Philanthropist, political activist and writer, Helen Keller was a great character in contemporary North American history. Not only did she win the hearts of people through her works, but she also earned their admiration after showing that visual and hearing limitations were not an impediment to being noticed and gaining recognition for her merits.
Here you will find a selection of the best phrases by Helen Keller commented, that capture the way of thinking of this important historical figure.
Being deaf and mute, after an accident when she was nineteen months old, this activist had to fight all her life to find a way to communicate with others and demonstrated that having the necessary resources and adequate social support, investing effort in it, you can keep moving forward even in those harsh conditions. Let’s see how this author understood life through a compilation of reflections and phrases by Helen Keller.
12. When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but many times we look at the closed door for so long that we do not see the one that has opened for us.
The importance of not clinging to the past.
13. It is a terrible thing to be able to see and not have vision!
Talking about people’s inability to have an open mind.
14. I’m not the only one, but I’m still someone.
Everyone has their importance in the world.
15. Books speak to me without impediments of any kind.
Books have a special magic for each reader.
16. Science may have found a cure for most ills; but it has not found a remedy for the worst of all: the apathy of human beings.
A criticism of the lack of empathy of some people.
17. Keep your face towards the sunlight and you will not see the shadow.
A way of referring to maintaining optimism.
18. Between not seeing and not hearing without a doubt it is much worse not to hear because not seeing cuts you off from objects but not hearing cuts you off from people and that turns you into an object.
An interesting reflection on how significant human communication is.
19. Only through experiences of judgment and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision clear, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
The way we gain our strength.
20. Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
Friends have great meaning in our lives.
21. Everything we love deeply becomes part of ourselves.
23. The Arab proverb expresses an admirable truth: This is your world, in which you find yourself.
House who is responsible for their actions.
24. No pessimist has ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an undiscovered land, or opened a new hope in the human heart.
Pessimism only leads us to sink into misery.
25. Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.
Tyrannies sooner or later end.
26. Life is a succession of lessons that must be lived to be understood.
Never underestimate an experience.
27. For me, the basis was the determination of Anne, my teacher.
Figures that become great examples.
28. Death is nothing more than passing from one room to another. There’s a difference for me though, you know? Because in the other room I will be able to see.
His reflection on death.
29. With my three faithful guides, touch, smell and taste, I make countless incursions into the border region of experience and visible from the city of light.
The way of living through the senses.
30. Every optimist moves along with progress and accelerates it, while every pessimist keeps the world at a standstill.
The way optimists live.
31. The subtlety of our vision does not depend on how much we are able to see, but how much we are able to feel.
Vision and feeling as a single sense.
32. Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not achieved through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
The true recipe for happiness.
33. Happiness does not come from outside, it comes from within.
Everyone must seek their own happiness.
34. Happiness is the perfect ending and the fruit of obedience to the laws of life.
Happiness is the greatest goal of all.
35. Safety is mostly a superstition.
Safety can become an excuse not to try again.
36. Never tilt your head, always keep it upright. Look the world square in the face.
Face your problems and you will find peace.
37. How many times do we travel on the same roads, read the same books, speak the same language, and yet our experiences are different.
Each experience is unique.
38. Universal knowledge, in general terms, is an imaginary conception.
Does universal knowledge really exist?
39. Resolve to keep yourself happy, and you and your joy will form an invincible host against difficulties.
Never lose an optimistic view of life.
40. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.
Keller’s way of seeing life.
41. Despite the sensitivity in corporeal perception, my spirit prompts me to use words that are closely linked to sight and hearing, although I can only guess their meaning through their analogies and my imagination.
Express yourself through your senses.
42. How insignificant my world would be without imagination.
Imagination is the root of many things.
43. Sometimes we think that there is no God, because if there was, he would have created man incapable of sin. As if someone wanted to be an automaton!
Human perfection does not exist.
44. I don’t want the peace that passes all understanding, I want the understanding that brings peace.
A peace where we can learn from mistakes.
45. The only people who are truly blind at Christmas time are those who don’t have Christmas in their hearts.
A criticism of those who only see Christmas for its consumerist potential.
46. People cannot be developed in simplicity and silence.
To grow, we need to experience various situations.
47. Love is like a beautiful flower that I cannot touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.
Reflections on your experience in love.
48. People don’t like to think, if one thinks, one must come to conclusions. The conclusions are not always pleasant.
It is difficult, but sooner or later we must reflect.
49. I have been given so much that I have no time to reflect on what I have been denied.
Focus on what you have instead of what you lack.
50. There is more meaning in each thing in itself than all the things that the eye can see.
Appearance is not everything.
51. It is not necessary, as is generally believed, to renounce natural pleasures before being able to conquer spiritual ones. On the contrary, we enjoy it with more exquisite fruition as we grow internally.
Pleasures and tranquility can go hand in hand.
52. It all comes down to this: the easiest way to be happy is to do good.
A simple way to get joy.
