Helen Keller

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

“I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it.”

“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

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

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.”

“The highest result of education is tolerance.”

“Tolerance is the first principle of community”

“Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.”

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”

“Those are red-letter days in our lives when we meet people who thrill us like a fine poem, people whose handshake is brimful of unspoken sympathy, and whose sweet, rich natures impart to our eager, impatient spirits a wonderful restfulness which, in its essence, is divine.”

“We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world—the company of those who have known suffering.”

“I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.”

“Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge—broad, deep knowledge—is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low.”

“I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the family always does.”

“When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride.”

“He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.”

“Discouragement and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their pleasure in my achievement.”

“But we keep on trying because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not willing to acknowledge defeat.”

“When I began my second year at the Gilman school, I was full of hope and determination to succeed.”

“God is love, God is our Father, we are His children; therefore the darkest clouds will break and though right be worsted, wrong shall not triumph.”

“His wise, tender sympathy has been the support of Miss Sullivan and me in times of trial and sorrow, and his strong hand has helped us over many rough places; and what he has done for us he has done for thousands of those who have difficult tasks to accomplish.”

“His labours in behalf of the deaf will live on and bless generations of children yet to come; and we love him alike for what he himself has achieved and for what he has evoked from others.”

“When I find my work particularly difficult and discouraging, she writes me letters that make me feel glad and brave; for she is one of those from whom we learn that one painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.”

“Do not think of to-days failures, but of the success that may come to-morrow.”

“Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”

“My thoughts would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind, and I persisted in using my lips and voice.”

“But I persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of this great barrier—I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.”

“But for Miss Sullivan's genius, untiring perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed as far as I have toward natural speech.”

“"My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger than all obstacles.”

“Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.”

“Meanwhile I trust and hope and persevere, and try not to let the bitter memory of "The Frost King" trammel my efforts.”

“I wrote timidly, fearfully, but resolutely, urged on by my teacher, who knew that if I persevered, I should find my mental foothold again and get a grip on my faculties.”

“So long as we felt his loving presence and knew that he took a watchful interest in our work, fraught with so many difficulties, we could not be discouraged.”

“Sometimes I lost all courage and betrayed my feelings in a way I am ashamed to remember, especially as the signs of my trouble were afterward used against Miss Sullivan, the only person of all the kind friends I had there, who could make the crooked straight and the rough places smooth.”

“But if they unintentionally placed obstacles in my way, I have the consolation of knowing that I overcame them all.”

“I knew that there were obstacles in the way; but I was eager to overcome them.”

“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.”

“But, nevertheless, it seemed to me sometimes that I could never use my speech-wings as God intended I should use them; there were so many difficulties in the way, so many discouragements; but I kept on trying, knowing that patience and perseverance would win in the end.”

“And while I worked, I built the most beautiful air-castles, and dreamed dreams, the pleasantest of which was of the time when I should talk like other people, and the thought of the pleasure it would give my mother to hear my voice once more, sweetened every effort and made every failure an incentive to try harder next time.”

“You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles—a delight in climbing rugged paths, which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometime slip backward—if the road was always smooth and pleasant.”

“If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life,—if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.”

“As sinners stand up in meeting and testify to the goodness of God, so one who is called afflicted may rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the goodness of life.”

“Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a passion of obedience to knowledge.”

“With the first word I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to hope.”

“I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it.”

“I do live in a beautiful dream; but that dream is the actual, the present,—not cold, but warm; not bare, but furnished with a thousand blessings.”

“Only by contact with evil could I have learned to feel by contrast the beauty of truth and love and goodness.”

“It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster.”

“It is not enough to say that the twentieth century is the best age in the history of mankind, and to take refuge from the evils of the world in skyey dreams of good.”

“A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.”

“My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to coöperate with the good, that it may prevail.”

“I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life.”

“The world is sown with good; but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good.”

“To what is good I open the doors of my being, and jealously shut them against what is bad.”

“Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.”

“As my college days draw to a close, I find myself looking forward with beating heart and bright anticipations to what the future holds of activity for me.”

“My share in the work of the world may be limited; but the fact that it is work makes it precious.”

“I, too, can work, and because I love to labor with my head and my hands, I am an optimist in spite of all.”

“But I have found out that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet the work open to me is endless.”

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”

“It is my service to think how I can best fulfil the demands that each day makes upon me, and to rejoice that others can do what I cannot.”

