Quote collection
454 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond all senses."
"Smell is a fallen angel."
"Is love the sweetness of flowers?"
"Christmas Day is the festival of optimism."
"Every modern war has had its roots in exploitation."
"Love? Why ... it is what everybody feels for everybody else."
"The worst calamity: 'To have eyes and fail to see.'"
"I take happiness very seriously. It is a creed, a philosophy and an objective."
"Personally I do not believe in a national agency devoted only to the negro blind because in spirit and principle I am against all segregation, and the blind already have difficulties enough without being cramped and harassed by social barriers."
"I have found life so beautiful."
"Don't give me the peace that passeth understanding, give me understanding."
"I am a child of my generation, and I rejoice that I live in such splendidly disturbing times."
"We have prayed, we have coaxed, we have begged, for the vote, with the hope that men, out of chivalry, would bestow equal rights upon women and take them into partnership in the affairs of the state. We hoped that their common sense would triumph over prejudices and stupidity. We thought their boasted sense of justice would overcome the errors that so often fetter the human spirit; but we have always gone away empty handed. We shall beg no more."
"Every child has a right to be well-born, well-nurtured and well-taught, and only the freedom of woman can guarantee him this right."
"I think the degree of a nation's civilisation may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women."
"The continued lynchings and other crimes against negroes, whether in New England or the South, and unspeakable political exponents of white supremacy, according to all recorded history, augur ill for America's future."
"We should respect all people."
"I have often been asked, Do not people bore you? I do not understand quite what that means. I suppose the calls of the stupid and curious, especially of newspaper reporters, are always inopportune. I also dislike people who try to talk down to my understanding. They are like people who when walking with you try to shorten their steps to suit yours; the hypocrisy in both cases is equally exasperating."
"I hung about the dangerous frontier of "guess," avoiding with infinite trouble to myself and others the broad valley of reason."
"Usually they are quick to discover that I cannot see or hear.... It is not training but love which impels them to break their silence about me with the thud of a tail rippling against my chair on gambols round the study, or news conveyed by expressive ear, nose, and paw. Often I yearn to give them speech, their motions are so eloquent with things they cannot say."