There are times when I long to sweep away half the things I am expected to learn; for the overtaxed mind cannot enjoy the treasure it has secured at the greatest cost. ... When one reads hurriedly and nervously, having in mind written tests and examinations, one's brain becomes encumbered with a lot of bric-a-brac for which there seems to be little use. At the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despair of ever being able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region of my mind I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds and ends of knowledge come crashing about my head like hailstones, and when I try to escape them, theme goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue me, until I wish oh, may I be forgiven the wicked wish! that I might smash the idols I came to worship.
college education stress
Download Image Share on X Share on Facebook

About This Quote

About Helen Keller

Helen Keller was a 19th-century American author and activist. Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Education — The importance of teaching, learning, and intellectual curiosity

More quotes by Helen Keller

“For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine.”
— Helen Keller
chains joy life spirituality

“Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invicible host against difficulties.”
— Helen Keller
happiness helen-keller inspirational-life life

“Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.”
— Helen Keller
happiness joy purpose

“Relationships are like Rome -- difficult to start out, incredible during the prosperity of the 'golden age', and unbearable during the fall. Then, a new kingdom will come along and the whole proces...”
— Helen Keller
love relationship

“Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within”
— Helen Keller
happiness life love

“A bend in the road is not the end of the roadUnless you fail to make the turn.”
— Helen Keller
change life perseverance risk
View all quotes by Helen Keller →

Related Quotes

“You see, in this country are a number of youths who do not like to work, and the college is an excellent place for them.”
— L. Frank Baum, Ozma of Oz
college humor work

“Sometimes the gap between what you are and what you want to be is a little piece of paper called your college degree. So jump.”
— Joyce Rachelle
college college-degree college-degrees dreaming

“I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.”
— Dodie Smith
college life write

“Education doesnt make you happy. Nor does freedom. We dont become happy just because were free if we are. Or because weve been educated if we have. But because education may be the means by which...”
— Iris Murdoch
education happiness knowledge

“Because I trust in the ever-changing climate of the heart. (At least, today I feel that way.) I think it is necessary to have many experiences for the sake of feeling something; for the sake of bei...”
— Jason Mraz
education expression feelings humor

“The past has no power over the present moment.”
— Eckhart Tolle
education inspirational life philosophy

“If your work is stressful, it's not your work.”
— Marty Rubin
stress work

“When outcomes are uncertain, most of us spend a great deal of energy ruminating, worrying, and second-guessing ourselves. Not only is this a waste of time, but it makes us less likely to succeed”
— Melanie Greenberg, The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity
stress success worry

“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what youre needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
stress travel