"Frederick the Great" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of such views and aspirations, we seem entirely to have forgotten the teaching which once the old German Empire received with "astonishment and indignation" from Frederick the Great, that "the rights of States can only be asserted by the living power"; that what was won in war can only be kept by war; and that we Germans, cramped as we are by political and geographical conditions, require the greatest efforts to hold and to increase ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... is to say in 1738—Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, who for two years had been carrying on a correspondence with Voltaire, suddenly evinced a curiosity to know the secrets of Freemasonry which he had hitherto derided as "Kinderspiel," and accordingly went through a hasty initiation during the night of August 14-15, whilst ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... British ambassador at the Hague, laboured to counteract their designs by encouraging the party in the republic opposed to the policy of Holland. The stadholder's wife, a princess of high spirit, was a niece of Frederick the Great, and Harris was anxious for an alliance between England and Prussia as a means of overthrowing the French party. Ewart, the ambassador at Berlin, shared his views, but the ambassadors were held back by Carmarthen. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... under the title of "The Star of the North." The opera contains several numbers from the composer's earlier work, "Feldlager in Schlesien," which was written for the opening of the Berlin opera-house, in memory of Frederick the Great, and was subsequently (Feb. 17, 1847) performed with great success in Vienna, Jenny Lind taking the role of Vielka. The "Feldlager," however, has never been ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... ability, yet, by using his faculties in a natural way, he was able to supply material for two of the finest literary fragments of modern times. I take it that the most stirring and profoundly wise piece of modern history is Carlyle's brief account of William Pitt, given in the "Life of Frederick the Great." Once we have read it we feel as though the great commoner had stood before us for a while under a searching light; his figure is imprinted on the very nerves, and no man who has read carefully can ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... it completely revolutionized the public estimate of its subject. In 1851 he published a biography of his friend, John Sterling. From this time Carlyle gave himself up entirely to his largest work, "The History of Frederick II., commonly called Frederick the Great," the first two volumes of which were published in 1858, and which was concluded in 1865. The preparation of this book led Carlyle to make two excursions to the Continent, which, with a yachting trip to Ostend, two tours in Ireland (on ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... know that the most important of them all, the shifting of the action back into the age of expiring feudalism, was made reluctantly. Schiller felt, and had reason to feel, that the modernity of his drama was its very life-blood;[32] for the squeamish Dalberg, however, the robbers in the age of Frederick the Great were a painful anachronism. So they were put back three centuries and costumed in the style of the 'Ritterstueck'. Other less dubious changes were also made. Thus the long soliloquies of Franz and the ribald garrulities of Spiegelberg were reduced to more tolerable proportions. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, "dwelt Andreas Futteral and his wife; childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful though now verging towards old age. Andreas had been grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster under Frederick the Great; but now, quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated a little Orchard, on the produce of which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other varieties came in their season; all which Andreas knew how to sell: ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... The Germans expected to encounter raw and sluggish troops under intriguing time-servers and military Hamlets whose "native hue of resolution" had been "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Instead of that they were confronted with soldiers of the same type as those whom Frederick the Great and Napoleon admired, led at last by chiefs worthy of their men. And behind these soldiers they discovered a nation. Do they realize now what a force they have awakened? Do they understand that a steadfast, indomitable resolution, despising all theatrical display, is moving Russia's hosts? ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... fierce and irresistible soldiers; the nation is always its own army, and their king, or chief head of government, is always their first soldier. Pharaoh, or David, or Leonidas, or Valerius, or Barbarossa, or Coeur de Lion, or St. Louis, or Dandolo, or Frederick the Great:—Egyptian, Jew, Greek, Roman, German, English, French, Venetian,—that is inviolable law for them all; their king must be their first soldier, or they cannot be in progressive power. Then, after their great military period, comes the domestic period; in which, without betraying the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Prussia declared war, and the French legions were about to face those trained in the school of Frederick the Great, a vigorous attempt was made by the Russian envoy in Madrid to win the support of Spain for the coalition. England, too, at the same moment, threatened to make the South American colonies independent if she did not consent. Godoy was persuaded that Napoleon had at last found ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... impression that the complexion of Robespierre was green; nevertheless, every one who studies the French Revolution reads Carlyle, and he is read because the reading is profitable. The battle descriptions in Carlyle's "Frederick the Great" are well worth reading. How refreshing they are after technical descriptions! Carlyle said once, "Battles since Homer's time, when they were nothing but fighting mobs, have ceased to be worth reading about," but he ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... the mists of the Middle Age. Church and Faith were compelled to disappear in the same proportion; and so in the eighteenth century English and French philosophers were able to take up an attitude of direct hostility; until, finally, under Frederick the Great, Kant appeared, and took away from religious belief the support it had previously enjoyed from philosophy: he emancipated the handmaid of theology, and in attacking the question with German thoroughness and patience, gave it an earnest instead of a frivolous tone. The consequence of this is that ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Mr. Browning has somewhere elaborated, cries for the moon and beats its nurse, but the old man sips his gruel with avidity and thanks Heaven if nobody beats him. And so we have left off beating the eighteenth century. It was not so, however, in our lusty prime. Carlyle, historian though he was of Frederick the Great and the French Revolution, revenged himself for the trouble it gave him by loading it with all vile epithets. If it had been a cock or a cook he could not have called it harder names. It was century spendthrift, fraudulent, bankrupt, a swindler century, which did but one true ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... great battlefields, this matter of faithfulness to duty has always been deemed of the first