Fun Facts About Helen Keller

Helen Keller loved hot dogs!

Helen Keller wrote to eight Presidents of the United States and received letters from all of them—from Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a small rural town in Northwest Alabama, USA.

Helen was an excellent typist. She could use a standard typewriter as well as a braillewriter. In fact, she was a better typist than her companions Anne Sullivan Macy and Polly Thomson.

Helen loved animals, especially dogs. She owned a variety of dogs throughout her life. The first Akita dog in the United States was sent to Helen from Japan in 1938.

Helen visited 39 countries around the world during her lifetime.

Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to earn a college degree. She graduated from Radcliffe College, with honors, in 1904.

Helen was friends with many famous people, including Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; the writer Mark Twain; and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Helen won an Oscar for the documentary about her life, "Helen Keller in Her Story."

Helen Keller Quotes

"We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others."
- Helen Keller

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart."
- Helen Keller, 1891

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
- Helen Keller, 1941

"The chief handicap of the blind is not blindness, but the attitude of seeing people towards them."
- Helen Keller, 1925

"I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary."
- Helen Keller, 1916

"What a strange life I lead—a kind of Cinderella-life—half-glitter in crystal shoes, half mice and cinders!"
- Helen Keller, 1933

"If I, deaf, blind, find life rich and interesting, how much more can you gain by the use of your five senses!"
- Helen Keller, 1928

"The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination."
- Helen Keller, 1908

"Faith is a mockery if it does not teach us that we can build a more complete and beautiful world."
- Helen Keller