To Love This Life: Quotations from Helen Keller

by Helen Keller

With a forward by former President Jimmy Carter, an uplifting collection of quotations shows the author's strength in the face of adversity, and reflects her positive outlook, intelligence, and hope for all humankind. Reprint.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Blind and deaf since infancy, American memoirist and lecturer Helen Adams Keller learned to read, to write, and to speak from her teacher Anne Sullivan, graduated from Radcliffe in 1904, and lectured widely on behalf of sightless people; her books include Out of the Dark (1913).

Conditions bound not Keller. Scarlet fever rendered her deaf and blind at 19 months; she in several languages and as a student wrote The Story of My Life . In this age, few women then attended college, and people often relegated the disabled to the background and spoke of the disabled only in hushed tones, when she so remarkably accomplished. Nevertheless, alongside many other impressive achievements, Keller authored 13 books, wrote countless articles, and devoted her life to social reform. An active and effective suffragist, pacifist, and socialist (the latter association earned her a file of Federal Bureau of Investigation), she lectured on behalf of disabled people everywhere. She also helped to start several foundations that continue to improve the lives of the deaf and blind around the world.

As a young girl, obstinate Keller, prone to fits of violence, seethed with rage at her inability to express herself. Nevertheless, at the urging of Alexander Graham Bell, Anne Sullivan, a teacher, transformed this wild child at the age of 7 years in an event that she declares "the most important day I remember in all my life." (After a series of operations, Sullivan, once blind, partially recovered her sight.) In a memorable passage, Keller writes of the day "Teacher" led her to a stream and repeatedly spelled out the letters w-a-t-e-r on one of her hands while pouring water over the other. This method proved a revelation: "That living world awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away." And, indeed, most of them were.

In her lovingly crafted and deeply perceptive autobiography, Keller's joyous spirit is most vividly expressed in her connection to nature:

Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in my education.... Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze. Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking, and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a sudden terror....

The idea of feeling rather than hearing a sound, or of admiring a flower's motion rather than its color, evokes a strong visceral sensation in the reader, giving The Story of My Life a subtle power and beauty. Keller's celebration of discovery becomes our own. In the end, this blind and deaf woman succeeds in sharpening our eyes and ears to the beauty of the world. --Shawn Carkonen

Reviews

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This just made me want to read everything she's written. It is so much more satisfying to find quotes in their context.

Here's one from "A Message from the Hand, or from Darkness to Light (Another Beginning)," draft of speech, 1928:

"I am not a perfect being. ... I have more faults than I know what to do with. I have a naughty temper. I am stubborn, impatient of hindrances and of stupidity. I have not in the truest sense a Christian spirit. I am naturally a fighter. I am lazy. I put off till tomorrow what I might better do today. I do not feel that I have been compensated for the two senses I lack. I have worked hard for all the senses I have got, and always I beg for more."

Which pretty much also describes me.

[Kulthoum كلثوم · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب جمع إقتباساتها في جميع نواحي طوال فترة عمرها المديدة..الكتاب ذو لغة أدبية فريدة و جميلة يوضح زمن كتابته..لمن ﻻ يتعب من ترجمة المصطلحات اﻹنجليزية القديمة :-)
.
من إقتباستها عن اﻹيمان
FAITH is mockery if it doesn't teach us that we can build a more complete and beautiful world.
عن تغلب المحن
NO one knows better than I the bitter denials of life. But I have made my limitations tools of learning and true joy.
.
.

[Kyrstin Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many wise words written here, some of which would be well used in a speech. Helen Keller is fascinating to me and several of these quotation highlight the key elements of her life that are so intriguing.

[Dafyt Alglb]

All