importance. Previous to the battle of Lutzen, in which eighty thousand Austrians were defeated by an army of thirty-six thousand Prussians, commanded by Frederick the Great, this monarch ordered all his officers to attend him, and thus addressed them: "To-morrow I intend giving the enemy battle; and, as it will decide who are to be the future masters of Silesia, I expect every one of you, in the strictest manner, to do his duty. If any one ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... is the only one who in any way approaches him. Then, as to his magnanimity, he proved it to M. Jules Simon, by offering him the musical works of the said Frederick the Great, with a letter which, according to Mr. Bigelow, should have made France give up her foolish ideas about Alsace-Lorraine, were it not for the fact that "from the drawing-rooms of the Faubourg Saint Germain to the garrets of Montmartre, all Frenchmen suffer from ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... in the end, escape from this chaos of differing ears only if one accedes to the opinion of old Quantz, the flute teacher of Frederick the Great, who, after an exhaustive argument for and against, comes to the conclusion that in theory nothing can be definitely decided concerning the characters of the keys; in practice, however, the composer is sure to feel ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... or tympanum—that its glorious beauty lay, but in the simple strength and the harmonious symmetry of the whole, in the general plan. Webster planned his orations, Newman planned his essays, Carlyle planned his Frederick the Great. Their works are not a momentary inspiration; they are the result of forethought, long and painstaking. The absolute essential in the structure of an essay, that without which it will fail to arrive anywhere, that compared ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... time endeavoured to strengthen her impression of how important it was to her schemes to insure the daughter's co-operation. Conscious of the eagerness of Maria Theresa for the recovery of the rich province which Frederick the Great of Prussia had wrested from her ancient dominions, he pressed upon her credulity the assurance that the influence of which the Dauphine was capable over Louis XV., by the youthful beauty's charms ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... fully engaged in that famous war with France which was to end in driving her hereditary rival from the eastern and western hemispheres, and in the establishment of the German Empire by the military genius of Frederick the Great. For a while, however, the conflict in America was chiefly remarkable for the incapacity of English commanders on land and sea. Earl Loudoun, the sluggish commander-in-chief, of whom it was said, "he is like St. George on the signs; always on horseback, but never rides on," arranged a campaign against ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... she "lacked altogether the sentimental equilibrium." Especially pathetic was her love for two men—the Count de Mora, a Spanish nobleman, and a Colonel Guibert, who was celebrated for his relations with Frederick the Great; although this wore terribly on her, consuming her physical force, she always received her friends with the same good grace, but often, after their departure, she would fall into a frightful nervous fit from which she could find ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Frederick the Great, it is related, being in one of his grim humours after the dearly bought victory of Czaslaw, invited the neighbouring peasantry to come and share the spoil of the carcases on the field of battle. They responded in great numbers; ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Protestant congregation going into a church which had just been quitted by a Catholic congregation; and I will venture to say that the Swiss Catholics were more bigoted to their religion than any people in the whole world. Did the kings of Prussia ever refuse to employ a Catholic? Would Frederick the Great have rejected an able man on this account? We have seen Prince Czartorinski, a Catholic Secretary of State in Russia; in former times a Greek patriarch and an apostolic vicar acted together in the most perfect harmony in ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... this is of no consequence: bring all your friends with you, and I promise you that both you and they shall have every accommodation in my power." With equal firmness the illustrious mathematician resisted the manifold attractions with which Frederick the Great sought to induce him, to take up his residence at Berlin. In reading of these invitations we cannot but be struck at the extraordinary respect which was then paid to scientific distinction. It must be remembered that the discoveries of such ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... philosophers, rationalists, and men of science had interested the nobles and higher classes of society for two generations, and were a common subject of discussion in the most distinguished salons. Voltaire's intimacy with Frederick the Great, the relations of d'Alembert and Diderot with the Empress Catherine, conferred on these men of letters, and on the ideas for which they stood, a prestige which carried great weight with the bourgeoisie. Humbler people, too, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Frederick the Great. Croker's Boswell's Johnson. Hallam's Constitutional History. Warren Hastings. (3d. sewed, 6d. cloth.) The Earl of Chatham (Two Essays). Ranke and Gladstone. Milton and Machiavelli. Lord Bacon. Lord Clive. Lord Byron, and The Comic Dramatists of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... doctrines of Newton; and made himself conspicuous in history, in poetry, in fiction, and above all, in theology, by his attacks on revealed religion and the French church. About the middle of the century, accepting an invitation to the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia, he aided thence the introduction of infidel doctrines in Germany. A few years later he withdrew into retirement at Ferney, but was able from his seclusion to wield an ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... been said that Frederick the Great of Prussia was very fond of a small Italian greyhound, and used to carry it about with him under his cloak. During the seven years' war, he was pursued by a party of Austrian dragoons, and compelled to take shelter, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... III., the events of the war had been various. Although Frederick the Great had driven the Russians and Austrians from his capital, they were still within his own territory; while the French were on the side of the Rhine, and the Swedes continued to threaten invasions. Such was his situation when he heard ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Borrowing, which uses up the resources of the future Death is only asleep without dreams Excessive desire to oblige Fear of being suspected of cowardice was beneath them For a retreating enemy it is necessary to make a bridge of gold Frederick the Great: "No man is a hero to his valet" Hair, arranged with charming negligence His Majesty did not converse: he spoke. Like all great amateurs was hard to please Little gifts preserve friendship Living ever in the future Make a bridge of gold, or oppose a wall ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... intellect. The last is really the most distinguished of the three, and its claim to occupy the first position comes to be recognized, if it is only allowed time to work. So eminent a king as Frederick the Great admitted it—les ames privilegiees rangent a l'egal des souverains, as he said to his chamberlain, when the latter expressed his surprise that Voltaire should have a seat at the table reserved for kings and princes, whilst ministers and generals ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... 