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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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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
Would
Atheism
Orthodoxy
Quiet
Superstition
Months
Stake
Freedom
Superstitions
Peace
Exchange
Next
Stakes
Take
Burned
Must
Month

More quotes by Harriet Martineau

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It is characteristic of genius to be hopeful and aspiring.
Harriet Martineau
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Leisure, some degree of it, is necessary to the health of every man's spirit.
Harriet Martineau
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[On being deaf:] How much less pain there is in calmly estimating the enjoyments from which we must separate ourselves, of bravely saying, for once and for ever, 'Let them go,' than in feeling them waste and dwindle, till their very shadows escape from our grasp!
Harriet Martineau
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Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.
Harriet Martineau
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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.
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
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Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams And sorrow tracketh wrong, As echo follows song.
Harriet Martineau
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I wrote because I could not help it. There was something that I wanted to say, and I said it: that was all. The fame and the money and the usefulness might or might not follow. It was not by my endeavor if they did.
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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it is the worst humiliation and grievance of the suffering, that they cause suffering.
Harriet Martineau
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I never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one from any consideration of reward or punishment.
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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I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible.
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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The clergy complain of the enormous spread of bold books, from the infidel tract to the latest handling of the miracle question.
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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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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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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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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Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.
Harriet Martineau