationalism was chiefly moulded by the tradition and structure of the Prussian military State. The latter itself changed in the process from a dynastic-aristocratic to a national form. Frederick the Great was elevated to a national divinity in a manner unknown to any other nation. His example became the supreme national dogma.”

“The character of the founder of the greatness of Prussia...can have no attraction for those who require as an indispensable condition of fealty that their hero shall have either purity, or sensibility, or generosity, or high honour, or manly respect for human nature. ... Frederick's sensibility was of the literary and aesthetic kind, rather than the humane and social. ... There has never been any epoch whose foremost men had such faith and hope in the virtues of humanity. There has never been any prominent man who despised humanity so bitterly and unaffectedly as Frederick despised it. We know what to think of a man...who never found so much pleasure in a friendly act as when he could make it the means of hurting the recipient; whose practical pleasantries were always spiteful and sneering and cruel.”

“He is king among the heroes. His mind rises above the earth, he turns upon his own axis like the sun, shines in his own light, shares her heat and her spots. His are the dimensions of a great spirit, and centuries to come will study his stature and nature with the utmost care. ... He demands the space of a colossus. ... I can think of no being more exalted than the King.”

“The development of foreign ministries further restricted the scope for summitry. But rulers often retained their own private diplomatic networks. Louis XV was a prime example, while Frederick the Great of Prussia created his own Kabinett, or private office, and took over the most important business from the Foreign Office. Not surprisingly, Frederick also tried his hand at summitry: seeking a rapprochement with Austria after the Seven Years War, he met the emperor Joseph II at Neisse in 1769 and Neustadt in 1770.”

“We have just sung a Prussian national hymn which celebrates Frederick the Great. What renders that sovereign so present to our memory is not our monarchical faith, but he is for us the personification of the ancient Prussian spirit.”

“Frederick the Great once asked his personal physician, Dr. Zimmermann, "Can you name me a single proof of the existence of God?" Zimmermann replied, "Your Majesty, the Jews!" By that he meant that if one wanted to ask for a proof of God, for something visible and tangible, that no one could contest, which is unfolded before the eyes of all men, then we should have to turn to the Jews. Quite simply, there they are to the present day. Hundreds of little nations in the Near East... have dissolved and disappeared in the huge sea of nations; [only] this one tiny nation has maintained itself.... If the question of a proof of God is raised, one need merely point to this simple historical fact. For in the person of the Jew there stands before our eyes the witness of God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in that way with us all. Even one who does not understand Holy Scripture can see this reminder.”

“Imperial Germany does not depart sensibly from the pattern of Prussia under Frederick the Great, in respect of its national policies or the aims and methods of government control, nor do the preconceptions of its statesmen differ at all widely from those prevalent among the dynastic jobbers of that predaceous era of state-making.”