Helen Keller

We are never really happy until we are helping others.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks.

I am glad to have the opportunity to make an appeal for the blind.

The struggle of life is a good struggle, and it is a struggle that we must all engage in.

I do not want to be a miracle. I want to be a human being.

The public must learn that the blind man is neither genius nor a freak nor an idiot.

I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness.

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

I do not mean to say that my life has been a succession of pleasant surprises, and that I have never had a hard time. But my experience has taught me that the pain of the wound is not always measured by its size, and that the greatest suffering is often that which is least apparent.

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.

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

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

I used to think that it was a shame that I was born blind and deaf, but now I know that it is a blessing. It has taught me to see with my soul and to hear with my heart.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

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.

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.