Instruction (Nakaz) of Empress Catherine II.

Power without the people's trust is nothing.

I shall be an autocrat - that is my trade; and the good Lord shall forgive me - that is His.

My mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear.

-- Thomas Hobbes

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

-- Bertrand Russell

I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.

-- Frida Kahlo

The men we are attacking are the enemies who killed your father and your brother.

-- Marcus Licinius Crassus

How happy are those who do not know how to read or write!

-- Nero

There has never been so good a slave, nor so bad a master.

-- Caligula