Helen Keller provides enough inspiration through her writings and quotes for anyone who deals with adversity in life - which is everyone on earth. Although Helen was not born blind and deaf, at 19 months old that she contracted an illness, perhaps either scarlet fever or meningitis, that left her deaf and blind for the rest of her life. Through many years of struggling through her youth, and with the assistance of her teacher, Helen was able to learn how to not only communicate, but to provide the world with much optimism and positive service, despite her challenges.
Here are some of her great quotes:
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
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.
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.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
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.
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Knowledge is love and light and vision.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.
Life is either a great adventure or nothing.
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 persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
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.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Once 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.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
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.
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
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.
There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
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.
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.
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.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.
We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
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.
While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
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