Helen Keller
Helen Keller
Helen Adams Kellerwas an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, is now a museum and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth27 June 1880
CityTuscumbia, AL
CountryUnited States of America
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.
Museums 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.
More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free.
Every one of us is blind and deaf until our eyes are opened to our fellowmen, until our ears hear the voice of humanity.
The simplest way to be happy is to do good.
We betray ourselves into smallness when we think the little choices of each day are trivial.
A simple, childlike faith in a Divine Friend solves all the problems that come to us by land or sea
Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of birds, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow . . . Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Glory in all the facts of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you.
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.
What do I consider a teacher should be? One who breathes life into knowledge so that it takes new form in progress and civilization.
While the right friends are near us, we feel that all is well. Our everyday life blossoms suddenly into bright possibilities.
As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams.
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.