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it matters infinitely less what we do than what we are.

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
Matters
Identity
Less
Matter
Infinitely

More quotes by Harriet Martineau

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Happiness consists in the full employment of our faculties in some pursuit.
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Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams And sorrow tracketh wrong, As echo follows song.
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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.
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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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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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If there is any country on earth where the course of true love may be expected to run smooth, it is America.
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It never enters the lady's head that the wet-nurse's baby probably dies.
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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.
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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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I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible.
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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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I never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one from any consideration of reward or punishment.
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Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.
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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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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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.
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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 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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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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influence which is given on the side of money is usually against truth.
Harriet Martineau