1786 that Frederick the Great died, leaving an army that he had raised to the pinnacle of fame. With this army he had faced and vanquished, standing at bay against almost the whole of continental Europe, his powerful foes. Little Prussia, a straggling strip of territory stretching ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... over the military history of the country since its beginning, it is evident that America has produced no soldier of commanding genius—no soldier, for instance, to rank with Napoleon, who, at his prime, seemed able to compel victory; or with Frederick the Great, that past master of the art of war. Yet it should be remembered that both these men were soldiers all their lives, and that they stand practically unmatched in modern history. Of the next rank—the rank of Wellington and Von Moltke—we have, at least, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... crossed on planks. Nay, forward from Fuenen, when he is once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of ice; and takes Zealand itself—to the wonder of mankind." Such, in Mr. Carlyle's summary (History of Frederick the Great, i. 223, edit. 1869), was the feat of the Swedish warrior against his Danish enemy. It was followed almost immediately by a Peace between the two Powers, called The Peace of Roeskilde, by which Sweden acquired certain territories from Denmark, but very generous terms on the whole ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Dryden, Leigh Hunt, Bunyan, Bacon, and Johnson. Among the best known of the historical essays are those on Lord Clive, Chatham, Warren Hastings, Hallam's Constitutional History, Von Ranke's History of the Papacy, Frederick the Great, Horace Walpole, William Pitt, Sir William Temple, Machiavelli, and Mirabeau. Most of these were produced in the vigor of young manhood, between 1825 and 1845, while the writer was busy with practical affairs of state. They are often one-sided and inaccurate, but always interesting, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... attempting to vindicate their political rights! How gladly everyone shouts with the largest crowd! Consider how many noble actions men leave undone through fear of being hurt or killed. "Dogs! would you live for ever?" cried Frederick the Great to his soldiers, in defeat; and most of us would certainly answer: "Yes, we would, if you please!" Only through war, or the training for war, says the argument, can this loathly cowardice be kept in check. Only by war can the spirit be maintained that ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Amongst his many correspondents one suggested to him that not only Plato and Julius Caesar but also Winckelmann and Platen(?) belonged to the Society; and he had found it flourishing in Palermo, the Louvre, the Scottish Highlands and St. Petersburg to name only a few places. Frederick the Great is said to have addressed these words to his nephew, "Je puis vous assurer, par mon experience personelle, que ce plaisir est peu agreable a cultiver." This suggests the popular anecdote of Voltaire and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... That was the military way of doing business. It was the way in which Frederick II. of Prussia had negotiated with the Emperor of Austria for Silesia. [Here Mr A. gave an account of the interview of Frederick the Great with the Austrian minister, and of the fact of Frederick having sent his troops to take possession of that province the very day that he had sent his minister to Vienna to negotiate for it.] Then we should have our elbows clear, and could do as we pleased. It did not follow as a necessary ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... and knew it. None of the younger officers and generals had any doubt about it; every one knew that those old gentlemen, who had outlived their own glory, and still believed that they lived in the days of Frederick the Great, were unequal to the occasion, to the present time, and to the present war. Because we were aware of this, we made the utmost efforts to bring about a change of commanders. We elected a deputation of officers, and sent them to General Kalkreuth, for the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... enemy from colonial experiences. Nelson had the "spirit that quickeneth" when he turned his blind eye to the enemy. The French, too, are for the attack. It won Marengo and Austerlitz. No general ever dared more than Frederick the Great, not even Caesar. Thus the great races of history have ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... in {163} a half-clandestine way in a minister's closet or a lady's drawing-room, could come to agreements which would bind down nations and rule political movements. The first real upheaving of any genuine force, national or personal, in European life tore through all their meshes in a moment. Frederick the Great, soon after, is to compel Europe to reconstruct her scheme of political arrangements; later yet, the French Revolution is to clear the ground more thoroughly and violently still. The triple alliance, concocted by the Regent and Stanhope and ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... itself as the language of European civilization—once in the thirteenth century, again in the seventeenth, and finally when Napoleon had made himself temporarily master of the Continent. The earlier universities of Europe were modelled on that of Paris, where Dante had gone to study. Frederick the Great despised his native tongue, spoke it imperfectly, and wrote his unnecessary verses in French. Even now French is only at last losing its status as the accredited ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... war-cries not less than those of the composers. The public bowed and cringed before these idols of the stage. Gaetan Vestris, the first of the family, known as the "Dieu de la Danse," and who held that there were only three great men in Europe, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Voltaire, and himself, dared to dictate even to Gluck. "Write me the music of a chaconne, Monsieur Gluek," ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... whites encamped a few miles south of Piqua. The youth, impatient for the fray, set out bravely with Cheeseekau and his warriors, but when the actual horrors of war, with its blood and confusion, burst upon him, he fled from the field. It may be recalled that Frederick the Great, when first under fire, ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... is a strange reality: If you look at the general outlines of the German map in 1815, you will see that the frontiers trace in a startling way the scowling outlines of Frederick the Great, "Old Fritz," who first dreamed this ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... William. Not king of Prussia, but in Prussia, because not all the territory to which that name belonged was included in the afore-mentioned duchy. The rest was not annexed till 1772, so that Frederick the Great was the first king of Prussia. And not till 1815 was the name Prussia strictly a designation of the whole land ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... readily understand how these gigantic figures readily found places upon altars in the churches of Europe. All might have gone well with this great porcelain plant had not the Seven Years' War arisen just at this time, lasting from 1756 to 1763. During this period Frederick the Great, the grandfather of the present Emperor of Germany, went into