American author and educator Helen Keller, despite being blind and deaf, significantly advanced the education of persons with disabilities.
Stricken with an illness at 19 months old, she learned to communicate through touch and spelling words on her palm, thanks to her remarkable teacher, Anne Sullivan.
Keller honed her skills at several institutions, graduating cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904.
She broke social barriers, writing about blindness for women’s magazines, an unconventional subject at the time.
She authored multiple books, including “The Story of My Life” and “Optimism,” and lectured globally, advocating for the blind.
Keller cofounded the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920 and her efforts resulted in improved treatment for the disabled. Her
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childhood training was immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and subsequent film, “The Miracle Worker.”
Below is a great collection of Helen Keller quotes.
Helen Keller Quotes about Love
1. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~ (Helen Keller).
2. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” ~ (Helen Keller).
3. “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” ~ (Helen Keller).
4. “Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.” ~ (Helen Keller).
5. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” ~ (Helen Keller).
6. “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).
7. “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~ (Helen Keller).
8. “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.” ~ (Helen Keller).
9. “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” ~ (Helen Keller).
10. “What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” ~ (Helen Keller).
11. “The highest result of education is tolerance.” ~ (Helen Keller).
12. “Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” ~ (Helen Keller).
13. “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.” ~ (Helen Keller).
14. “Ideas without action are useless.” ~ (Helen Keller).
15. “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” ~ (Helen Keller).
16. “True friends never apart maybe in distance but never in heart.” ~ (Helen Keller).
17. “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).
18. “We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough.” ~ (Helen Keller).
19. “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).
20. “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” ~ (Helen Keller).
21. “Life is short and unpredictable. Eat the dessert first!” ~ (Helen Keller).
22. “The place between your comfort zone and your dream is where life takes place.” ~ (Helen Keller).
Best Helen Keller Quotes
23. “The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ~ (Helen Keller).
24. “Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within.” ~ (Helen Keller).
25. “Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” ~ (Helen Keller).
26. “A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers.” ~ (Helen Keller).
27. “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” ~ (Helen Keller).
28. “There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness.” ~ (Helen Keller).
29. “What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.” ~ (Helen Keller).
30. “Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.” ~ (Helen Keller).
31. “Happiness is a state of mind, and depends very little on outward circumstances.” ~ (Helen Keller).
32. “I 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 Keller).
33. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.” ~ (Helen Keller).
34. “My friends have made the story of my life.” ~ (Helen Keller).
35. “A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.” ~ (Helen Keller).
36. “We should respect all people.” ~ (Helen Keller).
37. “You will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles.” ~ (Helen Keller).
38. “The best things in life are unseen, that’s why we close our eyes when we kiss, cry, and dream.” ~ (Helen Keller).
39. “Blindness separates us from things but deafness separates us from people.” ~ (Helen Keller).
40. “All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” ~ (Helen Keller).
41. “So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.” ~ (Helen Keller).
42. “A good education is a stepping-stone to wealth.” ~ (Helen Keller).
43. “I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.” ~ (Helen Keller).
44. “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).
45. “Everybody talks, nobody listens. Good listeners are as rare as white crows.” ~ (Helen Keller).
46. “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).
47. “Making a mistake is falling down; failure is not getting up again.” ~ (Helen Keller).
Top Helen Keller Quotes
48. “Better to be blind and see with your heart, than to have two good eyes and see nothing.” ~ (Helen Keller).
49. “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” ~ (Helen Keller).
50. “People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.” ~ (Helen Keller).
51. “The inferiority of women is man-made.” ~ (Helen Keller).
52. “I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities? Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them, and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser, and learned how to use them rightly.” ~ (Helen Keller).
53. “What induces a child to learn but his delight in knowing?” ~ (Helen Keller).
54. “Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would become blind.” ~ (Helen Keller).
55. “There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract, but not for the concrete.” ~ (Helen Keller).
56. “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.” ~ (Helen Keller).
57. “Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.” ~ (Helen Keller).
58. “It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life.” ~ (Helen Keller).
