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Joy deserted my heart, and for a long, long time I lived in doubt, anxiety and fear.

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things.

A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.

As I look back on my struggle to write that little story, it seems to me that I must have had a prophetic vision of the good that would come of the undertaking, or I should surely have failed.

Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.

The optimist cannot fall back, cannot falter; for he knows his neighbor will be hindered by his failure to keep in line.

Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns.

Each halt in his progress has been but a pause before a mighty leap forward.

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.

Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.

I can say with conviction that the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings. It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women.

With the dropping of a little word from another's hand into mine, a slight flutter of the fingers, began the intelligence, the joy, the fullness of my life.

Whatever moves me, whatever thrills me, is as a hand that touches me in the dark, and that touch is my reality.

My world is built of touch-sensations, devoid of physical colour and sound; but without colour and sound it breathes and throbs with life.

The hand is my feeler with which I reach through isolation and darkness and seize every pleasure, every activity that my fingers encounter.

Man is only what he becomes--profound truth; but he becomes only what he is, truth still more profound.

Nothing is more hidden from us than the illusion which lives with us day by day, and our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.

Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves toward fools.

The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.

To love, to dream, to feel, to learn, to understand--all these are possible to me if only I may be relieved from willing.

do not hope to excite love except by love

What to the intellect is old and worn-out is perennially young and fresh to the heart; curiosity is insatiable, but love is never tired.

The man who doubts it, can never have watched the first gleams of tenderness dawning in the clear eyes of one who loves; sunrise itself is a lesser marvel.

Love at its highest point--love sublime, unique, invincible--leads us straight to the brink of the great abyss, for it speaks to us directly of the infinite and of eternity.

To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life.