There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
— Helen Keller
True happiness... is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.
All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves - and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.
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.
Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.
Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.
Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.
It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.
The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
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.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.
What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance it allotted length.
What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.
As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
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.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
College isn't the place to go for ideas.
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.
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
Life is either a great adventure or nothing.
It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.
People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.
Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.
Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.
My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
We may have found a cure for most evils; but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.
No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.
Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.
I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.
To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.
What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
