Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Small
Tendencies
Almost
Measure
Narrowing
Natural
Eternity
Debilitating
Past
Perspective
Magnify
Wells
Habit
Dwelling
Well
Behinds
Diminish
Mind
Behind
Insignificant
Time
Influence
Tendency

More quotes by Harriet Martineau

Image
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
Image
. . . is it to be understood that the principles of the Declaration of Independence bear no relation to half of the human race?
Harriet Martineau
Image
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.
Harriet Martineau
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Happiness consists in the full employment of our faculties in some pursuit.
Harriet Martineau
Image
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
Image
influence which is given on the side of money is usually against truth.
Harriet Martineau
Image
Leisure, some degree of it, is necessary to the health of every man's spirit.
Harriet Martineau
Image
The last degree of honesty has always been, and is still considered incompatible with statesmanship. To hunger and thirst after righteousness has been naturally, as it were, supposed a disqualification for affairs.
Harriet Martineau
Image
Marriage ... is still the imperfect institution it must remain while women continue to be ill-educated, passive, and subservient.
Harriet Martineau
Image
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
Image
The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.
Harriet Martineau
Image
It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature.
Harriet Martineau
Image
Women, like men, must be educated with a view to action, or their studies cannot be called education.
Harriet Martineau
Image
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
Image
Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.
Harriet Martineau
Image
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?
Harriet Martineau