Quotes about disability (133 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“All sort of boundaries, be their gender, age, socio-economic status, physical or mental disabilities have to be eliminated.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Education for All People and Education for Life

Age

“The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy… What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

People , Fools , Communication , Laughter

“Somewhere, the deepest desire for us all is to be appreciated, to be loved, to be seen as somebody of value. But not just seen — and Aristotle makes a difference between being admired and being loved. When you admire people, you put them on pedestals. When you love people, you want to be together. So really, the first meeting I had with people with disabilities, what touched me was their cry for relationship.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009
From interviews and talks

Love , People , Cry

“More than two millennia later…. Hawthorne puts forward a similar vision: A woman must bring the 'new truth…. in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness' (The Scarlet Letter p.241)…. With the brilliant economy of the letter A, he demonstrates why this vision is doomed to failure. The very passion that renders a woman able to see through the "iron framework" of Puritanism also disables her by causing her to be seen in the eyes of the Puritans as an impure woman, a woman who has been adulterated. This double vision… at once frees and imprisons women.”

Carol Gilligan (1936) American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist

Women , Truth , Failure , Passion

“His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

Life , Sense

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer … It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

World , Fear , Dreams , Hope

“No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)

Men

“And it is here under this oak where Evangeline waited for her lover, Gabriel, who never came. This oak is an immortal spot, made so by Longfellow's poem, but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here in disappointment.
Where are the schools that you have waited for your children to have, that have never come? Where are the roads and the highways that you send your money to build, that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institutions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bitter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted through only one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here!”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Speech given during the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 40.

Money , Children , School , Disappointment

“It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

As quoted in "Return of the time lord" in The Guardian (27 September 2005)

Life , People , Time

“Because I want this chamber, I want this city to reflect the truth -- that for all our blind spots and shortcomings, we are a people with the strength and generosity of spirit to bridge divides, to unite in common effort, to help our neighbors, whether down the street or on the other side of the world. I want our actions to tell every child in every neighborhood, your life matters, and we are committed to improving your life chances as committed as we are to working on behalf of our own kids. I want future generations to know that we are a people who see our differences as a great gift, that we’re a people who value the dignity and worth of every citizen -- man and woman, young and old, black and white, Latino, Asian, immigrant, Native American, gay, straight, Americans with mental illness or physical disability. Everybody matters. I want them to grow up in a country that shows the world what we still know to be true: that we are still more than a collection of red states and blue states; that we are the United States of America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, State of the Union Address (January 2015)

Life , People , Truth , World

“And because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed. Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed. Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed, and Congress changed, and, yes, eventually, the White House changed. Because they marched, America became more free and more fair -- not just for African Americans, but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims; for gays, for Americans with a disability. America changed for you and for me. and the entire world drew strength from that example, whether the young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)

Life , Women , People , World

“I’ve rejoiced with you and mourned with you, what I have also seen, more than anything, is what is right with America. I see people working hard and starting businesses. I see people teaching kids and serving our country. I see engineers inventing stuff, doctors coming up with new cures. I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas, not constrained by what is, ready to seize what ought to be.
And most of all, I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together — black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance, under the same proud flag, to this big, bold country that we love. That's what I see. That's the America I know!”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, DNC Address (July 2016)

Love , Women , Men , People

“It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of civilisation will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest.
But whatever the position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result will henceforward lie between nature and him. The white man may wash his hands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the real justification for the abolition policy.
The doctrine of equal natural rights may be an illogical delusion; emancipation may convert the slave from a well-fed animal into a pauperised man; mankind may even have to do without cotton-shirts; but all these evils must be faced if the moral law, that no human being can arbitrarily dominate over another without grievous damage to his own nature, be, as many think, as readily demonstrable by experiment as any physical truth. If this be true, no slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/B&W.html, later published in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1871) Comments accepting many racist and sexist assumptions made in the context of rejecting oppressions based on racist and sexist arguments. More information is available at the Talk Origins Archive http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005_3.html
1860s

