Quotes & Sayings About Those With Disabilities

Just to see what a pink dress can mean to a woman, any woman, but a disabled woman, that's extra special and thrilling because they shouldn't be separated and their disabilities don't have to separate them in anyway. — Betsey Johnson

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

When Donald Trump says a distinguished judge born in Indiana can't do his job because of his Mexican heritage, or he mocks a reporter with disabilities, or calls women pigs, it goes against everything we stand for. — Hillary Clinton

I still get a lot of letters from kids and parents who face different challenges and disabilities. I share some of the lessons that I learned through sports and baseball, which makes me feel good. It's incredible to have an impact that way. — Jim Abbott

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

A large part of the present anxiety to improve the education of girls and women is also due to the conviction that the political disabilities of women will not be maintained. — Millicent Fawcett

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

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

Owing to the disabilities of the two major sovereigns, one incapacitated by alcohol and the other by insanity, the result was not what it might have been. Renewed madness was already darkening Charles's mind when he arrived and in the brief intervals when he was lucid, Wenceslas was drunk. — Barbara W. Tuchman

WITH GOD YOU CAN TURN YOUR impeaching importunities into optimal opportunities. Frightful frustration into fortifying fortunes. Humble attitudes into higher altitudes .Distress disabilities into affluent abilities. Incalculable incapacity into calibrated capabilities. Protracted poverty into pronounced prosperity. Subtracting adversity into multiplying advantage. Intimidating invalidities into valuable validities. Weeping profession into a winning prowess .worrisome weariness into wholesome health. Multiple miseries into a myriad of treasures. Possessive problems into progressive productivity. Earthly human co-incidence into heavenly divine "God-incidence". — Ikechukwu Joseph

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

When I entered federal parliament at the end of 2007, I was appointed parliamentary secretary for disabilities. — Bill Shorten

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

Only 50 years ago persons with intellectual disabilities were scorned, isolated and neglected. Today, they are able to attend school, become employed and assimilate into their local community. — Nelson Mandela

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

The only true disability is the inability to accept and respect differences. — Tanya Masse

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

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

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

All abilities are paid for with disabilities. perfect health may entail the heavy toll of bovine stupidity. insight into one area involves blind spots in another. i could not have done what i have done as a writer had i been a gifted mathematician or physicist.
honesty wrung out of him by pain, he cried out with a loud voice. — William S. Burroughs

After that, a strange thing happened: Amy couldn't stop her expectations from rising. She imagined herself transformed and beautiful, like Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, with her homemade dress and mysterious lace boots. She pictured her hair in an upsweep of loose curls. In the fantasy, her prom face looked like the one she only wore asleep, loose and relaxed. She imagined a photographer asking her to smile and, for the first time in her life, being able to do it. — Cammie McGovern

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

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

You can't separate me from my upbringing as a child overcoming learning disabilities and having to make my way through that. — Dannel Malloy

Finally, especially in the case of medical-response canines and those that serve handlers with invisible disabilities, it's not merely the necessity of the dog that's questioned but also the existance of the disability itself. And for these partnerships, some of the greatest problems arise. — Susannah Charleson

Prosthetics can fix physical disabilities. But no prosthetic can fix an amputated spirit. So, don't let the society devoid you from your own spirit. Be brave and upright, and delve into even the depth of doom to achieve your goal. — Abhijit Naskar

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

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

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

Senator [Sam] Brownback talked about those with disabilities that are destroyed in the womb because of a genetic test that is sometimes wrong. I would put forward that we all have disabilities. — Tom Coburn

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

There are those who suffer and grow strong; there are those who suffer and grow weak. This mystery of pain is still for me the saddest of earth's disabilities. — Silas Weir Mitchell

most important characteristics of exceptional learners are their abilities, not their disabilities. — Daniel P. Hallahan

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

Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers. — Stella Young

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

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

Ah, afflicted one, your disabilities were meant to unite with God's enablings, your weakness to mate His power. God's grace is at hand -sufficent
and at its best when human weakness is most profound. Appropriate it and learn that those who wait on God are stronger in their weakness than the sons of men in their stoutest health and vigor. — F.B. Meyer

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

As discussed earlier, humans who lack the reflective self-awareness of normal adults, such as those with particular forms of amnesia or very young children or those with certain mental disabilities, still are self-aware and still have an interest in continuing to live. There may, of course, be a difference between the self-awareness of normal adult humans and that of other animals. But even if that is the case, it does not mean that the latter have no interest in continuing to live, and it does not justify treating the latter as commodities. Singer begs the question from the outset by maintaining — Gary L. Francione

Woman has so long been subject to the disabilities and restrictions with which her progress has been embarrassed that she has become enervated, her mind to some extent paralyzed; and like those still more degraded by personal bondage she hugs her chains. — Lucretia Mott

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

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

You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have. — Oscar Pistorius

We all have disabilities. Just some are more visible than others. We all have challenges, we all have obstacles — Amy Purdy

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

The ADA was a landmark civil rights legislation. It was a bill of rights for persons with disabilities, a formal acknowledgement that Americans with disabilities are Americans first and that they're entitled to the same rights and freedoms as everybody else. — Valerie Jarrett

I went to school for special education. I always assumed when I had the opportunity I would love to try and help kids with disabilities. — Clay Aiken

Understanding the intricacies involved in raising someone with a physical or mental challenge for those who have never experienced it is like trying to understand anything foreign; impossible, though definitely worth doing anyway. — Lynette Louise

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

Barring extreme physical and mental disabilities, each and every one of us is where we are today
be it poor or wealthy, happy or sad, on the streets or in a condo, in a Mercedes or a rusted-out Pinto
because of the choices we have made during our lives. It's the choices we have made that put us where we are, not the choices others have made for us. — Neal Boortz

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

The only way to ensure that our promise to provide every opportunity for students with disabilities, and help them achieve their full potential, is to give our schools the dollars they need. — Gordon Smith

Unless they have disabilities to cope with, no family should get more from living on benefits than the average family gets from going out to work. No more open-ended chequebook. — George Osborne

In evaluating ourselves, we tend to be long on our weaknesses and short on our strengths. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

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

There are hundreds of ways we accommodate physical disabilities - or at least understand them. We get angry when people fail to recognize the need for thoughtful and compassionate assistance when it comes to the physically disabled, but because mental disabilities aren't visible in the same way, we tend to be dismissive of the needs of the disabled and quick to judge their deficits and failures. — Bryan Stevenson

Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone. — Donald Norman

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 suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that, being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked. — Dorothea Brande

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

Let me be clear - I want all Louisiana citizens to have choice - including the elderly and persons with disabilities - and their families - who rely on the state for their care. — Kathleen Blanco

I had learning disabilities, and I couldn't express myself in the written word. — Laura Linney

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

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

I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place. — Chuck Close

Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause, which secures us from the possibility of such oppression. — Oliver Wolcott

Through the 'It's About Ability' campaign and with parents and other members of society, we have created a social family for children with disabilities. — Igor Luksic