"We might remember that in 1880 certain men knew that flying-machines could be equipped and rendered safe; but few would listen to them because such a thing had never been done. So flying came slowly, as the achievement of a small, faithful minority laboring in an atmosphere of ridicule.
"There are other funds of knowledge building up. We know, for instance, that it is possible to plan the economic systems in the world so that we could all be richer and freer and happier in producing comforts and pleasures than we are today. We know with at least an equal certainty that we can reorganize the whole educational system so that the bulk of humanity will grow up more happily prepared for creative service. We know that the international troubles of our time, the hostilities between peoples, the menace of war, are largely due to mental concepts that can be changed only by suggestion, persistence, training, and sheer devotion to humanity. Nations have become so dependent one upon another for the support of life that war is more than ever madness. Yet so-called educated people are incredulous of social, political, and spiritual developments they may live to see and share. The small group of believers who know must struggle on, bearing steadfast witness to their truth in schools, courts, workshops, offices, and legislatures; and what are they but messengers in their way of Christ's second coming?"
-Helen Keller, Light in My Darkness (1994), revised by Ray Silverman and expanded with excerpts from Helen Keller's speeches, essays and letters; originally published as My Religion (1927), pp. 61-62
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