Men , Truth , Lie , Law

“America, I believe we can build on the progress we've made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try. I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America. And together with your help and God's grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Re-election Speech (November 2012)

Love , God , World , Idea

“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Handicapped People and Science" http://books.google.com/books?id=9LVFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22handicapped+people+and+science%22#search_anchor by Stephen Hawking, Science Digest 92, No. 9 (September 1984): 92 (details of citation from here http://www.enotes.com/stephen-hawking-criticism/hawking-stephen/further-reading).

Children , People , World , Way

“I believe that disabled people should concentrate on things that their handicap doesn’t prevent them from doing and not regret those they can’t do … I visited the Soviet Union seven times. The first time I went with a student party in which one member, a Baptist, wished to distribute Russian-language Bibles and asked us to smuggle them in. We managed this undetected, but by the time we were on our way out the authorities had discovered what we had done and detained us for a while. However, to charge us with smuggling Bibles would have caused an international incident and unfavorable publicity, so they let us go after a few hours.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/09/stephen-hawking-detained-in-russia-for-bible-smuggling/

People , Way , Time

“An often narcissistic and utilitarian vision, unfortunately, leads not a few to consider persons with disabilities as marginal, without grasping their manifold human and spiritual richness”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to Participants in the Conference Organized by the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, Clementine Hall, Saturday, 21 October 2017. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/october/documents/papa-francesco_20171021_convegno-pcpne.html
2010s, 2017
Context: We recognize the great development there has been over the course of recent decades with regard to disability. Greater awareness of the dignity of each person, especially of the weakest, has led to the espousal of courageous positions for the inclusion of those who live with various forms of handicap, so that no one should feel like a stranger in his own home. Yet, at the cultural level, through a prevailing false understanding of life, expressions that harm the dignity of these persons still persist.
An often narcissistic and utilitarian vision, unfortunately, leads not a few to consider persons with disabilities as marginal, without grasping their manifold human and spiritual richness. In the common mind-set, there is still too strong an attitude of rejection of this condition, as if it prevents one from achieving happiness and self-fulfilment. It is demonstrated by the eugenic trend of ending the lives of the unborn who show some form of imperfection.
In reality, we all know many people who, despite even serious fragility, have found, albeit with difficulty, the path of a good life, rich with meaning. Likewise, on the other hand, we know people who are seemingly perfect, yet they despair! After all, it is a perilous deception to think we are invulnerable. As said by a girl whom I met on my recent journey to Colombia: vulnerability is intrinsic to the essential nature of mankind.
The answer is love: not that false, saccharine and sanctimonious love, but that which is true, concrete and respectful.

Personality

“Grown men, otherwise daring, capable and virile men of accomplishment frequently find themselves terrorized and terrified by ridiculous accusations of bias or impropriety cast by spoon-fed students, indignant sluts, disabled lesbians, bipolar transsexuals, illegal immigrants and the morbidly obese. In the space of a few hundred years, the noble morality of the sovereign has been exchanged for the ignoble morality of the squeaky wheel.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

pg 42
A More Complete Beast (2018)

Men

“I can try to disable it," I said, "but if I mess up, this whole apartment is going to fill with gas. We'll die."

Thalia swallowed. " I trust you. Just… don't mess it up.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

“My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Until Dark

Source: Dead Until Dark

Women , Family

“Unfortunately, my army consists of one unreliable criminal, one girl with a
disability, and one incredibly foolish young vampire with a tanning issue. I am not confident.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

Confidence , Girl

“Did you take Joyce's engine?'
'My instructions were to disable the car, but one of the men bet Hal a burger he couldn't get the engine out. So Hal removed the engine.”

