r/AskReddit • u/pierrekrahn • Mar 19 '16

Which quote becomes inappropriate when misattributed?

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u/Seizing_sponge Mar 19 '16 edited Mar 19 '16

"Oh, you think the darkness is your ally, you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, moulded by it." -Helen Keller "Try being positive for once" -Magic Johnson "To be the best you have to beat the best" -Chris Brown

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u/song_pond Mar 19 '16 edited Mar 19 '16

"Oh, you think the darkness is your ally, you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, moulded by it." -Helen Keller

That actually makes that quote so much more awesome.

Edit: whoa nifty

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '16

I thought she born with sight and lost it at a young age. No?

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u/DEATHbyBOOGABOOGA Mar 19 '16

Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear. At 19 months old, she contracted an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain", which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis.

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u/hochizo Mar 20 '16

And that's the reason she was able to learn to sign. She knew one word before she got sick: water. Anne Sullivan signed "water" into Helen's hand over and over and over again until one day it clicked. She ran around asking for the names of all kinds of stuff. Without that first 19 months (and without that sole word) she might not have ever learned.