Daily Inspiration Quote by Catherine the Great

Power, in Catherine's telling, is not a calling but a job description - and that single pivot is the line's sly brilliance. "I shall be an autocrat, that's my trade" strips monarchy of romance and replaces it with labor: rule as a practiced craft, a professional competency. She is not pleading for legitimacy; she's asserting a division of responsibilities. In her Russia, autocracy wasn't an unfortunate byproduct of governing a vast empire; it was the operating system. Catherine frames it as inevitability and expertise, a way of preempting moral critique by treating domination as mere administration.

Then comes the knife-twist of piety: "and the good Lord will forgive me, that's his". It's a throwaway clause that does two things at once. First, it acknowledges the violence and coercion embedded in "trade" - there is something to be forgiven. Second, it relocates the ethical reckoning to the afterlife, outsourcing accountability to God while keeping sovereignty firmly on earth. It's a compact theology of state power: I will do what must be done; Providence can handle the bookkeeping.

The subtext is Enlightenment-era realism with a crown on it. Catherine cultivated the pose of the "philosopher-queen", corresponding with Voltaire while tightening the screws at home, especially after Pugachev's rebellion made reform feel like risk. The line reads as a wry confession and a warning: she will embrace the contradictions - modern rhetoric, old-school control - and she expects history to judge her by results, not purity.