Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineauwas a British social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth12 June 1802
Harriet Martineau quotes about
hope fear government
Even if their outward fortunes could be absolutely equalized, there would be, from individual constitution alone, an aristocracy and a democracy in every land. The fearful by nature would compose an aristocracy, the hopeful by nature a democracy, were all other causes of divergence done away.
wise views trials
[On being deaf:] We can never get beyond the necessity of keeping in full view the worst and the best that can be made of our lot. The worst is, either to sink under the trial, or to be made callous by it. The best is, to be as wise as is possible under a great disability, and as happy as is possible under a great privation.
struggle may comfort
[On being deaf:] We must struggle for whatever may be had, without encroaching on the comfort of others.
monotonous-life stills monotonous
I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible ...
ignorance government yield
The last thing it [government] ought to do is to ground its proceedings on the ignorance of the people, - to yield them that which they will hereafter despise the donors for granting them.
honesty hunger-and-thirst politics
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 ...
identity matter
it matters infinitely less what we do than what we are.
brother truth medicine
Everything but truth becomes loathed in a sick-room ... Let the nurse avow that the medicine is nauseous. Let the physician declare that the treatment will be painful. Let sister, or brother, or friend, tell me that I must never look to be well. When the time approaches that I am to die, let me be told that I am to die, and when.
suffering causes illness
it is the worst humiliation and grievance of the suffering, that they cause suffering.
heart sacrifice pressure
I have no sympathy for those who, under any pressure of circumstances, sacrifice their heart's-love for legal prostitution.
order law america
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.
europe class suffering
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.
writing sacrifice order
if I believed that the choice lay between a sacrifice of the completest order of biography and that of the inviolability of private epistolary correspondence, I could not hesitate for a moment. I would keep the old and precious privacy,-the inestimable right of every one who has a friend and can write to him, - I would keep our written confidence from being made biographical material, as anxiously as I would keep our spoken conversation from being noted down for the good of society.
education mother children
School is no place of education for any children whatever till their minds are well put in action. This is the work which has to be done at home, and which may be done in all homes where the mother is a sensible woman.