#Disability Quotes

“My friend Sam has one leg. I went to his house. I couldn't go up the stairs.”

“When your spinal cord freezes up, you're vulnerable to everything. But he [Chrestopher Reese] was tough as nails. And he kept a great, kind of dark sense of humor about it, but also was able to accomplish amazing things.”

“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.”

“Disabled children are equally entitled to an exciting and brilliant future.”

“It is not a question of patronizing philanthropy towards disabled people. They do not need the patronage of the non-disabled. It is not for them to adapt to the dominant and dominating world of the so-called non-disabled. It is for us to adapt our understanding of a common humanity; to learn of the richness of how human life is diverse; to recognize the presence of disability in our human midst as an enrichment of our diversity.”

“Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone.”

“So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me 'arch priestess of the sightless,' 'wonder woman,' and a 'modern miracle.' But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics-that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world-that is a different matter!”

“What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.”

“Museums and art stores are also sources of pleasure and inspiration. Doubtless it will seem strange to many that the hand unaided by sight can feel action, sentiment, beauty in the cold marble; and yet it is true that I derive genuine pleasure from touching great works of art. As my finger tips trace line and curve, they discover the thought and emotion which the artist has portrayed.”

“I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days during their early adult life. Darkness would make them more appreciative of sight; silence would teach them the joys of sound.”

“Blindness is an unfortunate handicap but true vision does not require the eyes.”

“The chief handicap of the blind is not blindness, but the attitude of seeing people towards them.”

“A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to shape his own life.”

“A woman told me her child was autistic, and I thought she said artistic. So I said, 'Oh great. I'd like to see some of the things he's done.”

“The radio ad "Hi, I'm Jeff Healey from the Jeff Healey Band. Don't drink and drive. I don't". Well, I hope you don't drive sober either Mr. Healey. You're blind for God's sake!”

“Every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, which will 'turn the necessity to glorious gain.”

“Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason”