People With Disabilities Quotes & Sayings

The Just Therapy Team's discussions involved an outline of how othered marginalized groups desired a genuine alternative therapeutic dialogue. Marginalized groups (e.g., women, people of color, persons living in poverty, and persons struggling with mental health issues, disabilities) no longer wanted to be dictated to or told who they actually were as persons, as defined by the dominant class of Western psychological thinking (T. K. Tamasese and C. Waldegrave, personal communication, 1991, 1996, 2004, 2008). — Stephen Madigan

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

Thanks to the ongoing support of the Government of Ontario, RHF, in partnership with the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, has galvanized Ontario's best researchers, clinicians and scientists to accelerate the translation of the most promising research into practical solutions. This commitment enables the ongoing leveraging of federal, provincial and private sector funds to allow Canadian SCI researchers to embark on a national and global collective journey towards making a difference in the lives of people with spinal cord injury and other disabilities. — Rick Hansen

They told me that the hotels had maybe two rooms set up for people with disabilities, but if they got there too late, and didn't get one of these rooms, they couldn't take a shower. The room wasn't hooked up for them, or maybe the sink was too high. — Gregory Hines

I want to do theater and I am looking forward to doing more Television and Movies. I also want to direct some plays in theater workshops for people with disabilities. — Chris Burke

People with disabilities want to be recognised for what they can do, not what they can't do. — Karni Liddell

Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities. — Fred Rogers

Then she told me that the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing "people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional-support pony on airlines." So basically I could bring a goddamn pony on board with me. I'm pretty sure a pony wouldn't fit under my seat or in my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me while I braided his mane. — Jenny Lawson

Sergey and I founded Google because we're super optimisitc about the potential for technology to make the world a better place. Think about how many people are underserved by transportation today, like those with disabilities, and how self driving cars will transform their lives. Or the wasted time you sit in your car every day commuting to and from work. Or the deaths and injuries that could be avoided. — Larry Page

Treatment for people with disabilities and mental illness in prewar America reveals a profoundly ignorant medical establishment and educational community. — Kate Clifford Larson

Those who are weak have great difficulty finding their place in our society. The image of the ideal human as powerful and capable disenfranchises the old, the sick, the less-abled. For me, society must, by definition, be inclusive of the needs and gifts of all its members. How can we lay claim to making an open and friendly society where human rights are respected and fostered when, by the values we teach and foster, we systematically exclude segments of our population? I believe that those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us. When we do include them, they add richly to our lives and add immensely to our world. — Jean Vanier

We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort. — Stella Young

Attacking People With Disabilities is the Lowest Display of Power I Can Think Of — Morgan Freeman

Disability scholars Andrienne Asch and Erik Parens, in their seminal discussion of the problem, wrote,'Pre-natal diagnosis reinforces the medical model that disability itself, not societal discrimination against people with disabilities, is the problem to be solved. — Andrew Solomon

Families who lovingly accept the difficult trial of a child with special needs are greatly to be admired. They render the Church and society an invaluable witness of faithfulness to the gift of life. In these situations, the family can discover, together with the Christian community, new approaches, new ways of acting, a different way of understanding and identifying with others, by welcoming and caring for the mystery of the frailty of human life. People with disabilities are a gift for the family and an opportunity to grow in love, mutual aid and unity ... If the family, in the light of the faith, accepts the presence of persons with special needs, they will be able to recognize and ensure the quality and value of every human life, with its proper needs, rights and opportunities. — Pope Francis

The problem for many people with disabilities is not that we are not able to work a certain number of hours a week. It's that no-one will let us. — Stella Young

There are lots of people with mental health disabilities, and that's just the way their life is; it's not like you see it in the movies. — Andy Behrman

Despite our founding principles and the many ways our constitution has protected individual liberties, we do, let's admit it, have a long history of shutting people out
african americans, women, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities
and throughout our history, we have found too many ways to divide and exclude people from their ownership of the law and protection under the law. — Hillary Clinton

