Frases de Frederico II

„A trapaça, a má fé e a duplicidade são, infelizmente, o caráter predominante da maioria dos homens que governam as nações.“

Frederico da Prússia em carta a Voltaire

„Todas as religiões devem ser toleradas pois cada um de nós tem o direito de ir para o céu à sua maneira.“

Frederico II, o Grande, rei da Prussia.

„Se os meus soldados pensassem, já não haveria nenhum nas filas.“

„Conhecer o país onde se fará a guerra é a base de toda a estratégia.“

„Como somos insensatos, queremos tudo conquistar, como se tivéssemos tempo de tudo possuir.“

„Todas as religiões se equivalem, contanto que sejam boas as pessoas que as professam.“

„E necessário que não haja nem paixões nem preconceito nos negócios do Estado; a única paixão permitida é a do bem público.“

„Quando um monarca deseja a guerra, começa-a muito simplesmente, quite com a sua consciência, porque sempre tem qualquer homem de lei, cheio de gravidade, para demonstrar por A mais B que o direito estava do seu lado.“

„Mais vale perder uma província que dividir as forças com as quais se espera a vitória.“

„O luxo não estimula o homem para a virtude, mas sufoca nele todos os sentimentos bons.“

„Rascals, would you live forever?“

Luxus treibt den Menschen zu keiner einzigen Tugend an, sondern erstickt meist alle besseren Gefühle in ihm.
Frederico II citado em "Dichter- und Denkerworte: 12000 Zitate und Sentenzen aus der Weltliteratur‎" - Página 922, de Werner Adolf Krüger - Editora Münster-Verlag, 1945 - 1935 páginas

„Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.“

To hesitant guards at the battle of Kolin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kol%C3%ADn#Battle, 18 June 1757
Attributed in E. M. Knowles, Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations (5th Edition) (Oxford University Press, 1999)
"Kerels, wollt ihr den euwig leben?" Frederick the Great, by David Fraser, Penguin 2000, p. 353 Other versions have it: "Hünde, wollt ihr euwig leben?" (Dogs, do you want to live for ever?).
Attributed

„Christianity… is an old metaphysical fiction, stuffed with fables, contradictions and absurdities: it was spawned in the fevered imagination of the Orientals, and then spread to our Europe, where some fanatics espoused it, where some intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and where some imbeciles actually believed it. Attributed in "The West and the Rest", by Niall Ferguson, Penguin 2011“

Attributed

„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.“

Kindle edition
Attributed

„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 avoid 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 II of Prussia, livro Anti-Machiavel

Fonte: 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

„I think it better to keep a profound silence with regard to the Christian fables, which are canonized by their antiquity and the credulity of absurd and insipid people.“

— Frederick II of Prussia, livro Anti-Machiavel

Fonte: Anti-Machiavel, Chapter VIII

„Audacity, audacity, always audacity!“

Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 37 from Frederick to Voltaire (June 1738)

„My people and I," he said, "have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.“

Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace! http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8dscs10.txt
We must dare, dare again, always dare!
Georges Danton, speech, Assemblée legislative, Paris (1792-09-02), reported in Le Moniteur (1792-09-04)
Misattributed

„Neither antiquity nor any other nation has imagined a more atrocious and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating God. — This is how Christians treat the autocrat of the universe.“

Attributed by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Life of Frederick the Great (1882), pg 48.
Repeated by Thomas Babington Macaulay in a review of "Frederick the Great and his Times. Edited, with an Introduction, by Thomas Campbell, Esq". Edinburgh Review, ISSN 1751-8482, 04/1842, Volume 75, Issue 151, p. 241-242, though it does not appear in the original work.
Knowles, Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations (5th Edition) (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Attributed