“I love the good that others do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not, the true and the good will stand sure.”

“I recognize the beneficence of the power which we all worship as supreme—Order, Fate, the Great Spirit, Nature, God.”

“I make a friend of this indefinable force, and straightway I feel glad, brave and ready for any lot Heaven may decree for me.”

“Philosophy gives to the mind the prerogative of seeing truth, and bears us into a realm where I, who am blind, am not different from you who see.”

“The confidence and trust which these conceptions inspire teach me to rest safe in my life as in a fate, and protect me from spectral doubts and fears.”

“In America the optimist finds abundant reason for confidence in the present and hope for the future, and this hope, this confidence, may well extend over all the great nations of the earth.”

“Beneath the doubt, the unrest, the materialism, which surround us still glows and burns at the world’s best life a steadfast faith.”

“The recognition of the right of all men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a spirit of conciliation such as Burke dreamed of, the willingness on the part of the strong to make concessions to the weak, the realization that the rights of the employer are bound up in the rights of the employed—in these the optimist beholds the signs of our times.”

“Another right which the State has recognized as belonging to each man is the right to an education.”

“Education broadens to include all men, and deepens to reach all truths.”

“His supreme lesson is to grapple with great public questions, to keep his mind hospitable to new ideas and new views of truth, to restore the finer ideals that are lost sight of in the struggle for wealth and to promote justice between man and man.”

“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.”

“The restraining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor, and the humanist utters a message of peace to the persecuted.”

“The idea of brotherhood redawns upon the world with a broader significance than the narrow association of members in a sect or creed; and thinkers of great soul like Lessing challenge the world to say which is more godlike, the hatred and tooth-and-nail grapple of conflicting religions, or sweet accord and mutual helpfulness.”

“Ancient prejudice of man against his brother-man wavers and retreats before the radiance of a more generous sentiment, which will not sacrifice men to forms, or rob them of the comfort and strength they find in their own beliefs.”

“Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.”

“Thus in my outlook upon our times I find that I am glad to be a citizen of the world, and as I regard my country, I find that to be an American is to be an optimist.”

“So the people are patient and honest, while their rulers stumble.”

“I rejoice to see in the world and in this country a new and better patriotism than that which seeks the life of an enemy.”

“It moves thousands to lay down their lives in social service, and every life so laid down brings us a step nearer the time when corn-fields shall no more be fields of battle.”

“If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.”

“Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns.”

“But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.”

“Who shall dare let his incapacity for hope or goodness cast a shadow upon the courage of those who bear their burdens as if they were privileges?”

“The optimist cannot fall back, cannot falter; for he knows his neighbor will be hindered by his failure to keep in line.”

“He will take the iron claws of circumstance in his hand and use them as tools to break away the obstacles that block his path.”

“He will work as if upon him alone depended the establishment of heaven on earth.”

“When Haüy offered to teach the blind to read, he was met by pessimism that laughed at his folly.”

“Had he not believed that the soul of man is mightier than the ignorance that fetters it, had he not been an optimist, he would not have turned the fingers of the blind into new instruments.”

“John Bosco, the benefactor of the poor and the friendless of Italian cities, was another optimist, another prophet who, perceiving a Divine Idea while it was yet afar, proclaimed it to his countrymen.”

“Although they laughed at his vision and called him a madman, yet he worked on patiently, and with the labor of his hands he maintained a home for little street waifs.”

“In the fervor of enthusiasm he predicted the wonderful movement which should result from his work.”

“But the noble optimist persevered, and by and by the reluctant pessimists saw that he whom they ridiculed had become one of the world’s philanthropists.”

“Some day the wonderful, the inexpressible, arrives and shines upon him, and he is there to welcome it.”

“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, and many optimistic writers have been read and admired out of all measure to their talents, simply because they wrote of the sunlit side of life.”

“Dickens, Lamb, Goldsmith, Irving, all the well-beloved and gentle humorists, were optimists.”

“Swift, the pessimist, has never had as many readers as his towering genius should command, and indeed, when he comes down into our century and meets Thackeray, that generous optimist can hardly do him justice.”

“In spite of the latter-day notoriety of the “Rubáiyát” of Omar Khayyám, we may set it down as a rule that he who would be heard must be a believer, must have a fundamental optimism in his philosophy.”

