Selected Quotes by Helen Keller
“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, Life
“The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I.”
Helen Keller, Time
“College isn't the place to go for ideas.”
Helen Keller, Intelligence/Wisdom, Ideas
“Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people.”
Helen Keller, Life
“One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.”
Helen Keller, Life
“I began my studies with eagerness. Before me I saw a new world opening in beauty and light, and I felt within me the capacity to know all things. In the wonderland of Mind I should be as free as another [with sight and hearing]. Its people, scenery, manners, joys, and tragedies should be living tangible interpreters of the real world. The lecture halls seemed filled with the spirit of the great and wise, and I thought the professors were the embodiment of wisdom... But I soon discovered that college was not quite the romantic lyceum I had imagined. Many of the dreams that had delighted my young inexperience became beautifully less and "faded into the light of common day." Gradually I began to find that there were disadvantages in going to college. The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But 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 suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.”
Helen Keller, Intelligence/Wisdom
“I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.”
Helen Keller, Intelligence/Wisdom
“My friends have made the story of my life.”
Helen Keller, Friendship, Life
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
Helen Keller, Life
“We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough.”
Helen Keller, Goals
“So much has been given to me I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.”
Helen Keller, Happiness
“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, Life
“The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.”
Helen Keller, Kindness, Happiness
“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, Life
“Knowledge is love and light and vision.”
Helen Keller, Love, Goals, Intelligence/Wisdom
“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.”
Helen Keller, Life
“Life is a succesion of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
Helen Keller, Life
“So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.”
Helen Keller, Life, Goals
“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, Belief
“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. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities.”
Helen Keller, Art, Happiness
“For, after all, every one who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire.”
Helen Keller, Goals, Intelligence/Wisdom
“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.”
Helen Keller, Justice, Society
“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, Life
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.”
Helen Keller, Success
“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, Love
“Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.”
Helen Keller, Goals
“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, Happiness, Goals
“Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within.”
Helen Keller, Happiness
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”
Helen Keller, Happiness
“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, Art, Happiness
“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.”
Helen Keller, Life, Courage, Happiness
“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.”
Helen Keller, Life
“People don’t like to think, if one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.”
Helen Keller, Life
“What I'm looking for is not out there, it is in me.”
Helen Keller, Goals
“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, Science
“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, Goals
"Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye."
Helen Keller, Goals
"The highest result of education is tolerance."
Helen Keller, Intelligence/Wisdom
"What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
Helen Keller, Love
"The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision."
Helen Keller, Goals
"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, Happiness, Success
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It's what the sunflowers do.”
Helen Keller, Goals
"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, Life, Goals, Success
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."
Helen Keller, Life
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
Helen Keller, Life
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
Helen Keller, Courage
“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, Life
"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
"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."
Helen Keller, Friendship
"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."