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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

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

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Spirit, Living Well

The chief duty I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Teamwork, Value of Time, Acceptance, Expectations, Little Things, Action, Accomplishment, Helping, Things, Realistic Expectations, Doing Your Best, One Step at a Time, Awareness, Time Management, Realization, Work

To know the history of philosophy is to know that the highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes and the nations, have been optimists. The growth of philosophy is the story of man’s spiritual life.
—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

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Eyes

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

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

I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God
—Helen Keller
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.
—Helen Keller

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

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

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Welfare

If we spend the time we waste in sighing for the perfect golden fruit in fulfilling the conditions of its growth, happiness will come, must come. It is guaranteed in the very laws of the universe. If it involves some chastening and renunciation, well, the fruit will be all the sweeter for this touch of holiness.
—Helen Keller

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

I have often been asked, “Do not people bore you?” I do not understand quite what that means. I suppose the calls of the stupid and curious, especially of newspaper reporters, are always inopportune. I also dislike people who try to talk down to my understanding. They are like people who when walking with you try to shorten their steps to suit yours; the hypocrisy in both cases is equally exasperating.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Disability

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

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

It all comes to this: the simplest way to be happy is to do good.
—Helen Keller

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Teams, Teamwork

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

Each day comes to me with both hands full of possibilities, and in its brief course I discern all the verities and realities of my existence; the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the spirit of beauty.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Wilderness

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

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.
—Helen Keller

Literature is my utopia.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Literature

The million little things that drop into our hands, the small opportunities each day brings He leaves us free to use or abuse and goes unchanging along His silent way.
—Helen Keller

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

God Himself is not secure, having given man dominion over His works.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Security, Safety

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Safety, Danger, Security, Risk

Life is a chronicle of friendship.
Friends create the world anew each day.
Without their loving care, courage would not
suffice to keep hearts strong for life.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Friendship

As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
—Helen Keller
Topics: Vision, Religion, Mind, Sex, Joy, Selfishness

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

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 soulmate, and your love.
—Helen Keller

Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived.
—Helen Keller

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

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: Purpose, Goals, Happiness, Goal, Joy, Wisdom, Aspirations, Meaning

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

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 the senses.
—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

What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness!
—Helen Keller
Topics: Wilderness

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