Helen Keller Quotes
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Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
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The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, - the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience.
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No nation is wise enough to rule another.
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The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.
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Deep, solemn optimism, it seems to me, should spring from this firm belief in the presence of God in the individual; not a remote, unapproachable governor of the universe, but a God who is very near every one of us, who is present not only in earth, sea and sky, but also in every pure and noble impulse of our hearts.
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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.
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Touch each object as if tomorrow you would never be able to feel anything again.
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What induces a child to learn but his delight in knowing?
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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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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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I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
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Ignorance, poverty, and greed must disappear so that light can prevail in all places.
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During the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, "the day is ours, and what the day has shown."
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The human being is born with an incurable capacity for making the best of things.
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Even more amazing than the wonders of Nature are the powers of the spirit.
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They took away what should have been my eyes (but I remembered Milton's Paradise). They took away what should have been my ears, (Beethoven came and wiped away my tears) They took away what should have been my tongue, (but I had talked with god when I was young) He would not let them take away my soul, possessing that I still possess the whole.
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If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life. If, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
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As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
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Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.
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Each day comes to me with both hands full of possibilities.
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I do not remember a time since I have been capable of loving books that I have not loved Shakespeare.
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It has been said that life has treated me harshly; and sometimes I have complained in my heart because many pleasures of human experience have been withheld from me...if much has been denied me, much, very much, has been given me.
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Surely there is no road of effort so steep but a loving deed may soften its hardshness.
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Next to a leisurely walk I enjoy a spin on my tandem bicycle. It is splendid to feel the wind blowing in my face and the springy motion of my iron steed. The rapid rush through the air gives me a delicious sense of strength and buoyancy, and the exercise makes my pulse dance and my heart sing.