I regard philanthropy as a tragic apology for wrong conditions under which human beings live.
Helen KellerMuseums and art stores are also sources of pleasure and inspiration. Doubtless it will seem strange to many that the hand unaided by sight can feel action, sentiment, beauty in the cold marble; and yet it is true that I derive genuine pleasure from touching great works of art. As my finger tips trace line and curve, they discover the thought and emotion which the artist has portrayed.
Helen KellerThe unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
Helen KellerOptimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Helen KellerNo pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Helen KellerI, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough shaggy bark of a pine.
Helen KellerThe 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.
Helen KellerMy optimism is grounded in two worlds, myself and what is about me. I demand that the world be good, and lo, it obeys. I proclaim the world good, and facts range themselves to prove my proclamation overwhelmingly true.
Helen KellerI 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 KellerLiterature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. 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.
Helen KellerIt need not discourage us if we are full of doubts. Healthy questions keep faith dynamic. In fact, unless we start with doubts we cannot have a deep-rooted faith. One who believes lightly and unthinkingly has not much of a belief. One who has a faith which is not to be shaken has won it through blood and tears-has worked his or her way from doubt to truth as one who reaches a clearing through a thicket of brambles and thorns.
Helen KellerWhen indeed shall we learn that we are all related one to the other, that we are all members of one body?
Helen KellerWe need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to dwell in a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent External. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth.
Helen KellerHappiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours ... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.
Helen KellerIf we do not like our work, and do not try to get happiness out of it, we are a menace to our profession as well as to ourselves.
Helen KellerThere is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.
Helen KellerI believe there are angels among us, sent down to us from somewhere up above. They come to you and me in our darkest hours, to show us how to live, to teach us how to give, to guide us with a light of love.
Helen KellerPeople are too prone to think that the actual is the limit of possibility. They believe that all that has been done is all that can be done.
Helen KellerSerious harm, I am afraid, has been wrought to our generation by fostering the idea that they would live secure in a permanent order of things.
Helen KellerSecurity 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 KellerTruly I have looked in the very heart of darkness and refused to yield to its paralyzing influence, but in spirit I am one of those who walk the morning.
Helen KellerWe the living, should not think of the dead as lonely because if they could speak to us, they would say: "Do not weep for me, earth was not my true country, I was an alien there: I am at Home where everyone comes."
Helen KellerMake the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you...
Helen KellerI am a child of my generation, and I rejoice that I live in such splendidly disturbing times.
Helen KellerYour success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
Helen KellerThe best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
Helen KellerWe still have it in our power to rise above the fears, imagined and real, and to shoulder the great burdens which destiny has placed upon us, not for our country alone, but for the benefit of all the world. That is the only destiny worthy of America.
Helen KellerThe joy of surmounting obstacles which once seemed unremovable, and pushing the frontier of accomplishment further — what joy is there like unto it?
Helen KellerThis 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 KellerThe chief handicap of the blind is not blindness, but the attitude of seeing people towards them.
Helen KellerOnce I knew the depth where no hope was and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. My life was without a past or future, and death a consummation devoutly to be wished. But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hands that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped up with the rapture of living. I do not know the meaning of the darkness, but I have learned the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller