Quotes from Helen Keller

Literature is my utopia.

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.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature.

Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature. ... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

God Himself is not secure, having given man dominion over His works.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.

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.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

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.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

It is not possible for civilization to flow backward while there is youth in the world. Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance its allotted length.

Every modern war has had its roots in exploitation.

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.

To be blind is bad, but worse is to have eyes and not see.

We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond all senses.

I have depended on books not only for pleasure and for the wisdom they bring to all who read, but also for that knowledge which comes to others through their eyes and their ears.

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.

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

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.

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