Quotes from Helen Keller

People with disabilities not only need to be given lives, they need to be given lives worth living. (paraphrased, not a direct quote))

Thus it is that my friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free.

Die besten und schönsten Dinge auf dieser Welt kann man weder sehen noch berühren, sondern nur im Herzen spüren.

The best and most beautiful in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.

FOR some inexplicable reason the sense of smell does not hold the high position it deserves among its sisters. There is something of the fallen angel about it. When it woos us with woodland scents and beguiles us with the fragrance of lovely gardens, it is admitted frankly to our discourse. But when it gives us warning of something noxious in our vicinity, it is treated as if the demon had got the upper hand of the angel, and is relegated to outer darkness, punished for its faithful service.

I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, & every war has to me the horror od a family feud. I look upon the true patriotism as the brotherhood of man & the service to of all to all. The only fighting that saves is the one that helps the world toward liberty, justice & an abundant life for all.

Out of this sorrowful experience I understand more fully all human strivings, thwarted ambitions, and the infinite capacity of hope.

I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, & every war has to me the horror of a family feud. I look upon true patriotism as the brotherhood of man & the service of all to all. The only fighting that saves is the one that helps the world toward liberty, justice & an abundant life for all.

Even notoriety may be turned to beneficent uses, and I rejoice if the disposition of the newspapers to record my activities results in bringing more often into their columns the word Socialism.

I realized that the wonder is not that conditions are so bad, but that humanity has advanced so far in spite of them. & now I am in the fight to change things. I may be a dreamer, but dreamers are necessary to make facts!

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee...

First — How did I become a Socialist? By reading.

Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn.

Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge—broad, deep knowledge—is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low.

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 opened for us.

At first 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. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me.

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

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.

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

in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures — solitude, books and imagination — outside with the whispering pines. I

we could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

The bulk of the world's knowledge is an imaginary construction.

I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, "Hurrah, we're all right! This is the greatest nation on earth," when there are grievances that call loudly for redress.