Harriet Martineau Quotes

The highest condition of the religious sentiment is when ... the worshiper not only sees God everywhere, but sees nothing which is not full of God.

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.

It is characteristic of genius to be hopeful and aspiring.

It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature.

It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true, or the suppression of things that are true.

Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.

It is the worst humiliation and grievance of the suffering, that they cause suffering.

Leisure, some degree of it, is necessary to the health of every man's spirit.

A soul occupied with great ideas performs small duties.

My own feeling of concern arises from seeing how much moral injury and suffering is created by the superstitions of the Christian mythology.

The imagination, once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work

Men who pass most comfortably through this world are those who possess good digestions and hard hearts.

A soul preoccupied with great ideas best performs small duties.

I never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one from any consideration of reward or punishment.

If there is any country on earth where the course of true love may be expected to run smooth, it is America.

The voice of a whole people goes up in the silent workings of an institution.

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

Happiness consists in the full employment of our faculties in some pursuit.

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.

His subject is the "Origin of Species," & not the origin of Organization; & it seems a needless mischief to have opened the latter speculation at all.

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

Influence which is given on the side of money is usually against truth.

I romanced internally about early death till it was too late to die early ...

Marriage ... is still the imperfect institution it must remain while women continue to be ill-educated, passive, and subservient ...

I think that few people are aware how early it is right to respect the modesty of an infant.

Women, like men, must be educated with a view to action, or their studies cannot be called education.

It is a testament to the strength and purity of the democratic sentiment in the country, that the republic has not been overthrown by its newspapers.

I certainly had no idea how little faith Christians have in their own faith till I saw how ill their courage and temper can stand any attack on it.

The clergy complain of the enormous spread of bold books, from the infidel tract to the latest handling of the miracle question.

There have been few things in my life which have had a more genial effect on my mind than the possession of a piece of land

I have no sympathy for those who, under any pressure of circumstances, sacrifice their heart's-love for legal prostitution.

Is it to be understood that the principles of the Declaration of Independence bear no relation to half of the human race?

I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible ...

There is no theory of a God, of an author of Nature, of an origin of the Universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties ...

It never enters the lady's head that the wet-nurse's baby probably dies.

There is no death to those who perfectly love-only disappearance, which in time may be borne.

It matters infinitely less what we do than what we are.

Goodness and simplicity are indissolubly united.-The bad are the most sophisticated, all the world over, and the good the least.

I am sure that no traveler seeing things through author spectacles can see them as they are.

Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace at the last.

Any one must see at a glance that if men and women marry those whom they do not love, they must love those whom they do not marry.

Who is apt, on occasion, to assign a multitude of reasons when one will do? This is a sure sign of weakness in argument.

[On being deaf:] We must struggle for whatever may be had, without encroaching on the comfort of others.

I want to be a free rover on the breezy common of the universe.

We do not believe in immortality because we can prove it, but we try to prove it because we cannot help believing it.