Janet Evanovich book Lean Mean Thirteen

Source: Lean Mean Thirteen

Men , Cars

“Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 48

Health , Soul

“Here's the clear "science:"When the male sperm and female egg join, a new and unique life form is created. At conception. Not at birth or viability, or when a lawyer says so. At conception this happens. John McCain got it right; Obama pled less scientific knowledge than a 5th grader.This life is either human or something else. Science irrefutably would declare that the life which is starting from that moment is human. It's not a stalk of broccoli, it's not a parrot, squirrel, or dolphin. It will never become a tree—it can only become a human. It has the entire DNA schedule that it will have for the rest of its life right then. In days it will begin to take on increasingly observable human characteristics and form, but at conception, it is biologically human.If this life is human, then the only issue left is whether this human life falls under the notion that it has a fundamental right of existence or not. If not, it is because we as a culture have decided that some human lives are simply not worth living. If we can decide that about an innocent and unborn baby, we can also decide it on the basis of less absolute criteria than that. If we make that choice (and this is all about "CHOICE," isn’t it?) then someone may decide that a terminally ill person is not a life worth living. Maybe a severely disabled child is a life not worth living; what about a person with a limited IQ? Say that's absurd—that an educated and enlightened society would never be so audacious as to begin to terminate life based on such arbitrary excuses? Maybe you haven't studied Nazi Germany, in which the murder of six million Jews was justified because of their religion and millions of others were murdered because of their politics. Germany was not a primitive, superstitious culture. It was one filled with the intelligentsia and enlightened.This is an important issue. It's why we can't trust Obama with America's future because he's not even sure which Americans are worth saving and which ones aren't. And it's why that for many of us, McCain's selection of a running mate really does matter. Because John McCain clearly is pro life, I will support and vote for him because Obama is not an option for me as a pro life person. I will be disappointed if McCain doesn't pick a true pro life person and realize that should that happen, he will lose many of the very people who supported me. I cannot expect all of you to vote for McCain if he chooses someone whose record isn't pro life. It will be a less than perfect decision for all of us—our only real choices are McCain and Obama; one will protect life and one won't. Some will argue for a 3rd party candidate and I respect that, but in political realities, that is essentially a vote for Obama and I can't go there.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

A Message from the Governor
HuckPAC
2008-08-23
http://www.huckpac.com/?Fuseaction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=1848&CommentPage=5
2011-03-01

Life , People , Education , Religion

“Artsakh cannot be a part of Azerbaijan…if like in 1997 they want to become a friend of Azerbaijan on the price of Nagorno-Karabakh, I do not agree with that. In that case, what answer can we give to the families of victims of the Karabakh movement and to those who have become disabled. Why did their sons fight? And about Turkey, we cannot leave the word genocide out of our vocabulary and forget about the 1.5 million victims.”

Mikael Harutyunyan (1946) Armenian general

Quoted in "MINISTER: ARTSAKH CANNOT BE PART OF AZERBAIJAN" Panorama.am - [February 15, 2008]

Family , Fight , Parting , Forgetting

“It would be a mistake to think…that by what we are doing tonight we are giving a vote of confidence or congratulation to homosexuality. Those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of loneliness, guilt and shame. The crucial question, which we are nearly at the end of answering decisively, is, should we add to those disadvantages the full rigour of the criminal law? By its overwhelming decisions, the House has given a fairly clear answer, and I hope that the Bill will now make rapid progress towards the Statute Book. It will be an important and civilising Measure.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1967/jul/03/clause-8-restrictions-on-prosecution in the House of Commons in favour of the Bill decriminalising homosexuality (3 July 1967).
1960s

Books , Law , Hope , Confidence

“A soul which is truly in earnest is not above disabling the body to discourage dangerous competition.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 81

