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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. . .

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
Faculties
Origin
Utterly
Faculty
Author
Theory
Universe
Nature
Repugnant

More quotes by Harriet Martineau

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It never enters the lady's head that the wet-nurse's baby probably dies.
Harriet Martineau
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The lesson taught us by these kindly commentators on my present experience is that dogmatic faith compels the best minds and hearts to narrowness and insolence.
Harriet Martineau
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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.
Harriet Martineau
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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.
Harriet Martineau
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Religion is a temper, not a pursuit. It is the moral atmosphere in which human beings are to live and move. Men do not live to breathe: they breathe to live.
Harriet Martineau
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I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible.
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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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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[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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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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Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them.
Harriet Martineau
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It is characteristic of genius to be hopeful and aspiring.
Harriet Martineau
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Laws and customs may be creative of vice and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it but they cannot originate it.
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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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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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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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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Wherever the appearance of a conventional aristocracy exists in America, it must arise from wealth, as it cannot from birth. An aristocracy of mere wealth is vulgar everywhere. In a republic, it is vulgar in the extreme.
Harriet Martineau
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Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.
Harriet Martineau
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The clergy complain of the enormous spread of bold books, from the infidel tract to the latest handling of the miracle question.
Harriet Martineau