Helen Keller Quotes
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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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The saddest thing in life is people with sight, but without vision.
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Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design.
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Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way…Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, ‘there is joy is self-forgetfulness.’ So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others; ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.
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I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
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When we do the best we can, we never know what miracles await.
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The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that 'W-A-T-E-R' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free.
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A good education is a stepping-stone to wealth.
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We must not creep along when our souls cry out for us to soar!
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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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One must envision the higher life and behave as if it were a fact before it can unfold.
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Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.
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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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I learned that it is possible for us to create light, sound and order within us no matter what calamity befall us in the outer world.
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I believe war is the inevitable fruit of our economic system.
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I trust, and I recognize the beneficence of the power which we all worship as supreme- Order, Fate, the Great Spirit, Nature, God. I recognize this power in the sun that makes all things grow and keeps life afoot. I make a friend of this indefinable force…this is my religion of optimism.
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We can drift along with general opinion and tradition, or we can throw ourselves upon the guidance of the soul within and steer courageously toward truth... We have a choice in every event and every limitation and....to choose is to create.
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The worst thing in the world is not to be born blind, but to be born with sight, and yet have no vision.
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Instead of being satisfied to alleviate suffering, we shall labor hard and continually to prevent it.
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To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
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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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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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I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light but who see nothing in sea or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books. It were far better to sail forever in the night of blindness with sense, and feeling, and mind, than to be content with the mere act of seeing. The only lightless dark is the night of darkness in ignorance and insensibility.
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Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.