Helen Adams Keller, 1880 - 1968
Los Angeles Times photo (ca. 1920)
Born: 27 June 1880, Tuscumbia, Alabama
Died: 1 June 1968, Arcan Ridge, Easton, Connecticut
Keller fell sick at 19 months with "brain fever," now believed to have been meningitis. She wasn't expected to live, after recovering she had lost all vision and hearing. The six-year-old daughter of the family cook developed a set of sixty signs to communicate with Helen. Over the next few years her temper made her difficult to live with, and Keller and her father traveled to Baltimore for medical advice. They were introduced to Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time, who suggested the Perkins Institute. A former student of the school, Anne Sullivan, became her companion through school and throughout Sullivan's life. Helen learned to communicate several different ways, by age eight she was a celebrity, when she graduated from Radcliffe in 1904 she was the first deaf and blind person to acquire a bachelors degree. She was a founder of Helen Keller International, devoted to research in vision. She was also a founding member of the ACLU, a member of the IWW, and the Socialist Party; her politics are normally not mentioned. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and was depicted on the reverse of Alabama's state quarter in 2003.
Biography from Wikipedia and Spartacus Educational
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Helen Keller quotes:
Quotes found : 79 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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- A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships. permalink
Helen Keller - Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. permalink
Helen Keller - Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. permalink
Helen Keller - As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision. permalink
Helen Keller - 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. permalink
Helen Keller - Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. permalink
Helen Keller - 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. permalink
Helen Keller - Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition aspired, and success achieved. permalink
Helen Keller - College isn't the place to go for ideas. permalink
Helen Keller - 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. permalink
Helen Keller - Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. permalink
Helen Keller - Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light. permalink
Helen Keller - I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace. permalink
Helen Keller - 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. permalink
Helen Keller - I read "King Lear" soon after "Macbeth," and I shall never forget the feeling of horror when I came to the scene in which Gloster's eyes are put out. Anger seized me, my fingers refused to move, I sat rigid for one long moment, the blood throbbing in my temples, and all the hatred that a child can feel concentrated in my heart. permalink
Helen Keller
Quotes found : 79 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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