Saxony, stopped the royal factories at Meissen, and took the workmen ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... best possible remembrance of his rare talents and qualities at Budapest, where during many years he fulfilled the duties of conductor to the theater, and shone by his virtuosity (very celebrated in Europe) as a flute player—an instrument which Frederick the Great condescended to use. Doppler's Operas "Beniowszky" and "Ilka" were favorably received; and up to the present time "Ilka" is the only Hungarian opera admitted to the repertoire of several theaters in Germany. Besides this Doppler has also written two acts of the "Elizabeth" [The ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... the raw and undisciplined masses of French soldiers that so successfully defended the French Republic from invasion against the veteran armies of Europe; some of which were led by generals who had served under Frederick the Great. Conscious of their military inferiority to the enemy, they instinctively clustered together in close and heavy columns; then rushed down on the enemy's line with the force of an avalanche, often carrying ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... ass." These and similar sayings, being of a simple character, may have been due to the same thought occurring to different minds, and this may be the case even where there is more point; thus, "an ass laden with gold will get into the strongest fortress," has been attributed to Frederick the Great and to Napoleon, and may have been due to both. The saying "Treat a friend as though he would one day become an enemy," has been attributed to Lord Chesterfield, to Publius Syrus, and even to Bias, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Many ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... than it need be in one where there are no such guaranties in favor of those against whom the aid of a court is invoked. The plaintiff, too, has corresponding rights. It was found not so easy by Frederick the Great to enforce his famous decree that every lawsuit in his dominions must be finished in a year. In a freer land no such ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... against the House of Bourbon which could alone save England from the dangers of the Family Compact. But his efforts had been foiled alike by the resistance of the king, the timid peacefulness of the Whigs, and at last by the distrust of England which had been rooted in the mind of Frederick the Great through the treachery ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... Hohenzollern and Nuremberg became Frederick the First, Elector of Brandenburg. The Duchy of Prussia fell under the sway of the Elector John Sigismund (1608-19), and from that time to the present there has been a very remarkable development of government and power. See Carlyle's 'Frederick the Great,' and Mr. Baring-Gould's 'Germany' in the series ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... successors are ingenious. They amount to this: As Rome grew in power and culture, so Brandenburg, since the days of the Great Elector, has been expanding in spirit and in territory. That illustrious prince began by absorbing Prussia. Frederick the Great added Silesia and a slice of Poland. Wilhelm I obtained Schleswig, Holstein, Alsace, and Lorraine by war, and Saxony and Bavaria by benevolent assimilation. The present Kaiser has already acquired Belgium by the former and ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... vase came off in one spot, where he had been rubbing it. I looked, and saw that part of the inscription at the bottom of the vase had been covered over with blue paint. At first sight, I read the words, 'On the character of Frederick the Great;' the blue paint had concealed the next word, which is now, madam, sufficiently legible." The word to which the king pointed was—tyrant. "Those flattering lines, madam, you comprehend, were written—'On the character of ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... they ascribe to these two supreme forms of human power. But if one may indulge in apocalyptic visions, I should prefer in another world to be worthy of the friendship of Aristotle rather than of Alexander, of Shakespeare or Newton than of Napoleon or Frederick the Great. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... America arose from a temporary schism in France in 1762, when Lacorne, a disreputable panderer to the Prince of Clermont, issued a patent to a Jew named Stephen Morin. Some time after 1802, a pretended Constitution was forged and attributed to Frederick the Great of Prussia. This constitution gives power to members of the 33rd degree to elect themselves to rule all Masonry, and this custom is followed.... The good feeling of Masonry has been perpetually destroyed in every country where the Ancient and Accepted ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... question which occupied the minds of all the Germans assembled at Versailles, [Note] and Home was called upon to foretell when it would take place. On certain occasions, I believe, he evoked the spirits of Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Bluecher, and others, in order to obtain from them an accurate forecast. At another time he endeavoured to peer into the future by means of crystal-gazing, in which he required the help of a little child. "My experiments have not succeeded," ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... David in his character as man of genius, musician, artist, poet. It is not often that an eminent statesman and soldier is, at the same time, a distinguished poet and writer. Sometimes they can write history or annals, like Caesar and Frederick the Great; but the imaginative and poetic element is rarely found connected with the determined will and practical intellect of a great commander. Alexander the Great had a taste for good poetry, for he carried Homer with him through his campaigns; but the taste of Napoleon ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... a prophecy might well have been laughed to scorn, for little Wilhelmine had as obscure a cradle as almost any infant in all Prussia. Her father was an army bugler, who wore private's uniform in Frederick the Great's army; and her early years were to be spent playing with other soldiers' children in the sordid environment ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... Brothers ever knew, better than her father and uncle, better than her husband Sir T. Newcome, better than her sons and successors above mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea Hobson, afterwards Newcome—of whom might be said what Frederick the Great said of his sister, that she was sexu foemina, vir ingenio—in sex a woman, and in mind a man. Nor was she, my informant told me, without even manly personal characteristics: she had a very deep and gruff voice, and in ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Married name was Therbusch. Member of the Academies of Paris and Vienna and of the Institute of Bologna. Born in Berlin. 