Helen Keller American author and educator who was blind and deaf, 1880-1968
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. When one door of happiness closes, another opens. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. A man can't make a place for himself in the sun if he keeps taking refuge under the family tree. Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow. While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done. When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light. Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours...never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness. Your success and happiness lie in you...the great enduring realities are love and service...resolve to keep happy and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal. Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all--the apathy of human beings. 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. Once I knew only darkness and stillness...my life was without past or future...but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world. Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. True happiness...is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. To keep our faces toward chance and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract but not for the concrete. There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark. 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. The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all. The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision. Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. The highest result of education is tolerance. No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it. Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge -- broad, deep knowledge -- is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while. I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. 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. I have always thought it would be a blessing if each person could be blind and deaf for a few days during his early adult life. Darkness would make him appreciate sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound. Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. College isn't the place to go for ideas. The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse. Helen Keller American author and educator who was blind and deaf, 1880-1968 Source > http://www.thinkexist.com/English/Author/x/Author_3059_1.htm __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page � Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/08NolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> contact owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mail list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List-Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] no flaming arguing or denigration of others allowed contact owner with complaints regarding posting/list or anything else. Thank you. please share/comment/inform and mostly enjoy this list Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quick_vegetarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
