Helen Keller Quotes

We betray ourselves into smallness when we think the little choices of each day are trivial.

Smell is a fallen angel.

We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others.

Christmas Day is the festival of optimism.

I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus- the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.

No nation is wise enough to rule another.

If I could have only one of my senses then I would choose hearing, Then I wouldn't feel so all alone.

We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means we choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We elect expensive masters to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class.

I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing, every word I came across - noun, genitive, singular, feminine - when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it - order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby.

The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination.

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.

In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their large loves and heavenly charities.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. 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. Happiness should be a means of accomplishment, like health, not an end in itself.

There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract, but not for the concrete.

Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart.

Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn. Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world.

Ideas without action are useless.

What a strange life I lead- a kind of Cinderella-life-half glitter in crystal shoes, half mice and cinders! But it is a wonderful life all the same.

Happiness is a state of mind, and depends very little on outward circumstances.

How spiritually blind are men that they fail to see that we are bound together. We rise or fall together; we are dwarfed or godlike, free or chained, together.

Not the senses I have but what I do with them is my kingdom.

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

Every one of us is blind and deaf until our eyes are opened to our fellowmen, until our ears hear the voice of humanity.

Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.

When one reads hurriedly and nervously, having in mind written tests and examinations, one's brain becomes encumbered with a lot of bric-a-brac for which there seems to be little use.

The place between your comfort zone and your dream is where life takes place.

It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life.

For years to come the debris of a convulsed world will beset our steps. It will require a purpose stronger than any man and worthy of all men to calm and inspirit us. A sane society whose riches are happy children, men and women, beautiful with peace and creative activity, is not going to be ordained for us. We must make it ourselves.

It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact
which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was
because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made
it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's
mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily
over the stony course of its education and reflects here a
flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to
guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be
fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened
out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid
surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the
blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower.
Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every
teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he
feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must
feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment
before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and
resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of
textbooks.
My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart
from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is
innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I
feel that her being is inseparab

History is a record of the incessant struggle of humanity against ignorance and oppression.

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived. The odors of fruits waft me to my southern home, to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard. Other odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away.

More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free.

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.

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.

The things you do today that you don't have to do will determine who, what, and where you will be when it is too late to do anything about the things you should have done.

You are amazed at all the things you know which are not on the examination paper.

The best things in life are unseen, thats why we close our eyes when we kiss, cry, and dream

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

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.

Smells are the fallen angels of the senses.

My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer day-lit world was stumbling and groping in social blindness.

A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers.

I am thankful that in a troubled world no calamity can prevent the return of spring.

The true task is to unite and organize all workers ... and it is the workers themselves who must secure freedom for themselves ...

There is much in the Bible against which every instinct of my being rebels, so much that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge which I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.

Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.

Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

When we complain of having to do the same thing over and over, let us remember that God does not send new trees, strange flowers and different grasses every year. When the spring winds blow, they blow in the same way. In the same places the same dear blossoms lift up the same sweet faces, yet they never weary us. When it rains, it rains as it always has. Even so would the same tasks which fill our daily lives put on new meanings if we wrought them in the spirit of renewal from within
a spirit of growth and beauty.

The human being is born with an incurable capacity for making the best of things.

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.

THE most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me

I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts.

Through my handicaps, I have found my self, my work, my God.

Our worst foes are not belligerent circumstances, but wavering spirits ...

Instead of being satisfied to alleviate suffering, we shall labor hard and continually to prevent it.

The civilization of a state should be measured by the amount of suffering it prevents and the degree of happiness it makes possible for its citizens.

There are moments when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be mad whole.

I read from Mark Twain's lips one or two of his good stories. He has his own way of thinking, saying and doing everything. I feel the twinkle of his eye in his handshake. Even while he utters his cynical wisdom in an indescribably droll voice, he makes you feel that his heart is a tender Iliad of human sympathy.

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.

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.

The idea of brotherhood re-dawns upon the world with a broader significance than the narrow association of members in a sect or creed.

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.

But I didn't dream that, that interview would be the door through which I should pass from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.

Every child has a right to be well-born, well-nurtured and well-taught, and only the freedom of woman can guarantee him this right.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me 'arch priestess of the sightless,' 'wonder woman,' and a 'modern miracle.' But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics - that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world - that is a different matter! It is laudable to give aid to the handicapped. Superficial charities make smooth the way of the prosperous; but to advocate that all human beings should have leisure and comfort, the decencies and refinements of life, is a Utopian dream, and one who seriously contemplates its realization indeed must be deaf, dumb, and blind.

Your success and happiness lie in you.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Don't give me the peace that passeth understanding, give me understanding.

Militarism ... is the chief bulwark of capitalism. When it is that militarism is undermined, capitalism will fail.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

I think the degree of a nation's civilisation may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women.

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.

For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine.

The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!

My fingers are tickled to delight by the soft ripple of a baby's laugh ...

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.

Things must be felt with the heart.

What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

Now, however, I see the folly of attempting to hitch one's wagon to a star with a harness that does not belong to it.

Making a mistake is falling down; failure is not getting up again.

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.

The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.

The richness of the human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome.

To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable.

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Even if you have a problem, you don't need to be one.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose
something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to
overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if
there were no dark valleys to traverse.

The best things in life are not seen or heard ... but felt with the heart.

Discouraged not by difficulties without, or the anguish of ages within, the heart listens to a secret voice that whispers: Be not dismayed; in the future lies the Promised Land.

I believe war is the inevitable fruit of our economic system ...

The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists.

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

The greatest tragedy in life is people who have sight but no vision.

When you lose your vision, you lose contact with things. When you lose your hearing, you lose contact with people.