I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.
Source: Correspondance with Baron F. M. Grimm, 1878.
-- Catherine the Great, (May 2 1729-1796), Russian empress; As Empress, 1762-1796, she worked toward westernization, expansion, and made St. Petersburg a cultural rival with Paris.