Helen Keller

Who was Helen Keller?

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 100th anniversary of her birth.

A prolific author, Keller was well-travelled and outspoken in her convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, and other radical left causes. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971.

Famous Quotes:

• The highest result of education is tolerance.
• We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
• Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.
• College isn't the place to go for ideas.
• My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
• The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
• My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer day-lit world was stumbling and groping in social blindness.
• It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
• When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one that has opened for us.
• Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.