New information and communications technologies can improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, but only if such technologies are designed from the beginning so that everyone can use them. Given the explosive growth in the use of the World Wide Web for publishing, electronic commerce, lifelong learning and the delivery of government services, it is vital that the Web be accessible to everyone. — William J. Clinton

A good government is one with a duty to help everyone, to maximise his or her potential: Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and our forgotten families.We will not leave anyone behind. — Warren Mundine

It's not a disability, it's life. We are complicated creatures with larger matters on our plate than tip calculation. I grew up watching TV with my mother while she diagnosed the characters as having hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder. I rolled my eyes and wondered why there weren't any stupid kids anymore. Why did there have to be something to explain everyone? Were the cave people on Ritalin? I didn't think so. — Sloane Crosley

People with disabilities are sometimes very humble and approachable, if you want a seasoned reputation, then behave like one of the handicaps. — Michael Bassey Johnson

It feels amazing to be a role model for people with and without disabilities. — Lauren Potter

I was always interested in working with people with disabilities, and in high school I worked with people who had Down Syndrome. That was for an agency called AHRC, Association for the Help of Retarded Children. Then I went to college, and throughout college I volunteered for AHRC. — Meredith Eaton

Respectfully, the civil rights movement for people with disabilities is modeled on the African American civil rights movement. I'm old enough to remember 1964. I was a junior in high school. — Robert David Hall

Disabled people need more invested in their education, housing, job training, transportation, assistive technology, and independent-living facilities. Governments earn back this investment - and more - by making people with disabilities economically productive citizens. — Jesse Ventura

I think you have to take the man at his word. [Donald Trump] is kind of an equal-opportunity insulter. He started by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. He moved on to denigrating John McCain's heroism during the Vietnam War. He has gone after people with disabilities. He has said Muslims should be kept out of our country. He certainly has gone after individual women in the media, in the political arena. — Hillary Clinton

I am on the International Board of Best Buddies, and I am also working with Special Olympics, and with The Arc to help people with disabilities become more independent and more included in their communities. — Lauren Potter

We have a responsibility as a state to protect our most vulnerable citizens: our children, seniors, people with disabilities. That is our moral obligation. But there is an economic justification too - we all pay when the basic needs of our citizens are unmet. — John Lynch

People with disabilities are still whole. They're just whole differently. — Leta Blake

Social justice is for everyone, including people with disabilities. — Marlee Matlin

It is difficult to exaggerate the adverse influence of the precepts and practices of religion upon the status and happiness of woman. Owing to the fact that upon women devolves the burden of motherhood, with all its accompanying disabilities, they always have been, and always must be, at a natural disadvantage in the struggle of life as compared with men ...
With certain exceptions, women all the world over have been relegated to a position of inferiority in the community, greater or less according to the religion and the social organisation of the people; the more religious the people the lower the status of the women ... — Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner

People with disabilities deserve the chance to build a life for themselves in the communities where they choose to live. — Barack Obama

As the mother of a son with disabilities, I try to keep an eye out for news that affects people in the large community of which he is a part. — Judy Woodruff

It remains to be seen the extent to which the critical needs of seniors in low income high rises, people with home medical needs and those with disabilities have been adequately planned for and met during widespread power outages. I fear the answers. — Sheri Fink

In fact, sometimes I was sure that the reason people stared at you with your crutches and wheelchair had nothing to do with your disabilities, and everything to do with the fact that you had abilities that they only dreamed of. — Jodi Picoult

The state does not oppose the freedom of people to express their particular cultural attachments, but nor does it nurture such expression - rather [ ... ] it responds with 'benign neglect' [ ... ] The members of ethnic and national groups are protected against discrimination and prejudice, and they are free to maintain whatever part of their ethnic heritage or identity they wish, consistent with the rights of others. But their efforts are purely private, and it is not the place of public agencies to attach legal identities or disabilities to cultural membership or ethnic identity. This separation of state and ethnicity precludes any legal or governmental recognition of ethnic groups, or any use of ethnic criteria in the distribution of rights, resources, and duties. — Will Kymlicka

