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If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
by Helen Keller

If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller
...
Helen Keller (1880-1968) overcame being both deaf and blind
to become a famous author, lecturer, and activist
for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and ending war.

Quotes by Helen Keller

All the world is full of suffering.
It is also full of overcoming.
- Helen Keller

I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
- Helen Keller

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

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Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
- Helen Keller

The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life.
If it be true that optimism compels the world forward,
and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to
propagate a pessimistic philosophy.
- Helen Keller

Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than outright exposure.
he fearful are caught as often as the bold.
- Helen Keller

 

The most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched,
they must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

When one door closes, another opens.
But often we look so long, so regretfully,
upon the closed door,
that we fail to see the one that is opened for us.
- Helen Keller

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
- Helen Keller

The highest result of education is tolerance.
Long ago men fought and died for their faith;
but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, -
the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren
and their rights of conscience.
- Helen Keller

We can do anything we want to
if we stick to it long enough.
- Helen Keller

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
- Helen Keller

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experiences of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened,
vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it,
while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill.
The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation
is the same as in the life of the individual.
Pessimism kills the instinct that
urges men to struggle against poverty,
ignorance and crime, and dries up
all the fountains of joy in the world.
- Helen Keller

One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

A happy life consists not in the absence,
but in the mastery of hardships.
- Helen Keller

The highest thinkers of the ages,
the seers of the tribes and the nations,
have been optimists.
- Helen Keller

While they were saying among themselves
it cannot be done, it was done.
- Helen Keller

Happiness is the final and perfect fruit
of obedience to the laws of life.
- Helen Keller

Alone we can do so little;
together we can do so much.
- Helen Keller

Resolve to keep happy, and your joy
and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
- Helen Keller

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.
- Helen Keller

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose.
All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
- Helen Keller

The highest result of education is tolerance.
- Helen Keller

True happiness... is not attained
through self-gratification,
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller

Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.
My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil,
but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good
and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good,
that it may prevail.
- Helen Keller

Your success and happiness lies in you.
Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you
shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
- Helen Keller

When we do the best that we can,
we never know what miracle is wrought in our life,
or in the life of another.
- Helen Keller

Never bend your head. Always hold it high.
Look the world straight in the eye.
- Helen Keller

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
- Helen Keller

Life is an exciting business,
and most exciting when it is lived for others.
- Helen Keller

It all comes to this:
the simplest way to be happy is to do good.
- Helen Keller

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.
- Helen Keller

Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.
- Helen Keller

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller

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.
- Helen Keller

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
- Helen Keller

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.
- Helen Keller

I have found out that though the ways in which
I can make myself useful are few,
yet the work open to me is endless.
- Helen Keller

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.
- Helen Keller

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.
- Helen Keller

As selfishness and complaint
pervert and cloud the mind,
so love with its joy
clears and sharpens the vision.
- Helen Keller

Happy Quotes and Sayings

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want to be happy, be.
- Leo Tolstoy

The best way to cheer yourself
is to try to cheer someone else up.
- Mark Twain

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
- e. e. cummings

The key to happiness is having dreams.
The key to success is making your dreams come true.
- Anonymous

Stay Happy, never let anyone get your goat.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

The happiness of one's own heart alone
cannot satisfy the soul;
one must try to include,
as necessary to one's own happiness,
the happiness of others.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

To leave the world a bit better ...
to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

What are the proper grounds for joy?
Is it circumstance which will
determine the stature of my spirit?
Ah, no. It is choice. It is always a choice -
in the face of any event - for joy.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

If you want to be happy,
put your effort into controlling the sail, not the wind.
- Anonymous

If anyone is unhappy, remember that
his unhappiness is his own fault...
Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility
except our own opinion.
- Epictetus

A Happy Day is a day I see all of life
with the eyes of compassion.
- Rory J. Corsiglia

You can live the life you love -
even in the face of the most challenging circumstances.
While sometimes it may appear that life throws more obstacles
in your path than you can handle,
you can always choose to be happy.
Yes, you are that powerful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
- Anne Frank

You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know:
the only ones among you who will be really happy
are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
- Albert Schweitzer

A happy person is not a person in a
certain set of circumstances,
but rather a person with a
certain set of attitudes.
- Hugh Downs

Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
- Abraham Lincoln

It costs you nothing to make another happy -
and you gain your true self through the act of spreading joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Angry and happy don't mix.
Flush out the angry,
and the happy has a place to put down roots.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

Happiness lies in accepting everyone
in our lives EXACTLY as they are.
We cause ourselves untold misery whenever
we believe others to be imperfect and try to change them.
This is the number one rule for a happy relationship.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People are just as happy
as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln

Indifferent to whether your mood is grumpy or cheerful,
Nature always sings her passionate song of joyful celebration.
You can never stop the happy song of life,
so join the celebration -
sing along, dance, make love,
smile your biggest smile, and cheer on God's music.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be happy for this moment.
This moment is your life.
- Anonymous

We deem those happy, who from the experience of life
have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.
- Carl Jung

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can't change.
Life's too short to be anything... but happy.
- Anonymous

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