Helen Keller was both blind and deaf in her darkness from birth until a kind Christian teacher put her speaking fingers into Helen's hand as a young girl. She became one of the most wise, thoughtful and Christian witnesses to God's grace in the world. Here are a few quotes from the heart of this God conscious, lovely person of spiritual vision. RB
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.
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
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. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
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 (Weary dissatisfaction)
True happiness... is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
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.
Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.
People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.
To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
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.
It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.
The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
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.
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.
Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness.
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish...." Prov.29:18
"Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?" Mark 8:18.
So how large are the obstacles in your life which keep you unhappy? RB