1722-1782. Was court painter at Stuttgart, and later held the same office under Frederick the Great, whose portrait she painted, 1772. Her picture of "Diana's Return from the Chase" was also painted for Frederick. Her early studies were conducted by her father. After leaving the court of Stuttgart she studied four years in ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Frederick the Great was friendly to us, but he declared that nobody but a king could ever rule so ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... ceased, and we have not heard "Deutschland ueber Alles" for twenty-four hours, "Gott sei Dank"! Prince Joachim is wounded, and he has sent a telegram worded after the manner of his dear Papa, thanking God who in His goodness permitted him to be wounded for his beloved Fatherland. I wonder what Frederick the Great would have thought of these boastful warriors. We English are looked upon with horror as the brutal barbarians who use dum dum bullets, and Sir Edward Grey's dignified disclaimer is reported under the polite heading "Grey ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... "You remember Frederick the Great, as he was called. Alas! he was great in infidelity as well as in war; and he delighted to gather round him those who shared in the same unbelieving views. God and his truth were subjects of ridicule with them; and a bold man indeed would he be who would venture to ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... and Henry VIII. In a closet in the old royal palace of Greenwich, the last-named had a payre of chess men in a case of black lether—(Warton). The celebrated Ras, at Chelicut, was passionately fond of chess, provided he won, Charles the XII was much devoted to the game. In 1740 Frederick the Great writes: "Je suis comme le roi et echecs de ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... and the Chartists "Heroes and Hero Worship" "Past and Present" Carlyle becomes bitter "Latter-Day Pamphlets" "Life of Oliver Cromwell" Carlyle's confounding right with might Great merits of Carlyle as historian Death of Mrs. Carlyle Success of Carlyle established "Frederick the Great" Decline of the author's popularity Public honors; private sorrow Final illness and death ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... end of the eighteenth century, at which time this happened: In Germany, which had not produced even passable dramatic writers (there was a weak and little known writer, Hans Sachs), all educated people, together with Frederick the Great, bowed down before the French pseudo-classical drama. Yet at this very time there appeared in Germany a group of educated and talented writers and poets, who, feeling the falsity and coldness of the French drama, endeavored to find a new and ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... proper relaxation for royalty, and in the eighteenth century every petty court aimed to keep its orchestra and performers, while very often the exalted hearers would try their own hands at playing or composing. Frederick the Great was especially fond of music, and played the flute with much skill and persistence, and his sister, the Princess Anna Amalie, was as gifted as her brother in a musical way. She wrote many compositions, of which an organ ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... maneuver which, years after, Cornwallis, a generous foe, told Washington was one of the most surprising and brilliant in the history of war. There was another "old fox" in Europe, Frederick the Great, of Prussia, who knew war if ever man knew it, and he, too, from this movement ranked Washington among the great generals. The maneuver was simple enough. Instead of taking the obvious course of again retreating across the Delaware Washington decided to advance, to get in behind Cornwallis, to ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... science, industry, banking, commerce, etc. But in one thing she did not succeed, and succeeded still less after the War, namely, in politics. When the German people was blessed with a political genius, such as Frederick the Great or Bismarck, it achieved the height of greatness and glory. But when the same people, after obtaining the maximum of power, found on its path William II with his mediocre collaborators, it ruined, by war, a colossal work, not only to the great detriment of the country, but also to that of the ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... rooms in every city in creation; and the finest part of it is there are no dues to be paid. The membership list holds some of the finest names in history—Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Napoleon Bonaparte, Caesar, George Washington, Mozart, Frederick the Great, Marc Antony—Cassius was black-balled on ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the singing of some German monks to the noise made by a cart rattling down a frozen street; and even Luther compared the singing in cathedrals and monasteries at his time to the "braying of asses." At a more recent period, Frederick the Great, on hearing of the proposed engagement of a German singer, exclaimed: "What! hear a German singer! I should as soon expect to derive pleasure from the neighing of my horse!" Beethoven knew that the chief reason why he could not compete with Rossini on the stage was the lack of good German ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Germany ever done to the United States? Turn over the pages of history. Remember brave General Steuben, a veteran of Frederick the Great, drilling with Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge. Remember the German General De Kalb who fell pierced by red-coat balls and bayonets at the battle of Camden. Remember General Herckheimer with his band of German farmers who fought and died for American independence at the battle ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... for some attention includes those translated from the French. These are of two kinds. In the first place there are poems written in French by Germans or Swiss, such as the poems of Frederick the Great, and also the Ranz des Vaches. As to the latter, the French verses are given in two instances together with the translation,[25] so that it is certain what the original was. In other instances no mention ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... the little nations. The world owes much to little nations—and to little men. This theory of bigness—you must have a big empire and a big nation, and a big man—well, long legs have their advantage in a retreat. Frederick the Great chose his warriors for their height, and that tradition has become a policy in Germany. Germany applies that ideal to nations; she will only allow six-feet-two nations to stand in the ranks. But all the world owes much to the little five feet high nations. The greatest ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... seeming vacillation; but now a very high place is accorded her in the history of Russian rulers. She softened the brutality that had reigned supreme in Russia. She patronized the arts. Her armies twice defeated Frederick the Great and raided his capital, Berlin. Had Elizabeth lived, she would ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... were often commanded by men born to princely rank. That this did not necessarily mean that they were ill commanded may be shown by the names of Turenne and Conde, Maurice de Saxe and Eugene of Savoy, Prince Henry of Prussia I and Frederick the Great. