"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another"
About this Quote
Keller’s sentence doesn’t flatter you with guaranteed outcomes; it disorients the modern obsession with metrics. “When we do the best that we can” is deliberately plain, almost domestic in its modesty, but it’s also a moral dare: make effort your standard, not applause, not proof. The phrase “we never know” is the hinge. It refuses the fantasy that virtue is legible in real time, and it quietly scolds the transactional mindset that asks, What do I get back?
The word “miracle” is doing heavy rhetorical work. Keller isn’t arguing for supernatural intervention so much as reclaiming awe from circumstances designed to shrink it. In her life, “miracle” had a specific provenance: the brutal, painstaking process of communication and education that outsiders mythologized as inspirational spectacle. She knew how easily society turns disability into a parable for able-bodied comfort. Here, she redirects that impulse away from gawking at extraordinary individuals and toward the unseen effects of ordinary persistence and care.
Subtext: impact is often anonymous. The good you do may register later, sideways, in someone else’s life, or not at all in ways you can recognize. That’s not sentimental; it’s a practical ethic for moving through uncertainty. Keller, an author and activist who lived amid wars, industrial exploitation, and entrenched prejudice, writes as someone who understood that progress rarely arrives with a receipt. The line works because it offers motivation without the narcotic of certainty: act anyway, because the consequences exceed your vantage point.
The word “miracle” is doing heavy rhetorical work. Keller isn’t arguing for supernatural intervention so much as reclaiming awe from circumstances designed to shrink it. In her life, “miracle” had a specific provenance: the brutal, painstaking process of communication and education that outsiders mythologized as inspirational spectacle. She knew how easily society turns disability into a parable for able-bodied comfort. Here, she redirects that impulse away from gawking at extraordinary individuals and toward the unseen effects of ordinary persistence and care.
Subtext: impact is often anonymous. The good you do may register later, sideways, in someone else’s life, or not at all in ways you can recognize. That’s not sentimental; it’s a practical ethic for moving through uncertainty. Keller, an author and activist who lived amid wars, industrial exploitation, and entrenched prejudice, writes as someone who understood that progress rarely arrives with a receipt. The line works because it offers motivation without the narcotic of certainty: act anyway, because the consequences exceed your vantage point.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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