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

Harriet Martineau

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Harriet Martineau
Age: 74 †
Born: 1802
Born: June 12
Died: 1876
Died: June 27
Economist
Essayist
Feminist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Sociologist
Suffragist
Translator
Writer
Norwich
Norfolk
Earth
America
May
Smooth
Country
Expected
Love
Courses
Course
Running
True

More quotes by Harriet Martineau

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Goodness and simplicity are indissolubly united.-The bad are the most sophisticated, all the world over, and the good the least.
Harriet Martineau
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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.
Harriet Martineau
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For my own part, I had rather suffer any inconvenience from having to work occasionally in chambers and kitchenthan witness the subservience in which the menial class is held in Europe.
Harriet Martineau
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[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.
Harriet Martineau
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Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.
Harriet Martineau
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it matters infinitely less what we do than what we are.
Harriet Martineau
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We do not believe in immortality because we can't prove it, but we try to prove it because we cannot help believing it.
Harriet Martineau
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Who is apt, on occasion, to assign a multitude of reasons when one will do? This is a sure sign of weakness in argument.
Harriet Martineau
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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.
Harriet Martineau
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. . . is it to be understood that the principles of the Declaration of Independence bear no relation to half of the human race?
Harriet Martineau
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Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.
Harriet Martineau
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If the national mind of America be judged of by its legislation, it is of a very high order ... If the American nation be judged of by its literature, it may be pronounced to have no mind at all.
Harriet Martineau
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Marriage ... is still the imperfect institution it must remain while women continue to be ill-educated, passive, and subservient.
Harriet Martineau
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During the present interval between the feudal age and the coming time, when life and its occupations will be freely thrown open to women as to men, the condition of the female working classes is such that if its sufferings were but made known, emotions of horror and shame would tremble through the whole of society.
Harriet Martineau
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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.
Harriet Martineau
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The sick-room becomes the scene of intense convictions and among these, none, it seems to me, is more distinct and powerful than that of the permanent nature of good, and the transient nature of evil.
Harriet Martineau
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I would not exchange my freedom from old superstition, if I were to be burned at the stake next month, for all the peace and quiet of orthodoxy, if I must take the orthodoxy with peace and quiet.
Harriet Martineau
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There are always principles to be depended upon in this matter of taxation ... Amidst the inconsistent, the bewildering representations offered, a certain number must be in accordance with true principles.
Harriet Martineau
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the systematic abuse with which the newspapers of one side assail every candidate coming forward on the other, is the cause of many honorable men, who have a regard to their reputation, being deterred from entering public life and of the people being thus deprived of some better servants than any they have.
Harriet Martineau
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The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.
Harriet Martineau