Helen Keller (1880 – 1968) was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness after being 19 months as an infant.
She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing.
After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Here is A selection of some of Helen Keller most famous quotes. Helen Keller Quotes on education, knowledge, success and optimism. Helen Keller quotes on life, happiness and love. Helen Keller quotes on working together. Quotes on courage, disability and blindness by Helen Keller.
Helen Keller Quotes & Sayings on Disability, Optimism & Love
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
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.
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.
Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.
What I'm looking for is not out there, it is in me.
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.
People don’t like to think, if one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all ― the apathy of human beings.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
A bend in the road is not the end of the road… Unless you fail to make the turn.
Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within.
We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.
Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.
For three things I thank God every day of my life: thanks that he has vouchsafed me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to--a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.
I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower - the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.
Relationships are like Rome ― difficult to start out, incredible during the prosperity of the 'golden age', and unbearable during the fall. Then, a new kingdom will come along and the whole process will repeat itself until you come across a kingdom like Egypt... that thrives, and continues to flourish. This kingdom will become your best friend, your soul mate, and your love.
Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.
Four things to learn in life: To think clearly without hurry or confusion; To love everybody sincerely; To act in everything with the highest motives; To trust God unhesitatingly.
Life is a succesion of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Knowledge is love and light and vision.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It's what the sunflowers do.
We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world--the company of those who have known suffering.
The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
Your success and happiness lie in you.
We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough.
My friends have made the story of my life.
So much has been given to me I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light.
Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people.
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.
I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities? Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them, and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser, and learned how to use them rightly.
I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.
College isn't the place to go for ideas.
Do not think of todays failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow.
To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable.
There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness.
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.
Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each others welfare, social justice can never be attained.
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.
I thank God for my handicaps. For through them, I have found myself, my work and my God.
The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination.
While they were saying it couldn't be done, it was done.
A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.
My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges.
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.
True friends never apart maybe in distance but never in heart.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
There is joy in 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.
I am only one, but still I am one.I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart.
I rejoice to live in such a splendidly disturbing time!
I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men.
It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears
As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so sex with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
If the blind put their hands in God's, they find their way more surely than those who see but have not faith or purpose.
I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.
So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.
Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.
I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.
You will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles.
Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.
Better to be blind and see with your heart, than to have two good eyes and see nothing.
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