Harriet Martineau Quotes

[I] wish that the land-tax went a little more according to situation than it does. 'Tis really ridiculous, how one has to pay five times as much as another, without any reason that ever I heard tell.

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. . .

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The last thing it [government] ought to do is to ground its proceedings on the ignorance of the people, - to yield them that which they will hereafter despise the donors for granting them.

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.

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.

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

[Americans] have realized many things for which the rest of the world is still struggling...[yet] the civilization and the morals of the Americans fall far below their own principles.

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.

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