We're surrounded by what are ofter called the arts of peace, and it might seem impossible to imagine that the man who led his armies is also the man who designed and financed the extraordinary palace of Sans Souci.
Is it a paradox? I don't think so. It certainly was not a paradox for Frederick. For Frederick, it was all part of this sort of Gesamtkunstwerk - the total work of art that was in his life. He was an intensely aesthetic man who thought through everything that he did in an aesthetic as well as a political and philosophical way.
This cultivation of the arts, of music, of conversation, of philosophy and of reasoned, rational state craft, they were all cut from one cloth. There was no paradox here between the Frederick who played the flute and the Frederick who led armies. These two worlds flow together in Frederick's existence and become one, the contradiction is dissolved.