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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Helen Keller (American Author)

Inspirational Quotations by Helen Keller (American Author)

Helen Keller (1880–1968) was an American author, political activist, and educator. She was the first deaf and blind person to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Her legacy is one of resilience and steadfast courage, whereas her aid organization, Helen Keller International (est.1915,) remains active across the world.

Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Keller lost sight and hearing due to scarlet fever or meningitis when she was 20 months old. At age 7, she met her life-long teacher and companion, Anne Sullivan, who was 20 years old and herself blind. With Sullivan’s tutelage, Helen learned to communicate and pursue formal education.

Keller went to the Perkins Institute, then to a preparatory school, and then to Radcliffe College. Keller and Sullivan made the rounds on the lecture circuit, raising money for blind soldiers returning home from World War I. They went to Hollywood, where Keller starred in a movie about herself. Keller went on to become a famous speaker and author, political and social activist, and advocate for people with disabilities, women’s suffrage, and racial equality in America.

Keller’s truly inspirational autobiographical account, The Story Of My Life (1903,) narrates how she communicated with others and her experiences of discovering the beauty of nature and the ways of the world.

The story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller has been depicted in William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker (1956,) originally a television play and later a Broadway play (1959) and a film (1962.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Helen Keller

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Grief, Optimism, Brave, Patience, Sorrow

I know that faith made my life possible and that of many others like me… Reason hardly warranted Anne Sullivan’s attempt to transform a little half-human, half-animal, deaf-blind child into a complete human being. Neither science nor philosophy had set such a goal, but faith, the eye of love did. I did not know I had a soul. Then the God in a wise heart drew me out of nothingness with cords of human love and the life belt of language, and lo, I found myself. In my doubly shadowed world faith gives me a reason for trying to draw harmony out of a marred instrument. Faith is not a cushion for me to fall back upon; it is my working energy.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Faith

We have found that our great philosophers and our great men of action are optimists. So, too, our most potent men of letters have been optimists in their books and in their lives. No pessimist ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius.
—Helen Keller

It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Happiness

It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance it allotted length.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Youth

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

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Peace

Self-pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Self-Discovery, Self-Pity, Hedonism

This world is so full of care and sorrow that it is a gracious debt we owe to one another to discover the bright crystals of delight hidden in somber circumstances and irksome tasks.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Sorrow

Your success and happiness lie within you. External conditions are the accidents of life, its outer trappings.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Joy, Success

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
Topics: Service, Kindness, Giving

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Colleges, Universities, Education

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
Topics: Sadness

The idea of brotherhood redawns upon the world with a broader significance than the narrow association of members in a sect or creed.
—Helen Keller

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.
—Helen Keller

It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference.
—Helen Keller

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 we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Effort, Doing Your Best, Excellence, Patience

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Faith, Confidence, Positive Attitudes, Hope, Assurance, Achieving, Achievement, Aspirations, Health, Optimism

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

No effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek.
—Helen Keller

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.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Literature, Books

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession.
—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
Topics: Meaning, Goal, Aspirations, Purpose, Happiness, Goals, Wisdom, Joy

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
—Helen Keller

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

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Success, Success & Failure

The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage,—the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience. Tolerance is the first principal of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Tolerance

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Adventure

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Vision

There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Helping

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
Topics: Resolve, Tomorrow, The Future, Perseverance, Endurance

I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. I should think the wonderful rhythmical flow of lines and curves could be more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Art

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an unchartered land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Pessimism

It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in search for knowledge.
—Helen Keller

With the death of every friend I love a part of me has been buried,
but their contribution to my being of happiness, strength,
and understanding remains to sustain me in an altered world.
—Helen Keller

My share of the work of the world may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious. Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; but in many diligent half-hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy. Green, the historian, tells us that the world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Work

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.
—Helen Keller

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Perseverance, Endurance, Success, Persistence, Resolve

Now I feel as if I should succeed in doing something in mathematics, although I cannot see why it is so very important… The knowledge doesn’t make life any sweeter or happier, does it?
—Helen Keller
Topics: Mathematics

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