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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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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
Cannot
Extremes
America
Arise
Must
Appearance
Aristocracy
Exists
Vulgar
Everywhere
Conventional
Mere
Republic
Birth
Extreme
Wealth
Wherever

More quotes by Harriet Martineau

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Men who pass most comfortably through this world are those who possess good digestions and hard hearts.
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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.
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Fidelity to conscience is inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty succumb. It can be only a false modesty which can be thus endangered.
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influence which is given on the side of money is usually against truth.
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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.
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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. . .
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It never enters the lady's head that the wet-nurse's baby probably dies.
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Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.
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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.
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But is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonized, the religion cannot be healthy?
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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.
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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.
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Self-denial is taught much better by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is much better taught by making spiritual things the objects of supreme desire, than by commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life.
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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 loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible.
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.
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it is the worst humiliation and grievance of the suffering, that they cause suffering.
Harriet Martineau
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As new discoveries are causing all-penetrating physical lights so to abound as that, as has been said, we shall soon not know where in the world to get any darkness, so our new facilities for every sort of communication work to reduce privacy much within its former limits.
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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.
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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