Harriet Martineau Quotes

Readers are plentiful, thinkers are rare.

~ Harriet Martineau

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

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

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.

~ Harriet Martineau

Any one must see at a glance that if men and women marry those whom they do not love, they must love those whom they do not marry.

~ Harriet Martineau

The sum and substance of female education in America, as in England, is training women to consider marriage as the sole object in life, and to pretend that they do not think so.

~ Harriet Martineau

You had better live your best and act your best and think your best today for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.

~ Harriet Martineau

It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature.

~ Harriet Martineau

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

~ Harriet Martineau