Helen Keller

Helen Keller

Helen Keller was an American author and educator who was blind and deaf from early childhood. She was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Arthur H. Keller, a farmer, newspaper editor, and Confederate Army veteran, and his second wife Katherine Adams Keller, an educated woman from Memphis.

141 Quotes

"Keep yourself to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world right in the eye."
Helen Keller
"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."
Helen Keller
"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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 that has been opened for us."
Helen Keller
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart."
Helen Keller
"We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world."
Helen Keller
"Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight."
Helen Keller
"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."
Helen Keller
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart"
Helen Keller
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
Helen Keller
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
Helen Keller
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much"
Helen Keller
"Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision."
Helen Keller
"What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
Helen Keller
"The highest result of education is tolerance"
Helen Keller
"Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"What I'm looking for is not out there, it is in me."
Helen Keller
"People don’t like to think, if one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant."
Helen Keller
"A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn."
Helen Keller
"We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world"
Helen Keller
"Literature is my Utopia"
Helen Keller
"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content"
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within"
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement"
Helen Keller
"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."
Helen Keller
"I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."
Helen Keller
"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."
Helen Keller
"To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable."
Helen Keller
"The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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…"
Helen Keller
"Do not think of todays failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow."
Helen Keller
"There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness."
Helen Keller
"I thank God for my handicaps. For through them, I have found myself, my work and my God."
Helen Keller
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security 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 exposure."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"While they were saying it couldn't be done, it was done."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Knowledge is power." Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life."
Helen Keller
"I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. make the most of every sense; glory in the beauty which the world in all the facets of pleasure reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight is the most delightful."
Helen Keller
"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships."
Helen Keller
"My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges."
Helen Keller
"The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope."
Helen Keller
"There are times when I long to sweep away half the things I am expected to learn; for the overtaxed mind cannot enjoy the treasure it has secured at the greatest cost. ... 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. At the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despair of ever being able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region of my mind I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds and ends of knowledge come crashing about my head like hailstones, and when I try to escape them, theme goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue me, until I wish – oh, may I be forgiven the wicked wish! – that I might smash the idols I came to worship."
Helen Keller
"We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to dwell in a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent External. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth."
Helen Keller
"True friends never apart maybe in distance but never in heart"
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"...our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"I had once believed that we were all masters of our fate--that we could mold our lives into any form we pleased... I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about... I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone."
Helen Keller
"Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"I rejoice to live in such a splendidly disturbing time!"
Helen Keller
"Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people."
Helen Keller
"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…"
Helen Keller
"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."
Helen Keller
"Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness."
Helen Keller
"We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others."
Helen Keller
"College isn’t the place to go for ideas."
Helen Keller
"Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either."
Helen Keller
"I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace."
Helen Keller
"The woman who works for a dollar a day has as much right as any other human being to say what the conditions of her work should be."
Helen Keller
"The human being is born with an incurable capacity for making the best of things."
Helen Keller
"The world is not moved only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so sex with its joy clears and sharpens the vision."
Helen Keller
"While they were saying it couldn’t be done, it was done."
Helen Keller
"The infinite wonders of the universe are revealed to us in exact measure as we are capable of receiving them. The keenness of our vision depends not on how much we can see, but on how much we feel."
Helen Keller
"I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence."
Helen Keller
"There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark."
Helen Keller
"Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"My friends have made the story of my life."
Helen Keller
"To keep on trying in spite of disappointment and failure is the only way to keep young and brave. Failures become victories if they make us wise-hearted."
Helen Keller
"What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in me."
Helen Keller
"More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free."
Helen Keller
"The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision."
Helen Keller
"I think the degree of a nation’s civilization may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"I am not a perfect being. . . . I have more faults than I know what to do with. I have a naughty temper. I am stubborn, impatient of hindrances and of stupidity. I have not in the truest sense a Christian spirit. I am naturally a fighter. I am lazy. I put off till tomorrow what I might better do today. I do not feel that I have been compensated for the two senses I lack. I have worked hard for all the senses I have got, and always I beg for more."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
Helen Keller
"Many of us delude ourselves with the thought that if we could stand in the lot of our more fortunate neighbor, we could live better, happier and more useful lives. . . . It is my experience that unless we can succeed in our present position, we could not succeed in any other."
Helen Keller
"The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better."
Helen Keller
"What do I consider a teacher should be? One who breathes life into knowledge so that it takes new form in progress and civilization."
Helen Keller
"If we do not like our work, and do not try to get happiness out of it, we are a menace to our profession as well as to ourselves."
Helen Keller
"Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same."
Helen Keller
"To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug."
Helen Keller
"True teaching cannot be learned from text-books any more than a surgeon can acquire his skill by reading about surgery."
Helen Keller
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."
Helen Keller
"I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers."
Helen Keller
"We have prayed, we have coaxed, we have begged, for the vote, with the hope that men, out of chivalry, would bestow equal rights upon women and take them into partnership in the affairs of the state. We hoped that their common sense would triumph over prejudices and stupidity. We thought their boasted sense of justice would overcome the errors that so often fetter the human spirit; but we have always gone away empty handed. We shall beg no more."
Helen Keller
"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit."
Helen Keller
"A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to shape his own life."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"I take happiness very seriously. It is a creed, a philosophy and an objective."
Helen Keller
"I am thankful that in a troubled world no calamity can prevent the return of spring."
Helen Keller
"So much has been given to me I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied."
Helen Keller
"I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary."
Helen Keller
"If you can dream it, you can do it."
Helen Keller
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows."
Helen Keller
"I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings."
Helen Keller
"Education should train the child to use his brains, to make for himself a place in the world and maintain his rights even when it seems that society would shove him into the scrap-heap."
Helen Keller
"We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Long before I learned to do a sum in arithmetic or describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass, and in the curves and dimples of my baby sister’s hand."
Helen Keller
"Knowledge is love and light and vision."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"I cannot but say a word and look my disapproval when I hear that my country is spending millions for war and war engines—more, I have heard, than twice as much as the entire public school system costs the nation."
Helen Keller
"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light."
Helen Keller
"Faith is a mockery if it does not teach us that we can build a more complete and beautiful world."
Helen Keller
"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."
Helen Keller
"Your success and happiness lie in you."
Helen Keller
"Literature is my Utopia."
Helen Keller
"Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world."
Helen Keller
"The highest result of education is tolerance."
Helen Keller
"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."
Helen Keller
"The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves."
Helen Keller
"The chief handicap of the blind is not blindness, but the attitude of seeing people towards them."
Helen Keller
"We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world – the company of those who have known suffering."
Helen Keller
"Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world."
Helen Keller
"I am younger today than I was at twenty-five. Of course the furrows of suffering have been dug deeper, but so have those of understanding sympathy and inner happiness. Whatever age may do to my earthly shell, I shall never grow cynical or indifferent—and one cannot measure the reserve power locked up in that assurance."
Helen Keller

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