We are not responsible for our feelings, as we are for our principles and actions. ... Our care, then, should be to look to our principles, and to avoid all anxiety about our emotions. Their nature can never be wrong where our course of action is right, and for their degree we are not responsible.
Harriet MartineauIt is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature.
Harriet MartineauBut 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 MartineauAll people interested in their work are liable to overrate their vocation. There may be makers of dolls' eyes who wonder how society would go on without them.
Harriet Martineau. . . is it to be understood that the principles of the Declaration of Independence bear no relation to half of the human race?
Harriet Martineau[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.
Harriet Martineau