45 Optimistic Quotes by Helen Keller

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. A sunset, a mountain bathed in moonlight, the ocean in calm and in storm – we see these, love their beauty, hold the vision to our hearts. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.We Bereaved (1929)

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.Faith Fears Not, Let Us Have Faith (1940)

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.We Bereaved (1929)

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.Part III. The Practice of Optimism, Optimism: An Essay (1903)

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.Chapter VI. On People and Life, The Faith of Helen Keller (1967)

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions; and conclusions are not always pleasant.New Vision for the Blind, in Justice, Pitsburgh, Pennsylvania (October 25, 1913)

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.The Simplest Way to Be Happy, as published in Home Magazine (February, 1933)

Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.To the New College Girl, in Youth's Companion (June 8, 1905)

As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.Chapter VII, My Religion (1927)

The highest result of education is tolerance.Part II. Optimism Without, Optimism: An Essay (1903)

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.News report (June 26, 1955)

True education combines intellect, beauty, goodness, and the greatest of these is goodness.To the New College Girl, in Youth's Companion (June 8, 1905)

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.Part III. A Supplementary Account of Helen Keller's Life and Education, Chapter IV. Speech, The Story of My Life (1903)

World peace will never come until the passion of supremacy is combated.Central Hotel, Glasgow (December 23, 1936), in Helen Keller's Journal (1938)

Our worst foes are not belligerent circumstances, but wavering spirits.My Future As I See It, in The Ladies' Home Journal (November 1903)

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.Part I, Chapter I, The Story of My Life (1903)

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's Journal (1938)

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face. Letter to a five-year-old blind child, News report (May 31, 1955)

Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.Part I. Optimism Within, Optimism: An Essay (1903)

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.To the New College Girl, in Youth's Companion (June 8, 1905)

God Himself is not secure, having given man dominion over His works!Faith Fears Not, Let Us Have Faith (1940)

There are no such things as divine, immutable or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim to them.Why Men Need Woman Suffrage, in New York Call, (October 17, 1915)

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.Chapter VI, My Religion (1927)

The best educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed.The Modern Woman, in Metropolitan Magazine (December 1912)

I do think of love sometimes, but it is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.Chapter VIII. My Oldest Friend, Midstream: My Later Life (1929)

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.Part I. Optimism Within, Optimism: An Essay (1903)

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.Faith Fears Not, Let Us Have Faith (1940)

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.News report (June 26, 1955)

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.Part II. Optimism Without, Optimism: An Essay (1903)

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.The Hand of the World, in The American Magazin (December 1912)

The civilization of a state should be measured by the amount of suffering it prevents and the degree of happiness it makes possible for its citizens.Speech to the legislature of Iowa on a bill to create a commission for the blind, Des Moines (1927)

Reality even when it is sad is better than illusions. Illusions are at the mercy of any winds that blow. Real happiness must come from within, from a fixed purpose and faith in one’s fellow men.Why I Became an IWW, interview by Barbara Bently, in New York Tribune (January 16, 1916)

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.Peace at Eventide (1932)

The power of effecting changes for the better is within ourselves, not in the favorableness of circumstances.Rehabilitation (October 31, 1923)

As it is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing, so it requires incessant labour to win champions among the seeing for the sightless.The Manse, Bothwell, January 15, 1937, in Helen Keller's Journal (1938)

Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful, if the race was to survive. But now, to preserve the race, it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.

The best preparedness is one that disarms the hostility of other nations and makes friends of them. Nothing is to be gained by the workers from war.Menace of the Militarist Program, delivered before the Labor Forum in New York, New York (December 19, 1915)

College is only for mediocre people, not for geniuses.An Apology for Going to College, in McClure's Magazine (June 1905)

The most beautiful world is always entered through the imagination.Chapter VIII. The Five-Sensed World, The World I Live In (1908)

Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.Strike Against War, delivered before the Women's Peace Party in New York, New York (January 5, 1916)

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light.Chapter: On the Vaudeville Circuit, Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy by Joseph P. Lash (1980)

Everybody talks, nobody listens. Good listeners are as rare as white crows.The Beauty of Silence, in The Home Magazine (May 1935)

One’s life-story cannot be told with complete veracity. A true autobiography would have to be written in states of mind, emotions, heartbeats, smiles, and tears, not in months and years, or physical events. Life is marked off on the soul-chart by feelings, not by dates.Chapter XI. In the Whirlpool, Midstream: My Later Life (1929)

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.Chapter: On the Vaudeville Circuit, Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy by Joseph P. Lash (1980)

It has been a happy life. My limitations never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times. But it is vague, like a breeze among flowers. Then, the wind passes, and the flowers are content.News report (June 26, 1955)

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart.Anne Sullivan (More info)

Keep your face always toward the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you.Anonymous (More info)