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Do you think I take any pleasure in this dog's life, in seeing and causing death in people unknown to me, in losing friends and acquaintances daily, in seeing my reputation ceaselessly exposed to the caprices of fortune, in spending the whole year with uneasiness and apprehension, in continually risking my life and my fortune? I certainly know the value of tranquility, the charms of society, the pleasures of life, and I like to be happy as much as anybody. Although I desire all these good things, I will not buy them with baseness and infamy. Philosophy teaches us to do our duty, to serve our country faithfully at the expense of our blood and of our repose, to commit our whole being to it.

Frederick II of Prussia#6

More from Frederick II of Prussia

  1. Kerls, wollt ihr ewig leben?

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  2. 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 auto…

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  3. Avec toute l'algebre du monde on n'est souvent qu'un sot lorsqu'on ne sait pas autre chose. Peut-etre dans dix ans la societe tirera-t-elle de l'avantage des c…

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