59. “Be not dismayed; in the future lies the Promised Land.” ~ (Helen Keller).
60. “Each day comes to me with both hands full of possibilities.” ~ (Helen Keller).
61. “If I, deaf, blind, find life rich and interesting, how much more can you gain by the use of your five senses!” ~ (Helen Keller).
62. “The simplest way to be happy is to do good.” ~ (Helen Keller).
63. “A smile goes a long way, but you must first start it on its journey.” ~ (Helen Keller).
64. “Ignorance, poverty, and greed must disappear so that light can prevail in all places.” ~ (Helen Keller).
65. “I could never stay long enough on the shore; the tang of the untainted, fresh, and free sea air was like a cool, quieting thought.” ~ (Helen Keller).
66. “Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.” ~ (Helen Keller).
67. “There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.” ~ (Helen Keller).
68. “Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.” ~ (Helen Keller).
69. “History is a record of the incessant struggle of humanity against ignorance and oppression.” ~ (Helen Keller).
70. “Defeat is simply a signal to press onward.” ~ (Helen Keller).
71. “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).
72. “Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.” ~ (Helen Keller).
73. “I will not just live my life. I will not just spend my life. I will invest my life.” ~ (Helen Keller).
74. “When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance. And inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy and their understanding.” ~ (Helen Keller).
75. “The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!” ~ (Helen Keller).
76. “Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow.” ~ (Helen Keller).
77. “I, who have never heard a sound, tell you there is no silence, and I, who have never seen a ray of light, tell you there is no darkness.” ~ (Helen Keller).
78. “The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination.” ~ (Helen Keller).
79. “Your success and happiness lie within you. External conditions are the accidents of life, its outer trappings.” ~ (Helen Keller).
80. “It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.” ~ (Helen Keller).
81. “We 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 Keller).
82. “Our beloved ones have not ‘gone to a far country.’ It is only the veil of sense that separates them from us, and even that veil grows thin when our thoughts reach out to them.” ~ (Helen Keller).
83. “I never fight, except against difficulties.” ~ (Helen Keller).
84. “Speech is the birthright of every child. It is the deaf child’s one fair chance to keep in touch with his fellows.” ~ (Helen Keller).
Famous Helen Keller Quotes
85. “No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.” ~ (Helen Keller).
86. “To be blind is bad, but worse is to have eyes and not see.” ~ (Helen Keller).
87. “I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days during their early adult life. Darkness would make them more appreciative of sight; silence would teach them the joys of sound.” ~ (Helen Keller).
88. “THE most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me.” ~ (Helen Keller).
89. “Even more amazing than the wonders of Nature are the powers of the spirit.” ~ (Helen Keller).
90. “There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference.” ~ (Helen Keller).
91. “It was my teacher’s genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me.” ~ (Helen Keller).
92. “If I could have only one of my senses then I would choose hearing, then I wouldn’t feel so all alone.” ~ (Helen Keller).
93. “The greatest tragedy to befall a person is to have sight but lack vision.” ~ (Helen Keller).
94. “World peace will never come until the passion of supremacy is combated.” ~ (Helen Keller).
95. “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.” ~ (Helen Keller).
96. “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.” ~ (Helen Keller).
97. “I take happiness very seriously. It is a creed, a philosophy and an objective.” ~ (Helen Keller).
98. “Burn brightly without burning out. Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow. Keep your face to the sunshine and you won’t see the shadows.” ~ (Helen Keller).
99. “The million little things that drop into your hands, The small opportunities each day brings, He leaves us free to use or abuse, And goes unchanging along His silent way.” ~ (Helen Keller).
100. “This 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 Keller).
101. “Oh, you think the darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Molded by it.” ~ (Helen Keller).
102. “So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.” ~ (Helen Keller).
Inspiring Helen Keller Quotes
103. “Your success and happiness lie in you.” ~ (Helen Keller).
104. “Knowledge is love and light and vision.” ~ (Helen Keller).
105. “Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.” ~ (Helen Keller).
106. “Fear: the best way out is through.” ~ (Helen Keller).
107. “There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.” ~ (Helen Keller).
