“The Sovereign is absolute; for there is no other Authority but that which centers in his single Person, that can act with a Vigour proportionate to the Extent of such a vast Dominion.
The Extent of the Dominion requires an absolute Power to be vested in that Person who rules over it. It is expedient so to be, that the quick Dispatch of Affairs, sent from distant Parts, might make ample Amends for the Delay occasioned by the great Distance of the Places.
Every other Form of Government whatsoever would not only have been prejudicial to Russia, but would even have proved its entire Ruin.”

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Sovereign is absolute; for there is no other Authority but that which centers in his single Person, that can act wi…" by Catherine the Great?

Catherine the Great29

Empress of Russia 1729–1796

Related quotes

“If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Government, Ch. IX, sec. 123
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

“For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Quoted by Plutarch in Life of Alexander http://books.google.com/books?id=vWIOAAAAYAAJ&q=%22for+my+part+I+assure+you+I+had+rather+excel+others+in+the+knowledge+of+what+is+excellent+than+in+the+extent+of+my+power+and+dominion%22&pg=PA167#v=onepage from Plutarch's Lives as translated by John Dryden (1683)

“Alexander said, "I assure you I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Alexander
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.”

Sigmund Freud book The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud

Analysis Terminable and Interminable, sect. 5 (1937); reprinted in Complete Works, Standard Edition, vol. 23 (ed. James Strachey and Anna Freud. 1964); as quoted in The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations by Robert Andrews, Penguin Books, 2001.
1930s

“Absolute dominion of a powerful people by a minority always produces national aggression.”

Philip Wylie (1902–1971) American writer

Source: Generation of Vipers (1942), p. 18

“To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in "Paul Newman's Road To Glory", interview with Paul Fischer, Film Monthly (2002-07-01)

“If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body.”

John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician

But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (6 July 1775)

“The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I'm benefiting from someone else's tragedy. This idea haunts me. It's something I have to reckon with every day, because I know that if I ever allow genuine compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition, I will have sold my soul. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person's predicament. The extent to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other and to that extent I can accept myself.”

James Nachtwey (1948) American photographer

War Photographer, documentary, 2001

“It should be never absent from our recollection that there are now two distinct nations in China--the Chinese and the Tartars--whose characters essentially differ, notwithstanding their external appearance be nearly the same. They are both subject to the most absolute authority that can be vested in a Prince(Qianlong), but with this distinction--that to the Chinese it is a foreign tyranny, to the Tartar a domestic despotism. The latter consider themselves as in some degree partakers of their Sovereign's dominions over the former, and that imagination may, perhaps, somewhat console them under the pressure of his power upon themselves--like the house servants and house negroes belonging to a great landlord in Livonia or planter in Jamaica, who, though serfs themselves, look down upon the peasantry and field negroes as much their inferiors.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

“I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be free from subjection to their parents. And this subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself. From whence it follows, that civil power, not only in general is by Divine institution, but even the assigning of it specifically to the eldest parent. Which quite takes away that new and common distinction which refers only power universal and absolute to God, but power respective in regard of the special form of government to the choice of the people. Nor leaves it any place for such imaginary pactions between Kings and their people as many dream of. This lordship which Adam by creation had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the Patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation.”

Robert Filmer book Patriarcha

Source: Patriarcha, pp. 57–58

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Catherine the Great29

Related quotes

Related topics