Helen Keller Quotes
As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.
Keller, Helen. Out of the Dark. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913.
Scientists are notorious contemptuous of authorities and authority especially in the scientific arena. They generally follow the philosophical doctrine of Spinosa who counted authority as nothing when compared with observation and reason. In this sense, they are problems for authoritarian leaders especially. Einstein when younger had little respect for many of the so called “great professors” of physics and chemistry. He was considered disrespectful at best. He would argue that just because a man was a great professor or scientist did not necessarily make him right on any given issue and indeed he challenged the entire method of thinking about the world. However, then he became the great professor and the foile which he always disparaged.
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and hearing after a bout of illness at the age of nineteen months. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan, who taught her language, including reading and writing; Sullivan's first lessons involved spelling words on Keller's hand to show her the names of objects around her. She also learned how to speak and to understand other people's speech using the Tadoma method. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, she attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) from 1924 until 1968, during which time she toured the United States and traveled to 39 countries around the globe advocating for those with vision loss.