108. “My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges.” ~ (Helen Keller).
109. “One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.” ~ (Helen Keller).
110. “The highest result of education is tolerance. 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.” ~ (Helen Keller).
111. “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.” ~ (Helen Keller).
112. “To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.” ~ (Helen Keller).
113. “It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.” ~ (Helen Keller).
114. “Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.” ~ (Helen Keller).
115. “When you lose your vision, you lose contact with things. When you lose your hearing, you lose contact with people.” ~ (Helen Keller).
116. “I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.” ~ (Helen Keller).
117. “What really counts in life is the quiet meeting of every difficulty with the determination to get out of it all the good there is.” ~ (Helen Keller).
118. “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.” ~ (Helen Keller).
119. “So much has been given to me I have not time to ponder over that which has been denied.” ~ (Helen Keller).
120. “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.” ~ (Helen Keller).
121. “Literature is my Utopia.” ~ (Helen Keller).
Helen Keller Quotes for Motivation
122. “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.” ~ (Helen Keller).
123. “Silver is purified in fire and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed.” ~ (Helen Keller).
124. “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).
125. “Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.” ~ (Helen Keller).
126. “I have made my limitations tools of learning and true joy.” ~ (Helen Keller).
127. “The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better.” ~ (Helen Keller).
128. “Happiness is like the mountain summit. It is sometimes hidden by clouds, but we know it is there.” ~ (Helen Keller).
129. “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.” ~ (Helen Keller).
130. “I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.” ~ (Helen Keller).
131. “While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.” ~ (Helen Keller).
132. “True teaching cannot be learned from textbooks any more than a surgeon can acquire his skill by reading about surgery.” ~ (Helen Keller).
133. “I thank God for my handicaps. For through them, I have found myself, my work and my God.” ~ (Helen Keller).
134. “Be happy, talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours.” ~ (Helen Keller).
135. “The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.” ~ (Helen Keller).
136. “To keep on trying in spite of disappointment and failure is the only way to keep young and brave. Failures become victories if they make us wise-hearted.” ~ (Helen Keller).
137. “Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.” ~ (Helen Keller).
138. “One should never count the years – one should instead count one’s interests. I have kept young trying never to lose my childhood sense of wonderment. I’m glad I still have a vivid curiosity about the world I live in.” ~ (Helen Keller).
139. “Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.” ~ (Helen Keller).
140. “We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others.” ~ (Helen Keller).
141. “Knowledge is happiness because to have knowledge – broad, deep knowledge – is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low.” ~ (Helen Keller).
142. “Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.” ~ (Helen Keller).
143. “The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.” ~ (Helen Keller).
144. “What do I consider a teacher should be? One who breathes life into knowledge so that it takes new form in progress and civilization.” ~ (Helen Keller).
145. “How spiritually blind are men that they fail to see that we are bound together. We rise or fall together; we are dwarfed or godlike, free or chained, together.” ~ (Helen Keller).
Short Helen Keller Quotes
146. “I am only one but still I am one.” ~ (Helen Keller).
147. “Every one of us is blind and deaf until our eyes are opened to our fellowmen until our ears hear the voice of humanity.” ~ (Helen Keller).
148. “The way forward is simple – just follow Christ!” ~ (Helen Keller).
149. “No loss by flood and lightning, no destruction of cities and temples by the hostile forces of nature, has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance has destroyed.” ~ (Helen Keller).
150. “If it is true that the violin is the most perfect of musical instruments, then Greek is the violin of human thought.” ~ (Helen Keller).
151. “A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to shape his own life.” ~ (Helen Keller).
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Short Biography of Helen Keller
Helen Keller, born in Alabama in 1880, became deafblind at 19 months old.
