Helen Keller — Optimism: An Essay (1903)

A short, fierce argument that hope is not a feeling but a way of living, written by someone who had every reason to give up.

Published the same year as her autobiography, Optimism is Helen Keller’s personal philosophy in two parts: optimism within, and optimism without.

She argues that optimism is earned by facing hard things honestly, and that it is the faith that leads to achievement. She looks at history, science and her own life to make the case that the world, slowly and unevenly, gets better because people refuse to accept that it cannot.

It is short enough to read in one sitting, and it is one of the most quoted things she ever wrote.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.