Harriet Martineau Quotes

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.

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

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.

You had better live your best and act your best and think your best today; for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.

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

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

All women should inform themselves of the condition of their sex and of their own position. It must necessarily follow that the noblest of them will, sooner or later, put forth a moral power which shall prostrate cant, and burst asunder the bonds (silken to some but cold iron to others) of feudal prejudice and usages. In the meantime is it to be understood that the principles of the Declaration of Independence bear no relation to half of the human race? If so, what is the ground of this limitation?

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

It is characteristic of genius to be hopeful and aspiring.

The sum and substance of female education in America, as in England, is training women to consider marriage as the sole object in life, and to pretend that they do not think so.

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

I saw no poor men, except a few intemperate ones. I saw some very poor women; but God and man know that the time has not come for women to make their injuries even heard of.

I have suffered, like other writers, from indolence, irresolution, distaste to my work, absence of 'inspiration,' and all that: but I have also found that sitting down, however reluctantly, with the pen in my hand, I have never worked for one quarter of an hour without finding myself in full train.

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

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.

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.

We are not responsible for our feelings, as we are for our principles and actions. ... Our care, then, should be to look to our principles, and to avoid all anxiety about our emotions. Their nature can never be wrong where our course of action is right, and for their degree we are not responsible.

My business in life has been to think and learn, and to speak out with absolute freedom what I have thought and learned. The freedom is itself a positive and never-failing enjoyment to me, after the bondage of my early life.

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

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

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

A soul occupied with great ideas performs small duties.

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.

The habit of dwelling on the past, has a narrowing as well as a debilitating influence. Behind us, there is a small, - an almost insignificant measure of time; before us, there is an eternity. It is the natural tendency of the mind to magnify the one, and to diminish the other.