“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.”

— Catherine the Great

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

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Catherine the Great 29

Empress of Russia 1729–1796

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“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?”

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“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.”

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“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."”

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

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“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.”

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“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.”

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Source: Patriarcha, pp. 57–58

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Catherine the Great 29

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