Quotes by Anne Sullivan

“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.”

“Those who trust us educate us.”

“It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.”

“It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.”

“My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupils mind, and behold, all things are changed!”

“Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction”

“People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.”

“I have thought about it a great deal, and the more I think, the more certain I am that obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.”

“We all like stories that make us cry. Its so nice to feel sad when youve nothing in particular to feel sad about.”

“Its queer how ready people always are with advice in any real or imaginary emergency, and no matter how many times experience has shown them to be wrong, they continue to set forth their opinions, as if they had received them from the Almighty!”

“The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.”

“Its a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things”

Its a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.

My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupils mind, and behold, all things are changed!

I need a teacher quite as much as Helen. I know the education of this child will be the distinguishing event of my life, if I have the brains and perseverance to accomplish it.

The processes of teaching the child that everything cannot be as he wills it are apt to be painful both to him and to his teacher.

I have thought about it a great deal, and the more I think, the more certain I am that obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.

The wrong things are predominantly stressed in the schools - things remote from the students experience and need.

Its queer how ready people always are with advice in any real or imaginary emergency, and no matter how many times experience has shown them to be wrong, they continue to set forth their opinions, as if they had received them from the Almighty!

The immediate future is going to be tragic for all of us unless we find a way of making the vast educational resources of this country serve the true purpose of education, truth and justice.