Soul

“This, then, is the gain of the Good Fight in this war, first, that the nation has attained a living consciousness of its inevitable unity, second, that it has proved its enormous power, and third, that in the terrible struggle it has used that united power for, and not against, equal rights. And the spirit of caste which it has disabled it will now utterly destroy. For the Good Fight is not a crusade against a section or a State, but against caste everywhere in the country. This is now entrenched in the bitter prejudice against the colored race, which is as inhuman and unmanly as the old hatred and contempt of Christendom for the Jews. Lifting their heads from bloody defeat in the field, the wan and wasted States of the South say in terms caste must be maintained, and by every kind of vagrant law and hostile legislation they will try to maintain it.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Hostility , War , Law , Color

“Akbar was the first emperor to abolish Jizyah with one stroke of pen, along with all its associations and implications, including the distinction of Muslim and Dhimmî into the bargain. His son and grandson followed his example in regard to Jizyah, generally speaking, but reimposed upon the Hindus all the other restrictions and disabilities suffered by them before.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

Jizyah and the spread of Islam, 1990, chapter 3.

Suffering

“I was officially advised that during the long vacation it might be profitable to attain at least a nodding acquaintance with the curriculum, and thus stave off the already likely possibility that I would receive a degree classified so low it would be tantamount to a certificate of mental disability.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Source: Memoirs, May Week Was in June (1990), p. 45

“The claims of the most backward sections like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who have suffered neglect and have hard to endure disabilities for many centuries. It would be my proud privilege to work for the establishment of a more just social order.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) The second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party

Untouchability

Suffering

“There was a discussion in one of Polish TV stations. In that discussion, I told that mountaineering causes much more disasters than marijuana does. I do not know anyone who would die by marijuana, and some of my mountaineers friends paid off their passion in disability. But the presenter had a prepared punch line – she said that 85 percent of Poles are against the legalization of marijuana. I added then that in the eighteenth century, 96 percent of Poles were for smoking witches. Unfortunately, my punch line was cut out. And in this simple way, the media demonize the problem.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulani, Jerzy (18 October 2010): Nawet czarownice wiedziały, co sprzedają https://dziennikpolski24.pl/nawet-czarownice-wiedzialy-co-sprzedaja/ar/2867902, interview. Dziennik Polski (in Polish).

Way , Mountain , Problem , Passion

“As we have seen, the explicit part of the circular issued by the West Bengal government in 1989 in effect was that there must be no negative reference to Islamic rule in India. Although these were the very things which contemporary Islamic writers had celebrated, there must be no reference to the destruction of the temples by Muslim rulers, to the forcible conversion of Hindus, to the numerous other disabilities which were placed on the Hindu population. Along with the circular, the passages which had to be removed were listed and substitute passages were specified. The passages which were ordered to be deleted contained, if anything, a gross understatement of the facts. On the other hand, passages which were sought to be inserted contained total falsehoods: that by paying jizyah Hindus could lead ‘normal lives’ under an Islamic ruler like Alauddin Khalji! A closer study of the textbooks which are today being used under the authority of the West Bengal government shows a much more comprehensive, a much deeper design than that of merely erasing the cruelties of Islamic rule.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud

Study , Parting

“We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child — that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a woman in Little Rock is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Hunger , Pain , School , Family

“Robert Siegel: You've said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone, and that the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an overreach by the federal government. Would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?Rand Paul: What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.Robert Siegel: But are you saying that had you been around at the time, you would have hoped that you would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?Rand Paul: Well, actually, I think it's confusing on a lot of cases with what actually was in the civil rights case because, see, a lot of the things that actually were in the bill, I'm in favor of. I'm in favor of everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the civil rights. And to tell you the truth, I haven't really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue in the campaign, on whether we're going to vote for the Civil Rights Act.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Rand Paul Says He Has A Tea Party 'Mandate'
All Things Considered
National Public Radio
2010-05-19
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126985068

Truth , Hope , Courage , Business

“Trump (Donald) denied knowing that Serge (Kovaleski) was disabled, and demanded an apology, saying that anyone could see his imitation was of a flustered, frightened reporter, not a disabled person. It’s true that Trump was not mimicking any mannerisms that Serge has. He doesn’t jerk around or flail his arms. He’s not retarded. He sits calmly, but if you look at his wrists, you’ll see they are curved in. That’s not the imitation Trump was doing—he was doing a standard retard, waving his arms and sounding stupid: “’Ahhh, I don’t know what I said—ahhh, I don’t remember!’ He’s going, ‘Ahhh, I don’t remember, maybe that’s what I said!’””