With the help of her teacher Anne Sullivan, she learned to communicate and later attended Radcliffe College, becoming the first deafblind graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in the United States.
| Full Name | Helen Adams Keller |
| Born | June 27, 1880 Tuscumbia, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | June 1, 1968 (aged 87) Easton, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Resting Place | Washington National Cathedral |
| Occupation | Author, Political activist, Lecturer |
| Education | Radcliffe College (BA), Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (1900–1904) |
| Notable Works | The Story of My Life (1903) |
| Parents | Kate Adams Keller, Arthur H. Keller |
| Siblings | James Keller, Mildred Keller, William Simpson Keller, Phillips Keller |
A gifted writer, Keller authored 14 books and numerous pieces on diverse topics, and actively advocated for disability rights, women’s suffrage, and world peace.
She co-founded the ACLU and her life story, “The Story of My Life,” inspired plays and films, celebrating her achievements.
Her home is now a museum and the site of annual “Helen Keller Day” celebrations.
Quick Facts about Helen Keller
- Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
- She became deaf and blind at 19 months old due to an unknown illness, possibly meningitis or Haemophilus influenzae.
- Keller learned to communicate using over 60 home signs by the age of seven.
- She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from Radcliffe College, Harvard, in 1904.
- Anne Sullivan, who became Keller’s lifelong teacher and companion, began teaching her at age seven.
- Keller and Sullivan’s story was later adapted into a play and film titled “The Miracle Worker.”
- Keller wrote 14 books and numerous articles and essays on a variety of topics.
- She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
- Keller campaigned for disability rights, women’s suffrage, labor rights, and world peace.
- Her autobiography, “The Story of My Life,” was published when she was 22 years old.
- Keller joined the Socialist Party of America in 1909 and was active in socialist and labor movements.
- She supported and campaigned for Eugene V. Debs in his presidential campaigns.
- Keller learned to speak and could “hear” others by feeling their lips and throat with her fingers.
- She traveled to 35 countries advocating for the disabled and lecturing on various causes from 1946 to 1957.
- Keller met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson.
- Her birthplace, Ivy Green, is a National Historic Landmark and operates as a house museum.
- Keller’s father was a Confederate Army captain and worked as a newspaper editor.
- Keller’s early communication involved a breakthrough with the word “water,” which played a key role in her learning language.
- She attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind and the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf.
- Helen Keller International was co-founded by her in 1915 to combat causes of blindness and malnutrition.
- Keller was secretly engaged and attempted an elopement, defying her teacher and family.
- She faced public criticism after openly supporting socialism, contrasting her earlier praise.
- In her later years, Keller moved to Forest Hills, Queens, to continue her work with the American Foundation for the Blind.
- Sullivan, her teacher and companion, passed away in 1936, with Keller by her side.
- Polly Thomson became Keller’s companion after Sullivan’s death, assisting her with daily activities and travel.
- Keller advocated for preventive measures against childhood blindness and promoted public health solutions.
- She supported birth control and was a vocal opponent of Woodrow Wilson.
- Keller was engaged in writing and political activities, including her support for the rights of workers and women.
- Her spiritual autobiography, “My Religion,” reflects her adoption of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
- Despite her disabilities, Keller enjoyed music and had a strong connection with animals through touch.
Top Questions about Helen Keller
A: Helen Keller became famous as an author, political activist, and advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. She is notable for being the first person with deafblindness to earn a college degree.
A: Helen Keller lost her hearing and sight at 19 months old due to an illness thought to be either scarlet fever or meningitis. This profound challenge shaped her entire life, leading to her significant accomplishments.
A: Here are five interesting facts about Helen Keller:
1. Helen was deafblind.
2. She believed her life truly began at age seven.
3. She was the first deafblind person to graduate from college.
4. Keller held radical political views for her time.
5. She was a globally recognized author and speaker.
A: Helen Keller was completely blind and deaf following an illness at about one and a half years old. She was not born with these disabilities.
A: Anne Sullivan, who had graduated from Perkins School for the Blind, became Helen Keller’s lifelong teacher, interpreter, and friend starting in 1886.
A: No, Helen Keller did not win a Nobel Prize but was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame.
A: Helen Keller traveled to 39 countries, advocating for the establishment of schools for the blind and deaf.
A: Helen Keller’s IQ was measured at 160. She graduated from Radcliffe College and became a renowned lecturer and advocate, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.