53. If you have set a difficult task for yourself, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find great joy in overcoming obstacles.
Perseverance helps us achieve goals.
54. Loyalty or fidelity are nothing more than an imitation, if they do not serve us to build a world inexpressibly more perfect and more beautiful than the material one.
Goals that we can achieve with these values.
55. How interesting and charming are the games of sky, water and earth… beautiful mirror where that other, higher world that is the goal of our faith and our dreams is reflected!
Talking about the wonders of nature.
56. Sight is the function of the eyes, but vision is the function of the heart.
We cannot see everything with our eyes, because the essence is internal.
57. The greatest result of education is tolerance.
Education should also focus on cultivating values.
58. What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
All our answers are within us.
59. We can do whatever we want if we stick with it long enough.
Sometimes we can fall into procrastination.
60. Many people, despite having excellent eyesight, are blind in their perceptions.
Talking about those who have little understanding of their surroundings.
61. The only thing worse than not having sight is not having vision.
Closed-minded people never move forward.
62. In these dark and silent years, God has been using my life for a purpose I don’t know, but one day I will understand and then I will be satisfied.
Showing your strong faith in God.
63. The night of blindness also has its wonders.
Talking about the positive things about his blindness.
64. The world without color or sound is made in terms of measurements, shapes and inherent qualities.
Explaining the things found in the world.
65. While they argued among themselves that it cannot be done, it was done.
Sometimes we don’t need words but actions.
66. The Bible to me is a deep and comforting sense that the things that can be seen are temporary and the things invisible are eternal.
Talking about his trust in the bible.
67. Unless, like lilacs, we can rise pure and strong above a sordid environment, we will probably be moral weaklings in any situation.
We will always have the tendency to sin.
68. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I am in, to be content.
A beautiful way to see the good in difficulty.
69. A happy life does not consist in absence, but in mastering difficulties.
I don’t know about escaping, but about facing difficulties.
70. When I learned the meaning of “I” and “me” I found out that I was “something” and I started to think.
Becoming aware of herself.
71. What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.
There are times when we need someone who understands us.
72. The effort we put into achieving something beautiful is never wasted.
The effort is always there. We just have to find motivation.
73. In the wonderful realm of the mind I must be free like others.
We can all be as free in our minds as we want.
74. Experience is the best teacher.
A certain fact.
75. I can’t do everything, but I can still do something; And just because I can’t do everything, I won’t give up doing what I can.
It is impossible to do everything, but it is possible to give the best in what we choose to do.
76. Don’t worry about what you’ve lost, open your eyes to the new opportunities you have right in front of you.
There will always be a new opportunity.
77. Form, proportion and order are unable to engender in the mind the abstract idea of beauty by themselves, unless there is already a mutual understanding of soul that gives life to these elements.
Talking about the shapes that inhabit the world.
78. I will not refuse to do the “something” I can do.
Find your passion and stick to it.
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79. Tolerance is the greatest gift of the mind; It requires the same brain effort as it takes to balance on a bicycle.
Tolerance helps us not only grow, but also have better relationships.
80. The most important issue is not the type of environment we have, but the type of thoughts we develop every day, the type of ideals we follow; In a word, the kind of people we really are.
Our thoughts can be encouraging but they can also hold us back.
81. In a beautiful statue I find both the perfection of corporeal form and the qualities of integrity and balance.
In art we always find beauty.
82. As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, sex with its joy clarifies and sharpens the vision.
The emotional benefits of sex.
83. Only through self-testing and the experience of suffering can spirit be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
When we overcome ourselves, we achieve a new vision of ourselves.
Related article: “The 53 best success phrases”
84. I would take a long walk in the forest and intoxicate my eyes with all the beauties of the world of nature.
The wishes Helen had if she could regain her dulled senses.
85. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful.
It may not be as expected, but it may be better.
86. Militarism… is one of the great bastions of capitalism, the day militarism weakens, capitalism will fail.
Military force as an accomplice of capitalism.
87. When we do our best, we never know what miracle occurs in our life or the lives of others.
Never doubt your strength or your abilities.
88. Your success and your happiness are in you.
And therefore, these depend only on you.
89. Physics tells me how I can live comfortably in a world in which color and sound are unknown.
Physics as your stick in an almost imperceptible world.
90. Those of us who mourn are not alone. We belong to the greatest company in the world: the company of those who have known suffering.
It is in difficult times that we find true support.
91. Each object is presented through my fingers always preserving its exact position and not as the invertible image when reflected on the retina, which, as I understand, only your brain can restore to its normal position through infinite work. and constant.
The way you can observe the world.
92. All the acts of my life depend on my hand as a central axis.
Our actions only depend on us.
93. Difficult to be a woman, university student and disabled in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century; and even more so, being a socialist.
The challenges he had to overcome.
You may be interested: “Stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination: why should we avoid prejudging?”
94. My part of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
Dedicate yourself completely to whatever you do.
95. What great invention has not existed in the inventor’s mind for a long time before being given tangible form?
