What is worse than having no sight is being able to see but having no vision.
Helen KellerRead
Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of birds, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow . . . Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Glory in all the facts of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you.
Interpretation
Appreciate the beauty of the world as if you may lose your senses tomorrow.
Helen Keller's quote encourages us to fully engage with and appreciate our senses, suggesting that we should experience the world with heightened awareness and gratitude. By imagining the loss of our abilities to see, hear, smell, and taste, we are inspired to cherish and celebrate the beauty and pleasures that life offers, nurturing a deeper connection with our experiences.
In practice
In a speech about mindfulness, someone might quote this to emphasize living in the moment.
What is worse than having no sight is being able to see but having no vision.
What could be worse than being born without sight? Being born with sight and no vision.
Knowledge is power." Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.
Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.
Our beloved ones have not 'gone to a far country.' It is only the veil of sense that separates them from us, and even that veil grows thin when our thoughts reach out to them.
It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Never stop hoping for all of the righteous desires of your heart. But don't close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day's ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life
Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered.
This journey has always been about reaching your own other shore no matter what it is, and that dream continues.
Throughout my life, my prayers have actively sustained me - held me up, carried me through.
The only thing a star asks is to be allowed to twinkle.
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