“No history of the world can be complete which does not mention Mary Helen Keller… whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arguably victories more important than those of Alexander the Great, because they have implications still for every living person.”
Theodore Zeldin in An Intimate History of Humanity (1994) This quote seems to obviously refer to Helen Adams Keller, but why she is referred to as "Mary Helen Keller" is not clear.
An Intimate History of Humanity (1994)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Theodore Zeldin 8
English academic 1933Related quotes

Letter to Dr. James Kerr Love (1910), published in Helen Keller in Scotland: a personal record written by herself (1933), edited by James Kerr Love. Paraphrasing of this statement may have been the origin of a similar one which has become attributed to her:
Context: The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus — the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.

Pierrette fit comme les gens qui souffrent au delà de leurs forces, elle garda le silence.Ce silence est, pour tous les êtres attaqués, le seul moyen de triompher: il lasse les charges cosaques des envieux, les sauvages escarmouches des ennemis; il donne une victoire écrasante et complète. Quoi de plus complet que le silence?Il est absolu, n'est-ce pas une des manières d'être de l'infini?
Source: Pierrette (1840), Ch. VI: An Old Maid's Jealousy

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
Unsourced in The Philosophy of Mark Twain: The Wit and Wisdom of a Literary Genius (2014) by David Graham
Disputed

Source: Statement made by Errol Flynn about Fidel Castro in a TV interview on the Canadian TV program Front Page held in 1959. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=filBYa1AJEA

“Does it strike you, Mr. Keller, that we live every day in the science fiction of our youth?”
Divided by Infinity (p. 172)
The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)