Helen Keller: Happiness

Helen Keller was American author and political activist. Explore interesting quotes on happiness.
Helen Keller: 312   quotes 53   likes

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Helen Keller

We Bereaved (1929)

Motivational , Inspirational , Attitude , Success

“If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)
Context: Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation. "Let us eat, drink and be merry," says the pessimist, "for to-morrow we die." If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.

Life , Fear , Music , Solitude

“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.”

Helen Keller

Source: Quoted in: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad,. Northern women development. [Nigeria]. p, 351. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.

Happy , Idea , Personality , Happiness

“There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.”

Helen Keller
Smile , Music , Light , Sun

“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.”

Helen Keller

The Simplest Way to be Happy (1933)

Life , Happiness

“No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Feeling , Happiness

“Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. 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 book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Life , People , Pleasure , Faith

“If we spend the time we waste in sighing for the perfect golden fruit in fulfilling the conditions of its growth, happiness will come, must come. It is guaranteed in the very laws of the universe. If it involves some chastening and renunciation, well, the fruit will be all the sweeter for this touch of holiness….”

Helen Keller

The Simplest Way to be Happy (1933)

Law , Universe , Time , Perfection

“I understand how it was possible for Spinoza to find deep and sustained happiness when he was excommunicated, poor, despised and suspected alike by Jew and Christian; not that the kind world of men ever treated me so, but that his isolation from the universe of sensuous joys is somewhat analogous to mine. He loved the good for its own sake. Like many great spirits he accepted his place in the world, and confided himself childlike to a higher power, believing that it worked through his hands and predominated in his being. He trusted implicitly, and that is what I do. Deep, solemn optimism, it seems to me, should spring from this firm belief in the presence of God in the individual; not a remote, unapproachable governor of the universe, but a God who is very near every one of us, who is present not only in earth, sea and sky, but also in every pure and noble impulse of our hearts, 'the source and centre of all minds, their only point of rest.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Love , Men , God , World

“Happiness is the final and perfect fruit of obedience to the laws of life.”

Helen Keller

The Simplest Way to be Happy (1933)

Life , Law , Perfection , Happiness

“It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in search for knowledge.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Life , People , Art , Search

“It is the possibility of happiness, intelligence and power that give life its sanctity, and they are absent in the case of a poor, misshapen, paralyzed, unthinking creature.”

Helen Keller

Physicians, The New Republic December, 18, 1915. http://www.uffl.org/vol16/gerdtz06.pdf

Life , Intelligence , Happiness

“I do not pretend that I know the whole solution of the world's problems, but I am burdened with a Puritanical sense of obligation to set the world to rights. I feel responsible for many enterprises that are not really my business at all, but many times I have kept silence on issues that interested me deeply through the fear that others would be blamed for my opinions. I have never been willing to believe that human nature cannot be changed; but even if it cannot, I am sure it can be curbed and led into channels of usefulness. I believe that life, not wealth, is the aim of existence — life including all its attributes of love, happiness, and joyful labour. I believe war is the inevitable fruit of our economic system, but even if I am wrong I believe that truth can lose nothing by agitation but may gain all.”

Helen Keller

Midstream (1929)

Love , Life , War , Truth