What is worse than having no sight is being able to see but having no vision.
Helen KellerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True happiness can be achieved despite challenges and deprivations, and this optimism is valuable.
In this quote, Helen Keller emphasizes that happiness is rooted in a deep-seated optimism that transcends life's challenges. She suggests that when one cultivates a philosophy of optimism, it becomes a guiding principle that makes their life experience meaningful and worth sharing with others.
Themes
HappinessOptimismPhilosophyFaithDeprivations
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
More from Helen Keller
All quotes →What could be worse than being born without sight? Being born with sight and no vision.
Helen KellerRead
Knowledge is power." Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.
Helen KellerRead
Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.
Helen KellerRead
Our beloved ones have not 'gone to a far country.' It is only the veil of sense that separates them from us, and even that veil grows thin when our thoughts reach out to them.
Helen KellerRead
It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.
Helen KellerRead
Similar quotes
It appeared to me obvious that the happiness of mankind should be the aim of all action, and I discovered to my surprise that there were those who thought otherwise.
Bertrand RussellRead
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henry David ThoreauRead
To me, the most important part of winning is joy. You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry. Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight, that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.
Bill RussellRead
If we only look around us, there are a thousand reasons for us not to be happy, and it is simplicity itself to blame our unhappiness on the things we lack in life. It doesn’t take any talent at all to find them. The problem is, the more we focus on the things we don’t have, the more unhappy and more resentful we become.
Joseph B. WirthlinRead
Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.
Orson Scott CardRead
I believe in the possibility of happiness, if one cultivates intuition and outlives the grosser passions, including optimism.
George SantayanaRead