Helen Keller Quotes
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...our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding.
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If we spend the time we waste in sighing for the perfect golden fruit in fulfilling the conditions of its growth, happiness will come, must come. It is guaranteed in the very laws of the universe. If it involves some chastening and renunciation, well, the fruit will be all the sweeter for this touch of holiness.
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We can decide to let our trials crush us, or we can convert them to new forces of good.
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Rebuffed, but always persevering; self-reproached, but ever regaining faith; undaunted, tenacious, the heart of man labors toward immeasurably distant goals.
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There is in the blind as in the seeing an Absolute which gives truth to what we know to be true, order to what is orderly, beauty to the beautiful, touchableness to what is tangible.
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The attempt to suppress an idea has always and everywhere proved a failure.
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Ideas without action are useless.
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Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.
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Happiness is the final and perfect fruit of obedience to the laws of life.
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I cannot remember how I felt when the light went out of my eyes. I suppose I felt it was always night and perhaps I wondered why the day did not come.
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Oh, you think the darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Molded by it.
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There is no blindness more insidious, more fatal that this race for profit.
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Optimism, then, is a fact within my own heart. But as I look out upon life, my heart meets no contradiction. The outward world justifies my inward universe of good.
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I, for one, love strength, daring, fortitude. I do not want people to kill the fight in them; I want them to fight for right things.
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Masculine exhalations are, as a rule, stronger, more vivid,more widely differentiated than those of women. In the odor of young men there is something elemental, as of fire, storm, and salt sea. It pulsates with buoyancy and desire. It suggests all the things strong and beautiful and joyous and gives me a sense of physical happiness.
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It is so pleasant to learn about new things. Every day I find how little I know, but I do not feel discouraged since God has given me an eternity in which to learn more.
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Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.
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Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.
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The civilization of a state should be measured by the amount of suffering it prevents and the degree of happiness it makes possible for its citizens.
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Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.
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Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.
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Speech is the birthright of every child. It is the deaf child's one fair chance to keep in touch with his fellows.
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Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
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For, after all, every one who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire.