We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false stand… - Helen Keller
""
We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to dwell in a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent External. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth.
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American writer and social activist; an illness (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) at the age of 19 months left her deaf and blind.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Los Angeles Times; restored by User:Rhododendrites (Public domain / CC0)
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: Los Angeles Times; restored by User:Rhododendrites. Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
Go Premium
Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.
Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves - and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate & special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the suposition that every child is an idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself...
Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. 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. Happiness should be a means of accomplishment, like health, not an end in itself.
