davidgagne.net

“I had once believed that we were all masters of our fate – that we could mould our lives into any form we pleased … I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life’s struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about. I forgot that I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment … Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone.”
– from Midstream: My Later Life, by Helen Keller

©1929, 1968; New York: Greenwood

from Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, one of my Christmas gifts from my friend Jason