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... busy. It is indeed the city of the modern German spirit, and what it has of old tradition and old social life lies beneath the surface, hidden from the eye of the stranger. There is Sans-Souci, to be sure, and Frederick the Great, and the Grosser Kurfuerst. There is the double line of princes on either side of the Sieges-Allee. But modern Berlin dates from 1870, and so do all good Berliners, whatever their age may be. They are proud of their young empire and of their big city, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... that the German monarchy is a cross between the Napoleonic ambition and its inheritance from Frederick the Great and Bismarck. I suppose the three damnedest liars that were ever born are these three—old Frederick, Napoleon, and Bismarck—not, I take it, because they naturally loved lying, but because the game they played constantly called for lying. There was no other way to play it: they had to fool people ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... returning his salute as he was led along, for the sufficient if not immediately perceptible reason that they sat upon thorns, each upon one thorn a foot or so long, of iron. We may suppose the father of Frederick the Great to have had in mind this passage of Oriental life when he forced the prince to witness the execution of his young ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... modern romantic revival. In 1765 he visited Paris, where he went much into society, and when his celebrated friendship with Mme. du Deffand began. He helped to embitter Rousseau against Hume by the mock letter from Frederick the Great offering him an asylum in Germany. In 1789, nine years after Mme. du Deffand's death, he met the two sisters, Agnes and Mary Berry, who came to live near him at little Strawberry, which he left them at his death. He succeeded his nephew as fourth Lord Orford ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... examples of all that a great man should be. Because crimes are played on a great stage instead of a small, that is no reason why our moral judgment should be suspended or silenced. Class Machiavelli and Frederick the Great as a couple of rascals fit to rank with Jonathan Wild, and we are getting nearer a perception of what constitutes the real criminal. "If," said Frederick the Great to his minister, Radziwill, "there is anything to be gained by it, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... poet (1719-1803) who is best known for his Songs of a Prussian Grenadier, commemorating the victories of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War. His earlier work is mostly in the light anacreontic vein, which was somewhat overworked in the decade preceding the war. The fashion was really set by Gleim, though the spirit of it is found in Hagedorn. The selections ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... Guard. He was in particular to attach the latter to him, for they were the very flower of the army. Karr left that night. His chief tactics in campaigning consisted in speediness, but it seems that he studied this point badly, for his great predecessors, Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, Hannibal, etc., also travelled quickly, but in company with an army, whilst Karr thought it quite sufficient if he went alone. He judged it impossible to travel faster than he did, sleighing merrily along to Bugulminszka; but it was possible. A ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... relics; and in the Salon are to be seen the portraits of several public characters, his contemporaries, and which were constantly appended there in his life time. Among these portraits I distinguished those of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine II of Russia, Lekain, Diderot, Alembert, Franklin, Helvetius, Marmontel and Washington, besides many others. There is nothing remarkable either in the Chateau, or in the gardens appertaining to ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... be to his Manes, down in this lower sphere. Yet I see well that I should have held to his opinion, in all those conferences where you have so quietly assumed the palms. It is said: here, that you work upon Frederick the Great?? However that be, health, strength, love, joy, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... industry, Deutschland was a colossal beehive. If Frederick the Great started the beehive, William the Second was increasing its size to unbelievable proportions. Insignificant villages everywhere contained millions of dollars' worth of machinery, manufacturing goods of untold value. Not an ounce of energy, not a second of time, ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... all the people in the ocean of Berlin flats were thinking as one walked past the statue of Frederick the Great, with his sharp nose pointing the way for future conquerors, and on along Unter den Linden, with its broad pavements gleaming in a characteristic misty winter night, through the Brandenburg Gate of his Brandenburg dynasty, or to the statue of the blood-and-iron Bismarck, ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... by a bargain passed between the American Minister and Monsieur Barbe-Marbois. Then Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe dined with the hitherto inaccessible. And the Man, after the manner of Continental Personages, asked questions. Frederick the Great has started this fashion, and many ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... contemporary with him, save Matthew Arnold, was able to achieve. Thoreau and Emerson are adequately treated, and the library of old authors is a capital digest, which all may read with profit. The paper on Carlyle, which is more than a mere review of the old historian's "Frederick the Great," is a noble bit of writing, sympathetic in touch, and striking as a portrait. It was written in 1866. And then there are papers in the volumes on Lessing, Swinburne's Tragedies, Rousseau, and the Sentimentalists, and Josiah Quincy, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... and a queue. His green cloth hunting-coat with gold buttons was braided and frogged with gold. His white waistcoat glittered with gold embroidery. This apparel, still in vogue among old people, became his face, which was not unlike that of Frederick the Great. He never put on his three-cornered hat lest he should destroy the effect of the half-moon traced upon his cranium by a layer of powder. His right hand, resting on a hooked cane, held both cane and hat in a manner worthy of Louis XIV. The fine old gentleman took off his wadded silk pelisse ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... night in December, Frederick the Great looked up at the sky, whose stars were twinkling with that clear and living light which presages heavy frost, and he exclaimed, "This weather will result in a great many ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... been, I should have had more chance. But you shall have no cause to be ashamed of me. The strength of a chain is no greater than its weakest link; but the greatness of a poet is the greatness of his greatest moment. Shakespear used to get drunk. Frederick the Great ran away from a battle. But it was what they could rise to, not what they could sink to, that made them great. They werent good always; but they were good on their day. Well, on my day—on my day, mind you—I'm good for something too. I know that ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... surroundings. Daily excursions were made to a succession of palaces connected with the past and present Prussian royal family. In this manner her Majesty learnt to know the King's palace in Berlin, while the poor King, a wreck in health, was absent; Frederick the Great's Schloss at Potsdam; his whimsical Sans Souci with its orange-trees, the New Palais, and Charlottenburg with its mausoleum. The Queen also attended two great reviews, gave a day to the Berlin Museum, and met old Humboldt more than once. Among the other guests at Babelsberg ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... take us long to reach the famous palace of Frederick the Great, which the growth of Berlin has almost ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... capital of Prussia Bonaparte stole from the monument, of Frederick the Great his sword and military orders. He also plundered the galleries of Berlin and Potsdam of their best pictures and statues, thus continuing the system he had began is Italy. All those things he sent to Paris as trophies of victory and glory.