Helen Keller

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

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.

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.

Knowledge is love and light and vision.

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

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

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

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

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.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something, and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do something that I can do.

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

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

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

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

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened ambition inspired and success achieved.

Never give up, before giving your best in all what you face.

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.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or in the life of another.

Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.

The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

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.

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.

Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!

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.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.

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

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.

Self-pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it we can never do anything wise in this world.

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.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

To me, a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

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.

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.

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.

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves - and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

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

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

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.

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

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

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.

Life is an exciting business and most exciting when it is lived for others.

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.

No matter how dull or how mean or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

College isn't the place to go for ideas.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

True happiness... is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

We may have found a cure for most evils, but we have found no remedy for the worst of them, all the apathy of human beings.

Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness.

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

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.

It is for us to pray, not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire, forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.