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date: 17 January 2021

Helen Keller 1880–1968
American writer and social reformer, blind and deaf from the age of 19 months 

  1. 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.
    Let Us Have Faith (1940)
  2. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
    Let Us Have Faith (1940)
  3. 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.
    My Religion (1927)
  4. Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
    Optimism: an essay (1903) pt. 1
  5. No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land.
    Optimism: an essay (1903) pt. 3
  6. The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free!
    The Story of My Life (1902) ch. 4
  7. Literature is my Utopia.
    The Story of my Life (1903) ch. 21
  8. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
    The Story of My Life (1902) ch. 22