—Editor ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... existence of the nation was at hand, men looked with increasing uneasiness on the weak and languid cabinet which would have to contend against an enemy who united more than the power of Louis the Great to more than the genius of Frederick the Great. It is true that Addington might easily have been a better war minister than Pitt, and could not possibly have been a worse. But Pitt had cast a spell on the public mind. The eloquence, the judgment, the calm and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... land near his palace at Potsdam, and he resolved to get it. It was owned by a miller. He offered the miller three times the value of the property. The miller would not take it, because it was the old homestead, and he felt about as Naboth felt about his vineyard when Ahab wanted it. Frederick the Great was a rough and terrible man, and he ordered the miller into his presence; and the king, with a stick, in his hand—a stick with which he sometimes struck his officers of state—said to this miller: "Now, I have offered ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... its antique form; the only difference between the modern instrument and the ancient one being that the former is blown crosswise, instead of perpendicularly. Quantz, the celebrated court flute player to Frederick the Great of Prussia, was the first to publish, in 1750, a so-called "method" of ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... where by their vivacity they would be obstacles to the rapid appreciation of his thought. The value of concrete illustration artfully used may be seen illustrated in a passage from Macaulay's invective against Frederick the Great: "On his head is all the blood which was shod in a war which raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe, the blood of the column at Fentonoy, the blood of the mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... kind of Treaty of Amiens. After the loss of the battle of the Marne a "German Peace" was out of the question. The possibility of such a peace has never recurred. It was therefore necessary for the German policy to strive for a peace by understanding on the basis of the status quo. Just as Frederick the Great defended Prussia's newly won position as a great Power against overwhelming odds, so we were fighting under similar conditions for the maintenance of Germany's position ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... a king of Prussia, whose name was Frederick; and because he was very wise and very brave, people called him Frederick the Great. Like other kings, he lived in a beautiful palace and had many officers and ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... the world, crossed the Rhine; Attila, who conquered the city of the Caesars; Clovis, who founded the Christian religion in France; and Charlemagne, who established the Christian church in Germany. Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick the Great added lustre to its growing history, and Napoleon gave a yet deeper coloring to its ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... political sagacity that only comes of political experience. The parliaments or tribunals were nests of faction and of the deepest social incompetence. The very sword of the state broke short in the king's hand. If the king or queen could either have had the political genius of Frederick the Great, or could have had the good fortune to find a minister with that genius, and the good sense and good faith to trust and stand by him against mobs of aristocrats and mobs of democrats; if the army had been sound and the states-general had been convoked ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... seemed mere madness for the least and latest of the great empires to challenge all the rest, just as it had once seemed madness for Frederick the Great, with his little state, to stand up against all but one of the great European powers. But Germany had calculated her chances, and knew that there were many things in her favour. She knew that in the last resort the strength of the world-states rested ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... things into lazy peace; that all things may be left to themselves very much, and to the laws of gravity and decomposition. Whereby German affairs are come to be greatly overgrown with funguses in our time, and give symptoms of dry and of wet rot wherever handled.—History of Frederick the Great, vol. I, p. 387.] Many cases are known to us, however, where dyspepsia in smokers has been completely cured ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." It would be difficult for Mark Twain to beat that. "The follies and vices of King John were the salvation of England." Cranmer was peculiarly ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... "See you later! Soon we shall meet you in Paris!" And the marine band, the very same band that three days before had astonished Desnoyers with its unexpected Marseillaise, burst forth into a military march of the time of Frederick the Great—a march of grenadiers ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... put to another no less difficult test with L'Etoile du Nord. When Meyerbeer was the conductor at the Berlin Opera, he wrote on command Le Camp de Silesie with Frederick the Great as the hero and Jenny Lind as the musical star. As we know, Frederick was a musician, for he both composed music and played the flute, while Jenny Lind, the Swedish nightingale, was a great singer. A contest between the nightingale and the flute was sure to ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... ones have failed, is the most likely to succeed. It was to this cause, more than to any other, that Napoleon at first owed his success. When he was a young man, it was the custom in Europe to imitate blindly the tactics of Frederick the Great of Prussia, and to rely on ponderous heavy squares and a slow stiff method of moving. Napoleon was the first to see that, however suitable such tactics had been during the time of the great Prussian general, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... museum of fine arts, the exchange, the Stadt and Lobe theatres, the post office and central railway station. There are also numerous hospitals and schools. Breslau is exceedingly rich in fine monuments; the most noteworthy being the equestrian statues of Frederick the Great and Frederick William III., both by Kiss; the statue of Bluecher by Rauch; a marble statue of General Tauentzien by Langhans and Schadow; a bronze statue of Karl Gottlieb Svarez (1746-1798), the Prussian jurist, a monument to Schleiermacher, born ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Holland, Turkey; he met Voltaire at Ferney, Rousseau at Montmorency, Fontenelle, d'Alembert and Crebillon at Paris, George III. in London, Louis XV. at Fontainebleau, Catherine the Great at St. Petersburg, Benedict XII. at Rome, Joseph II. at Vienna, Frederick the Great at Sans-Souci. Imprisoned by the Inquisitors of State in the Piombi at Venice, he made, in 1755, the most famous escape in history. His Memoirs, as we have them, break off abruptly at the moment when he is expecting a safe conduct, and the permission to return to Venice after twenty ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... couple of remarks that could only have been made in the reign of Frederick the Great, and under the spell of a college lecture: "The statement that man is the noblest work of God was never made by anybody but man, and must therefore be taken 'cum grano salis.'" "We are told that God said He made man in His own image, but the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... negligible