Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

it is a testament to the strength and purity of the democratic sentiment in the country, that the republic has not been…

— Harriet Martineau

School is no place of education for any children whatever till their minds are well put in action. This is the work…

— Harriet Martineau

Authorship has never been with me a matter of choice. I have not done it for amusement, or for money, or for…

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

Fidelity to conscience is inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty succumb. It can be only a false…

— Harriet Martineau

I wrote because I could not help it. There was something that I wanted to say, and I said it: that was…

— Harriet Martineau

The instruction furnished is not good enough for the youth of such a country ... There is not even any systematic instruction…

— Harriet Martineau

[I] wish that the land-tax went a little more according to situation than it does. 'Tis really ridiculous, how one has to…

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit. It is the moral atmosphere in which human beings are to live and move. Men…

— Harriet Martineau

Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

For my own part, I had rather suffer any inconvenience from having to work occasionally in chambers and kitchenthan witness the subservience…

— Harriet Martineau

As new discoveries are causing all-penetrating physical lights so to abound as that, as has been said, we shall soon not know…

— Harriet Martineau

[On being deaf:] We can never get beyond the necessity of keeping in full view the worst and the best that can…

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

In the United States, as elsewhere, there are, and have always been, two parties in politics ... It is remarkable how nearly…

— Harriet Martineau

His subject is the "Origin of Species," & not the origin of Organization; & it seems a needless mischief to have opened…

— Harriet Martineau

The lesson taught us by these kindly commentators on my present experience is that dogmatic faith compels the best minds and hearts…

— Harriet Martineau

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

— Harriet Martineau

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.

— Harriet Martineau

Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained…

— Harriet Martineau