Fact Check: Helen Keller Said, 'Never Bend Your Head. Always Hold It High. Look the World Straight in the Eye'?

Claim:

Helen Keller said, “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”

Rating:

Mostly True ( About this rating? )

Context:

The 1955 newspaper article in which the quote was originally published confirms the authenticity of most of the quote, with one notable exception: The final word was "face," not "eye."

For years, social media posts have shared a quote attributed to author and disability rights activist Helen Keller that reads, "Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye."

(X user @EriscoOfficial)

The quote has popped up frequently on social media sites, including on X in March 2024. It also has appeared in blogs , on quote meme websites and on Reddit . In some instances , commenters have questioned the authenticity of the quote, noting the apparent irony of Keller, who was blind and deaf, advising anyone to "look the world straight in the eye."

(Reddit)

Snopes was able to track down the first appearance of the quote in print to an Associated Press news wire story dated May 30, 1955. The story was printed in many newspapers, including the Opelika-Auburn (Alabama) News, the specific paper in which the clipping below appeared:

(Newspapers.com)

The story gives a heartwarming account of a blind 5-year-old girl, the daughter of an American army major stationed in Japan, meeting Keller, who visited Tokyo in 1955. According to the story, Keller, then 75, shared some words of advice with the girl, Dorothy Ann Ciccoli: "Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face."

This newspaper story confirms the authenticity of most of the quote, with one notable exception: The final word of the quote in its original form was "face," not "eye." For this reason, we have rated this claim as "Mostly True."

Even though it contains an error, the version of the quote that ends with "Look the world straight in the eye" has become the more commonly quoted version by far, although the correct version ending with "Look the world straight in the face" does pop up from time to time on Reddit , Facebook and elsewhere on the internet.

Based on full-text searches in the databases of the Internet Archive and Google Books , the earliest confirmed appearance of the incorrect "eye" version of the quote appears to have been "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations," a quote anthology first published in 1988. Since then, the "eye" version has worked its way into a number of other quote anthologies, self-help books and even books about Keller.

Snopes previously investigated whether Keller ever flew a plane.

Sources:

Dapcevich, Madison. "Did Helen Keller Fly a Plane?" Snopes , 26 Dec. 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/helen-keller-fly-plane/ .

Newspapers.com, The Opelika-Auburn News, May 30, 1955, https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/article/the-opelika-auburn-news/151061083/

philosiblog. "Never Bend Your Head. Always Hold It High. Look the World Straight in the Eye." Philosiblog , 10 Jan. 2013, https://philosiblog.com/2013/01/10/never-bend-your-head-always-hold-it-high-look-the-world-straight-in-the-eye/ .

Reiman, Cindi. Soft Skills For Dummies . John Wiley & Sons, 2022.

Schedule for Helen Keller's Visit to Japan. 1955 . https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-02-B042-F13-026 . Accessed 10 July 2024.

Simpson, James Beasley. Simpson's Contemporary Quotations . Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Internet Archive , http://archive.org/details/simpsonscontempo0000simp .

Sullivan, George. Helen Keller : Her Life in Pictures . New York : Scholastic Nonfiction, 2007. Internet Archive , http://archive.org/details/helenkellerherli00sull .

Turkington, Carol. The Quotable Woman : Words of Wisdom from Mother Teresa, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Eleanor Roosevelt, Katharine Hepburn, and More . New York : McGraw-Hill, 2000. Internet Archive , http://archive.org/details/quotablewomanwor0000turk .