quantity in the political history of Europe. Divided into a multitude of tribes, with divergent interests, for centuries they had no political standing and were the football of the nations around them. From Louis XIV to the Corsican invader, except during the reign of Frederick the Great, their history was one of political incohesion and ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... majesty, and to be frank with you it is of all my invitations the one which I most desire to accept. I long to see face to face the king whom all Europe, friend or foe, unites in calling 'Frederick the Great'—great not only as a hero, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Frederick the Great of Prussia manifested his strong French leanings in his choice of books; his principal favourites being Bayle, Rousseau, Voltaire, Rollin, Fleury, Malebranche, and one English author—Locke. His especial ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... was attacked in his pride, his tenderest place. It is impossible not to wish that Howe had shown more moderation. He had, of course, precedent on his side. Nothing which he wrote was so bad as the language of Queen Elizabeth to her councillors, or of Frederick the Great to Voltaire. He was neither more savage than Junius, nor more indecent than Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in his attacks on King George II. But times had changed. Mouths and manners had grown cleaner, and much of Howe's banter is over-coarse for present-day ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... beneath the skin of your big hairy hand. Alexander could conquer the world, but he died in drunken revelry with a worthless woman. Caesar and Mark Antony forgot the Roman Empire for the smile of Cleopatra. Frederick the Great became a puppet in the hands of a ballet dancer. She spoke and he obeyed. Conde, in the meridian of his splendid manhood, the pride and glory of France, sacrificed his family, his fortune and his friends for an adventuress, who murdered him. Charles Stewart Parnell, the uncrowned king ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank. BOSWELL. The 'stronger abilities' that Chesterfield encountered were Johnson's. Boswell thought wrongly that it was of Johnson that his Lordship complained in his letters to his son. Ante, i. 267, note 2. 'A certain King' was Frederick the Great. Ante, i. 434. The fencing-master was murdered in his own house in London, five years after Sanquhar (or Sanquire) had lost his eye. Bacon, who was Solicitor-General, said:—'Certainly the circumstance of time ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... originally from Austria, had been Crusaders and Counts of Zinzendorf. One of the Zinzendorfs had been among the earliest converts to Lutheranism, and became a voluntary exile for the faith. The count's father was one of the Pietists, a sect protected by the first king of Prussia, the father of Frederick the Great. The founder of the Pietists laid special stress on the doctrine of conversion by a sudden transformation of the heart and will. It was a young Moravian missionary to Georgia who first induced Wesley to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... noble and beautiful persons, who were distinguished by their attainments in literature, science, or art; but he rarely leaves his home now for such a purpose. He is at present engaged in his "Life of Frederick the Great," whom he will hardly make a hero of, and with whom, we learn, he is already very heartily disgusted. The first volume will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... SUCCESSION, WAR OF THE). He was essentially an infantry soldier; in his time artillery did not decide battles, but he suffered the cavalry service, in which he felt little interest, to be comparatively neglected, with results which appeared at Mollwitz. Frederick the Great formed the cavalry of Hohenfriedberg and Leuthen himself, but had it not been for the incomparable infantry trained by the "Old Dessauer" he would never have had the opportunity of doing so. Thus Leopold, heartily supported ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d'Anglas, Morellet, Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile, cold tones, a mathematical ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... Emperor visited the celebrated palace of Sans Souci and found the room of Frederick the Great as it had been in his lifetime, and guarded by one of his old servants. He then went to the Protestant church which contained the hero's tomb. "The door of the monument was open," says General de Segur. "Napoleon paused at the entrance, in a grave and respectful attitude. He gazed into ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the campaign of 1815. This, and the improvement that took place in fire arms in the next forty years, gave room for speculation as to whether cavalry would play as important a part in the future as it had done in the past, under Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Wellington. The Crimean war helped to confirm the opinion that the days of cavalry had gone by. No account was made of the enormous distance by sea that the cavalry had to be transported, the unfavorable nature of the seat of war for that arm, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... officer doing staff duty though belonging in the line, and the conversation turned on his West Point studies. The little work of Jomini's mentioned above being casually referred to as having been in his course, I asked him if he had continued his reading into the History of the Seven Years' War of Frederick the Great, to which it was the introduction. He said no, and added frankly that he had not read even the Introduction in the French, which he had found unpleasantly hard reading, but in the English translation published under the title of the Art ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Frederick the Great said that all culture comes through the stomach. This saying emphasizes pithily the dependence of psychology upon physiology. The stomach with the intestines is certainly the source from which every portion of the body receives its nourishment and most of its diseases. The physiological ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... interesting story is related (54) about Frederick the Great. 2. His youngest servant stayed outside of the door. 3. The king called him, and he hastened thither and stood before him. 4. Yesterday he did not hear the king. 5. The king called him, but he did not answer. 6. The king thought that the boy had gone away with the older servants, ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. He was, like some of whom Browning has written, a "person of some importance in his day," and his writings on physics are still mentioned with respect in works devoted to the history of science. But he is perhaps chiefly remembered as the savant whom Frederick the Great attracted to his court during a period of aloofness from the scintillating Voltaire, and who consequently became a writhing target for the jealous ridicule of that waspish wit. Poor Maupertuis, unhappy in his exit from life, would appear to have been restless after it, for his ghost is ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... one discovers no victories. She is an unusual and pliant State to survive so many defeats. One finds her the easy prey of Frederick the Great, the pet victim of Louis XIV., the foe against whom Napoleon made his first youthful efforts and the vanquished of his prime, the defeated foe of Napoleon III., the vanquished tyrant of Italy united, the loser in Prussia's Thirty Days' War of 1867, and now the ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood |