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2016, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)

Stupidity , Jerk , Personality

“Service, and the learning that goes with it, fosters citizenship, knowledge, and personal development in everyone, young and old, with disabilities and without. Our partnership with Youth Service America will bring awareness to the fact that youth with disabilities are great assets and can serve as volunteers too.”

Clay Aiken (1978) singer-songwriter, actor, record producer

—U.S. Newswire
On Charity
Source: U.S. Newswire, Youth Service America press release, 3/24/2005 1:07:00 PM http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=44826 retrieved April 16, 2006

Youth , Knowledge , Learning , Personality

“Our national goals involve leap-frogging from a state of economic backwardness and social disabilities attempting to achieve in a few decades a change which has incidentally taken centuries in other countries and in other lands. This involves innovative at all levels.”

Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) (1919-1971), Indian physicist

In the post-Nehru era with his vision on “Television and Development” quoted in [Joshi, Puran Chandra, Communication and National Development, http://books.google.com/books?id=re46IrFLtQ8C&pg=PR25, 1 January 2002, Anamika Publishers & Distributors, 978-81-7975-013-1, xxv]page xxv.

Change , Country

“I believe as a society we have to evolve, through experimentation, a system which combines the principles of individual freedom and common ownership. And this is what we have tried, basically with success, in all our projects, involving leprosy patients, tribal people and the so-called 'disabled' persons.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

On Community living
Baba Amte's Words of Wisdom

People , Freedom , Success , Personality

“When we free ourselves from physical disabilities, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions, we open the gates to our soul.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 22-23

Soul

“I grew up victim to a disabling confusion. As I grew fluent in English, I no longer could speak Spanish with confidence.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

Confidence

“So David outside of gay and lesbian issues, first of all no one should get fired because they are gay or lesbian period. But when you set these laws up my experience with these laws are you create a protected class. And I speak as someone who started a one man handyman business in Albuquerque in 1974 and grew it to over a thousand employees… I’ll tell you because of our laws that we passed on safety issues that this whole notion of whistle blower legislation it sounds great but the reality is… employees that were horrible declared themselves to be whistle blowers in the safety category or they declared themselves an alcoholic because of legislation [feedback] the American for Disabilities Act… I want that person who breaks a window breaks a windshield with a rock prosecuted on the basis that they threw a rock through a windshield not because they were motivated by hate.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
Sound Government

Hate , Alcohol , Law , Motivation

“I have Attention Deficit Disorder. I have learning disabilities. I don't even have a high school diploma. I'm smart, but you can't prove it on paper. I do have a GED, and if you don't know what GED stands for…you probably got one, too.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

A Little Unprofessional

School , Learning

“We define successful aging as including three main components: low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life.”

Robert L. Kahn (1918–2019) American psychologist

Rowe, John W., and Robert L. Kahn. " Successful aging http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/4/433.full.pdf." The gerontologist 37.4 (1997): 433-440.

