Helen Keller Quotes
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Faith is a mockery if it does not teach us that we can build a more complete and beautiful world.
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It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in search for knowledge.
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Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
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Every one of us is blind and deaf until our eyes are opened to our fellowmen, until our ears hear the voice of humanity.
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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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One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.
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I have never believed that my limitations were in any sense punishments or accidents. If I had held such a view, I could never have expected the strength to overcome them.
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Few pleasures there are indeed without an aftertouch of pain, but that is the preservation which keeps them sweet.
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Smell is a fallen angel.
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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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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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Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.
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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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Be happy, talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours.
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Ignorance, poverty, and greed must disappear so that light can prevail in all places.
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What if in my waking hours a sound should ring through the silent halls of hearing? ... Would the bow and string tension of life snap? Would the heart over weighted with sudden joy stop beating for very excess of happiness?
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I will eat grandfather for dinner.
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One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
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The continued lynchings and other crimes against negroes, whether in New England or the South, and unspeakable political exponents of white supremacy, according to all recorded history, augur ill for America's future.
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Personally I do not believe in a national agency devoted only to the negro blind because in spirit and principle I am against all segregation, and the blind already have difficulties enough without being cramped and harassed by social barriers.
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The power of effecting changes for the better is within ourselves, not in the favorableness of circumstances.
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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.
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The highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes and the nations, have been optimists.
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Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.