Helen Keller's Words

Helen Keller's words

Today I'm going to take down more quotes that I love by Helen Keller, before i have to return the book to the library. I've been so blessed by her, to be thankful for all i've been blessed with, and even more so, to appreciate more deeply the beautiful world God has made for us to live in, by the senses i've taken so for granted! I've even shared some with my boys and they were suitably awed for 7 & 9 year-olds! May you be blessed too.

So here goes:

Because I cannot see or hear, the thoughtless suppose life must be a blank to me. They do not understand that things have other percious values beside color and sound. It never occurs to them to FEEL a flower, and they do not know what they miss - the exquisite shape of leaf and stem and bud. I do not suppose light suggests to them the radiating, life-giving warmth of the sun. True, I cannot see the stars scattered like gold-dust in the heavens, but other stars just as bright shine in my soul. Letter to Fred Elder, Nov 21 1922

Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind...Hear the music of voices, the song of the bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow.
Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of the flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you. "three days to see" Atlantic monthly, jan 1933

Do you wonder that I love the hand? I have felt its glorious power to love, to redeem, to do the work of the world. All that is noble and generous and creative in the human race has come to me through the hand. "Helen keller's address tot he blind of New York City" Winter 1913

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

Happiness is a state of mind, and depends very little on outward circumstances. Speech to fellow passengers on the S.S. president Roosevelt, Oct 1, 1930

God has given each one of us a task, which we can perform better than anyone else. We must find out what that task is, and how to do it in the best way possible. letter to Friends, Mar 30, 1921

More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free. Midstream, 1930


I have great joy in the tulips and lilacs which make my garden 'look like the waking of Creation.' O the potent wichery of smell leaves opening delicately on tree and rambler and rose-bush tell me God has passed this way, and I forget the disturbing nearness of the city in the eternal miracle of a tiny garden great with wonders. Letter to Waldo Mac Eagar May 13, 1933

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. Quoted in 'Sundry Interviews" A Margazet, undated

No one knows better than I the bitter denials of life. But I have made my limitations tools of learning and true joy. "Helen Keller at 80", interview by Ann Carnahan, June 19, 1960