The passion for such children contains no ego motive of anticipated reciprocity; one is choosing against, in the poet Richard Wilbur's phrase, 'loving things for reasons'. You find beauty and hope in the existence, rather than the achievements, of such a child. Most parenthood entails some struggle to change, educate and improve one's children; people with multiple severe disabilities may not become anything else, and there is a compelling purity in parental engagement not with what might or should or will be, but with, simply, what is. — Andrew Solomon

Newter, do you know what a devotee is?"

Newter shook his head.

"It is a slang term for someone who is attracted to people with disabilities, because of the disability. I think it is about power, attraction to someone because they are weak somehow. I think it likely that this Laura sees me as weak because of the way I look, the way I may have trouble day to day, and this is compelling to her in a similar way to how a cripple or a blind man might be to a devotee. This does not appeal to me. — Wildbow

Outside of school, though, we were often defined by our disabilities. We were "handicapped" - a bit like a species. Often when people have a disability, it's the disability that other people see rather than all the other abilities that coexist with their particular difficulty. It's why we talk about people being "disabled" rather than "having a disability." One of the reasons that people are branded by their disability is that the dominant conception of ability is so narrow. But the limitations of this conception affect everyone in education, not just those with "special needs." These days, anyone whose real strengths lie outside the restricted field of academic work can find being at school a dispiriting experience and emerge from it wondering if they have any significant aptitudes at all. — Ken Robinson

It was the best route to get folks to understand segregation fast. Civil rights and women's rights had a clear history. Making the transition to rights for people with disabilities became easier because we had the history of the other two. — Major Owens

In wheelchair sports, people thought athletes with disabilities were courageous and inspirational. They never give them credit for simply being competitive. — Jean Driscoll

People with disabilities have abilities too and that is what this course is all about - making sure those abilities blossom and shine so that all the dreams you have can come true. — Mary McAleese

You can be sure that I will always consider how changes to Social Security will impact people with disabilities when considering the various proposals offered for reform. — Steve Israel

The whole community of people with disabilities was alive, politically alive. I give Justin Dart credit for that. He traveled to every state in the country. He really made people with disabilities understand that they had some political power. — Major Owens

My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that's different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses "below" you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.
Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.
Reach your arm out and put it around them.
And then, tell them they're all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them.
If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that's where we're gonna be able to do it. That's where we'll start.
Every. Single. Time. — Dan Pearce

My life goal is to see the world's one billion people with disabilities embraced and encouraged by the church. — Joni Eareckson Tada

widespread. Some states go so far as to forcibly sterilize people with certain disabilities. Some prohibit marriage for the genetically disabled, for fear of procreating hereditary conditions like mine. Visibly disabled people are actually barred from appearing in public in cities such as Columbus, Ohio - Dad's hometown - until 1972, and Chicago until 1974, under what are collectively called the "ugly" laws because they target anyone perceived as unattractive, for being a disturbance of the peace. The movement to change all this and more is rising in discrete pockets all over, inspired by Black civil rights. Closer to — Ben Mattlin

Without being overtly political about it, if people with severe disabilities are calculated in societal terms purely as a monetised unit, in terms of how much they cost in terms of care, you lose an important sense of who they are and the effect they have. — Rory Kinnear

The President's proposed privatization plan would jeopardize that security by cutting guaranteed benefits for future retirees and endangering the benefits of current retirees, people with disabilities, and children who have lost a parent. — Chaka Fattah

poverty and powerlessness are cornerstones of the dependency people with disabilities experience. — James I. Charlton

Self esteem and a healthy body image for people with disabilities are so often hard-fought. — Stella Young

A lot of roles for people with disabilities are quite patronising. It's a real pity when they are just used to give dull PC kudos to a drama, or when they're wheeled on in a tokenistic way without any real involvement in the plot. — Mark Haddon

