The clergy complain of the enormous spread of bold books, from the infidel tract to the latest handling of the miracle question.
Harriet MartineauThe Penny Post will do more for the circulation of ideas, for the fostering of domestic affections, for the humanizing of the mass generally, than any other single measure that our national wit can devise.
Harriet MartineauMarriage ... is still the imperfect institution it must remain while women continue to be ill-educated, passive, and subservient.
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 MartineauThis noble word [women], spirit-stirring as it passes over English ears, is in America banished, and 'ladies' and 'females' substituted: the one to English taste mawkish and vulgar; the other indistinctive and gross.
Harriet MartineauI 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.
Harriet Martineau