“He may bluster and disagree and lament as Carlyle and Ruskin do sometimes; but a basic confidence in the good destiny of life and of the world must underlie his work.”

“In “Lear” and “Hamlet” there is a looking forward to something better, some one is left at the end of the play to right wrong, restore society and build the state anew.”

“The later plays, “The Tempest” and “Cymbeline,” show a beautiful, placid optimism which delights in reconciliations and reunions and which plans for the triumph of external as well as internal good.”

“If Browning were less difficult to read, he would surely be the dominant poet in this century.”

“From Browning I learn that there is no lost good, and that makes it easier for me to go at life, right or wrong, do the best I know, and fear not.”

“My heart responds proudly to his exhortation to pay gladly life’s debt of pain, darkness and cold.”

“The man of letters whose voice is to prevail must be an optimist, and his voice often learns its message from his life.”

“Stevenson’s life has become a tradition only ten years after his death; he has taken his place among the heroes, the bravest man of letters since Johnson and Lamb.”

“In the midst of my perplexity I read an essay of Stevenson which made me feel as if I had been “outing” in the sunshine, instead of losing heart over a difficult task.”

“I tried again with new courage and succeeded almost before I knew it.”

“I have failed many times since; but I have never felt so disheartened as I did before that sturdy preacher gave me my lesson in the “fashion of the smiling face.””

“Then I learned how his quick imagination transfigured the hard, bare facts of life into new and living dreams.”

“Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the world at a standstill.”

“The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual.”

“Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.”

“The prophets of the world have been of good heart, or their standards would have stood naked in the field without a defender.”

“If he had seen clearly the faults of America, and still believed in her capacity to overcome them, our people might have felt the stimulation of his censure.”

“But the world turns its back on a hopeless prophet and listens to Emerson who takes into account the best qualities of the nation and attacks only the vices which no one can defend or deny.”

“It listens to the strong man, Lincoln, who in times of doubt, trouble and need does not falter.”

“He sees success afar, and by strenuous hope, by hoping against hope, inspires a nation.”

“Through the night of despair he says, “All is well,” and thousands rest in his confidence.”

“The press is the pulpit of the modern world, and on the preachers who fill it much depends.”

“If the protest of the press against unrighteous measures is to avail, then for ninety-nine days the word of the preacher should be buoyant and of good cheer, so that on the hundredth day the voice of censure may be a hundred times strong.”

“He knew the people; he believed in them and rested his faith on the justice and wisdom of the great majority.”

“The ecstatic prophecies of Isaiah did far more to restore the exiles of Israel to their homes than the lamentations of Jeremiah did to deliver them from the hands of evil-doers.”

“Even on Christmas Day do men remember that Christ came as a prophet of good?”

“His joyous optimism is like water to feverish lips, and has for its highest expression the eight beatitudes.”

“It is because Christ is an optimist that for ages he has dominated the Western world.”

“For nineteen centuries Christendom has gazed into his shining face and felt that all things work together for good.”

“Paul, too, taught the faith which looks beyond the hardest things into the infinite horizon of heaven, where all limitations are lost in the light of perfect understanding.”

“Jesus utters and Paul proclaims a message of peace and a message of reason, a belief in the Idea, not in things, in love, not in conquest.”

“Although there are still great evils which have not been subdued, and the optimist is not blind to them, yet he is full of hope.”

“Despondency has no place in his creed, for he believes in the imperishable righteousness of God and the dignity of man.”

“Each halt in his progress has been but a pause before a mighty leap forward.”

“If indeed some of the temples we worshipped in have fallen, we have built new ones on the sacred sites loftier and holier than those which have crumbled.”

“If we have lost some of the heroic physical qualities of our ancestors, we have replaced them with a spiritual nobleness that turns aside wrath and binds up the wounds of the vanquished.”

“All the past attainments of man are ours; and more, his day-dreams have become our clear realities.”

“I believe it is a sacred duty to encourage ourselves and others; to hold the tongue from any unhappy word against God’s world, because no man has any right to complain of a universe which God made good, and which thousands of men have striven to keep good.”

“Optimism is the harmony between man’s spirit and the spirit of God pronouncing His works good.”

“I feel a genuine interest in the animals themselves, because they are real animals and not caricatures of men.”

“I sat there for a long, long time, feeling like a fairy on a rosy cloud.”

“Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn.”