I was young and physically fit and I struggled here, so I had a deep respect for the older people, and those with disabilities, who returned class after class in spite of their pain and their physical limitations. — Edward Burke

I've got the best job in the world; I love it. I get to meet so many interesting people, and I get to make sure that other people with disabilities can tell their own stories as well. — Stella Young

People with disabilities are the largest minority in the world, and we are the most underrepresented in entertainment. — Maysoon Zayid

Currently, more than 4.7 million African Americans receive Social Security benefits, and nearly 8 million people with disabilities depend on Social Security for their daily sustenance. — Chaka Fattah

Believe me, people with disabilities are just as concerned about benefit fraud as anyone else. Money spent on those who are not in need is money that isn't being spent on vital services to support us in the community. — Stella Young

Being deaf is not a weakness or it shouldn't be seen as one and that's what I wanted to get across that day. It's still what I want people to see. It's the same thing with the special needs kids. They are no different than I am, than anyone is really. Just because they might act in ways that 'normal' people don't or experience life in a different way, it doesn't make them wrong or less than anyone else. We're not weak or what's wrong with the world. — Melyssa Winchester

Many people with physical disabilities have romantic lives and good marriages to partners who see past their disabilities and recognize all of the things they can do. — Jeanne Phillips

Like all good citizens, the elderly and people with disabilities want to eradicate waste and fraud from government, but helping people with special needs meet their basic needs doesn't fit this description. — Joni Eareckson Tada

disabilities. In colonial America, the settlement of a vast new rural society meant that early colonists put a premium on physical stamina. The early colonies tried to prevent the immigration of those who could not support themselves and would have to rely on state help. People with physical or mental disabilities who were potentially dependent could be deported, forced to return to England. — Joseph P. Shapiro

You have to give access to people with disabilities but there is no requirement to hire them. What I mean by affirmative obligation is that producers must take the necessary steps to include opportunities for people with disabilities and a vast majority of them do. — Richard Masur

We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect. — Stella Young

There's a kind of sick security some people get out of keeping away from people with disabilities. They are running away from any situation that's not totally pure and all-American and that requires them to do any thinking. — Major Owens

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

Know me for my abilities, not my disability. — Robert M. Hensel

People with disabilities are simply part of diverse communities in the U.S. — Stella Young

If you support diversity and think shows should give a portrayal of what America truly looks like, then performers with disabilities must be included in that equation ... People have been very good at being politically correct. — Robert David Hall

People with disabilities not only need to be given lives, they need to be given lives worth living. (paraphrased, not a direct quote)) — Helen Keller

Don't call us people with disabilities ... we have DIFFabilities! — Edward Barbanell

I will work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve the Social Security promise that provides secure retirement benefits for all, especially those who are most at risk such as widows, orphans, and people with disabilities when the need arises. — Chaka Fattah

I make films about people with disabilities as well and I think this question is more relevant in regards to these documentaries where the actual person appears on film. I know these people are proud of who they are and what they are doing with their lives. — Arthur Bradford

I've gained first hand knowledge of the challenges faced by people with disabilities. It's made me understand that those of us who have full use of our physical faculties owe an enormous amount of respect and sensitivity to people who don't. — William J. Clinton

I was recently appointed by President Obama to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. I am so excited that the President trusts me to advise him on things that are important to people with disabilities! — Lauren Potter

Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us — Jean Vanier

For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud. — Stella Young

The laws that protect women and minorities and people with disabilities, among others, from discrimination are essential, and I am not suggesting they be circumvented. But I have also witnessed firsthand how they can have a chilling effect on discourse, sometimes even to the detriment of the people they are designed to defend. — Sheryl Sandberg

People with developmental disabilities and mental illness are only handicapped by how much we underestimate them. — Donna Kirk

People presume my disability has to do with being an amputee, but that's not the case; our insecurities are our disabilities, and I struggle with those as does everyone. — Aimee Mullins