Helen Keller Quotes
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Usually they are quick to discover that I cannot see or hear.... It is not training but love which impels them to break their silence about me with the thud of a tail rippling against my chair on gambols round the study, or news conveyed by expressive ear, nose, and paw. Often I yearn to give them speech, their motions are so eloquent with things they cannot say.
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I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, and every war has to me the horror of a family feud.
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When we do the best we can, we never know what miracles await.
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A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.
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Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of birds, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow . . . Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Glory in all the facts of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you.
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Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.
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Faith reinvigorates the will, enriches the affections, and awakens a sense of creativeness. Active faith knows no fear, and it is a safeguard to me against cynicism and despair.
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God doesn't promise security from life's storms but security in life's storms. God doesn't always call the equipped, but he will always equip the called. In the long run, avoiding danger is no safer than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
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I am thankful that in a troubled world no calamity can prevent the return of spring.
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As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.
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We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to dwell in a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent External. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth.
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I have visited sweatshops, factories, and crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it. The foundation of society is laid upon a basis of . . . individualism, conquest and exploitation . . . A social order such as this, built upon such wrong and basic principles, is bound to retard the development of all. The output of a cotton mill or a coal mine is considered of greater importance than the production of healthy, happy-hearted and free human beings. We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name.
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Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams.
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The saddest thing in life is people with sight, but without vision.
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No nation is wise enough to rule another.
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Christmas Day is the festival of optimism.
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What really counts in life is the quiet meeting of every difficulty with the determination to get out of it all the good there is.
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The joy of surmounting obstacles which once seemed unremovable, and pushing the frontier of accomplishment further — what joy is there like unto it?
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Change may be the vitalizing wind blowing through the house of life, but it is not an abiding force. We need permanent things to soak peace into us as well as progress - the beauty of the earth, seedtime and harvest, the smiles of lovers, the joy of the young in being alive, pride in craftsmanship. Why, oh why must we let ourselves forget these lasting treasures in an age of consuming ambition, speed madness and accumulated goods that leave us no chance to live? If we cannot be contented with a little no wealth will ever satisfy us.
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One must envision the higher life and behave as if it were a fact before it can unfold.
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God himself is not secure, having given man dominion over his work.
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Smells are the fallen angels of the senses.
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Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind.
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When I recollect the treasure of friendship that has been bestowed upon me I withdraw all charges against life. If much has been denied me, much, very much has been given. So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart I shall say that life is good.