Disability Rights Quotes & Sayings

It's a lot harder to get people to 'ooh' and 'aah' over beets and carrots than it is to get them to 'ooh' and 'aah' over artichokes or asparagus, and I enjoy being able to take these humble, 'lowbrow' foodstuffs up a few notches and serve them with great exuberance. — Charlie Trotter

There is something ironic in prejudice against the disabled and their families, because their plight might befall anybody. Straight men are unlikely to wake up gay one morning, and white children don't become black; but any of us could be disabled in an instant. People with disabilities make up the largest minority in America; they constitute 15 percent of the population, though only 15 percent of those were born with their disability and about a third are over sixty-five. Worldwide, some 550 million people are disabled. The disability-rights scholar Tobin Siebers has written, The cycle of life runs in actuality from disability to temporary ability back to disablity, and that only if you are among the most fortunate. — Andrew Solomon

I Have a Dream ... someday my son, Zyon and ALL individuals with disabilities will be seen as HUMAN beings.
I Have a Dream ... someday the human & civil rights of individuals with disabilities are honored and they are treated as equals.
I Have a Dream ... someday ALL parents who have children with disabilities see their child as a blessing and not a burden.
I Have a Dream ... someday there will be more jobs and opportunities for individuals with disabilities.
I Have a Dream ... someday there will be UNITY "within" the disabled community.
I HAVE A DREAM!!! — Yvonne Pierre

Trump revealed his powerful secret to conquering financial adversity once, in a meeting to promote another one of his signature, view-eating housing developments: "You know," he said, "what New York really needs - besides this project - is to reduce its debt. And let me tell you - this is something I know - it's easy! You just don't pay!" America — Cintra Wilson

Because of the Civil Rights movement, new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody ... Not just for blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asians and Native Americans; and gay Americans and Americans with a disability. They swung open for you, and they swung open for me. And that's why I'm standing here today-because of those efforts, because of that legacy. — Barack Obama

My handicap? Woods and irons. — Chris Codiroli

I never worked at painting as if it were a job; it was always out of interest or for fun, a desire to try something. — Gerhard Richter

disability rights and to demand full access. Ed Roberts and others at the University of California Berkeley in the 1960s forced the university to admit them, to provide access to classes and other activities, and to provide the support — Julie K. Silver

I believe God's keeping the records, and I believe you will be rewarded even in this life. Somehow, some way, God will make it up to you. It may be He protected you from an accident you never knew. You can't give God something without God giving you more in return, whether it's peace or joy or satisfaction. — Joel Osteen

Whether you're gay or straight, with a physical disability, your skin's a different color, it's absurd in this age to not be aware and be concerned of the inequity in rights. — Carson Kressley

Yooralla, like most disability service organisations, is full of good people who are passionate about the rights of people with disabilities. — Stella Young

This purpose had not been preponderantly to make money
it had been rather to learn something and to do something. To learn something interesting, and to do something useful
this was, roughly speaking, the programme he had sketched, and of which the accident of his wife having an income appeared to him in no degree to modify the validity. — Henry James

Physical access is one of the very first issues disability rights activists of the 1960s and '70s fought for. — Stella Young

Old or young, healthy as a horse or a person with a disability that hasn't kept you down, man or woman, Native American, native born, immigrant, straight or gay - whatever; the test ought to be I believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. I believe in religious liberty. I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in working hard and playing by the rules. I'm showing up for work tomorrow. I'm building that bridge to the 21st century. That ought to be the test. — William J. Clinton

Success is all about having the confidence to shoot for something even if it seems impossible. — Usher

Khairani Barokka is a writer, spoken-word poet, visual artist and performer whose work has a strong vein of activism, particularly around disability, but also how this intersects with, for example, issues of gender - she's campaigned for reproductive rights in her native Indonesian, and is currently studying for a PhD in disability and visual cultures at Goldsmiths. She's written a feminist, environmentalist, anti-colonialist narrative poem, with tactile artwork and a Braille translation. How could I not publish that? — Deborah Smith

In less than a century we experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done? — Holly Near

I've always been extremely lucky in my life. — Omar Sharif

Complexity is acceptable as long as it is intelligible and necessary. We want to avoid needless complications. — Donald A. Norman

Anyway, I suppose in part I'm telling this story now because I want all of you - and I do mean all - to know that I wasn't always a somewhat-overweight woman without an upper lip to her name who can occasionally be found sleeping behind her face and always thinking in her mouth. — Carrie Fisher

There are times in your life when, despite the steel weight of your memories and the sadness that seems to lie at your feet like a shadow, you suddenly and strangely feel perfectly okay. — Kevin Brockmeier

People have said, 'You don't need to do any more biopics. You don't need to play any more real people.' I don't agree with that. — Chadwick Boseman

The workers who harvest our food have been systematically denied the basic rights that are granted to all other American workers. They can be fired for trying to form a union or for attempting to improve their working conditions. They are not eligible for overtime pay, disability, or even unemployment insurance. — Eric Schneiderman

Obey the muse, Liz said. She's a fickle mistress. — Gayle Forman