Life , Age , Disease , Success

“This is America: the Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah, the Disabled American Veterans, the Order of Ahepa, the Business and Professional Women of America, the union hall, the Bible study group, LULAC, "Holy Name"—a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

Women , Peace , Star , Business

“Disability is not a hindrance to reach the sky”

Tiffany Brar (1988) Indian Social Activist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPD_5B5U7I

“The great civilizations have to join together and result in new civilizations. The current civilizations will be cast away and they finally die like the disabled aged while they pave the way for the fresh newly born replacements. Similarly, the descendants of these new civilizations will do their best to fill the gap between the internal and external heritages and rescue the long forgotten spirituality; they will bring the past into the future.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

360 Doctrines and Comprehensive Theories, Union of Civilizations

Age , Way , Past , Future

“It becomes logical to ask where the idea originates that the rules of the game of life ought to be such that those who are weak, disabled or ill should be helped?
One answer is obvious: this is the game typically played in childhood. Every one of us was, at one time, a weak and helpless child, cared for by adults: without such help we would not have survived and become adults.
Another, almost equally obvious answer is that the prescription of a help-giving attitude toward the weak is embodied in the dominant religions of Western man.
Judaism, and especially Christianity, teach these rules by means of parable and prohibition, example and exhortation, and by every other means available to their representatives.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (1961), Chapter 10: The Ethics of Helplessness and Helpfulness.

Life , Religion , Game , Idea

“Now, I don't have all the answers, but I do know the old ways don't work. Trickledown economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, they've failed too. That's why we need a new approach to government, a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement. More choices for young people in the schools they attend- in the public schools they attend. And more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities and the long-term care they receive. A government that is leaner, not meaner; a government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy; a government that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of free enterprise.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

William J. Clinton: "Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in New York," July 16, 1992. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25958
1990s

People , School , Way , Understanding

“Mathripala Sirisena: The main thing in the 2nd year is the country's economy, because poverty is still prevalent. 22% of the population of this country is malnourished, and 15-17% of the population suffers from diabetes. 7-8% of the population is disabled, disabled by war, natural disaster or other causes. Therefore we must take all these into account. Priority has been given to eradicate poverty, to strengthen people's financial position, to strengthen the national economy.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Talk to Al Jazeera - Sri Lankan president: No allegations of war crimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udGmG-eqJ6o

War , People , Nature , Suffering

“Humanity is my temple, and I am its worshiper. The disabled are my supreme God, and I am their grace seeker.”

Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader

Mānavatā hī merā mandira maiṃ hūँ isakā eka pujārī ॥
haiṃ vikalāṃga maheśvara mere maiṃ hūँ inakā kṛpābhikhārī ॥
[Rambhadracharya, Jagadguru (Speaker), 2003, जगद्गुरु रामभद्राचार्य विकलांग विश्वविद्यालय, Hindi, Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University, CD, Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh, India, Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University, 00:02:16, मानवता ही मेरा मन्दिर मैं हूँ इसका एक पुजारी ॥ हैं विकलांग महेश्वर मेरे मैं हूँ इनका कृपाभिखारी ॥]

God

“All around the world people are saying that we want to struggle to continue as global communities, to create a world free of xenophonbia and racism, a world from which poverty has been expunged, and the availability of food is not subject to the demands of capitalist profit. I would say a world where a corporation like Monsanto would be deemed criminal. Where homophobia and transphobia can truly be called historical relics along with the punishment of incarceration and institutions of confinement for disabled people; and where everyone learns how to respect the environment and all of the creatures, human and non-human alike, with whom we cohabit our worlds.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

People , World , Food , Communication

“We are OK;
In a misguided sadist way;
We are OK.
We are OK;
In a disabled, veteran's way;
We're…
so…
cold.”

Daryl Palumbo (1979) Vocalist musician

Convectuoso (Glassjaw)

Way

“The dissatisfaction with life and the world, felt more or less in the present state of society and intellect by every discerning and highly conscientious mind, gave in his case a rather melancholy tinge to the character, very natural to those whose passive moral susceptibilities are more than proportioned to their active energies. For it must be said, that the strength of will of which his manner seemed to give such strong assurance, expended itself principally in manner. With great zeal for human improvement, a strong sense of duty and capacities and acquirements the extent of which is proved by the writings he has left, he hardly ever completed any intellectual task of magnitude. He had so high a standard of what ought to be done, so exaggerated a sense of deficiencies in his own performances, and was so unable to content himself with the amount of elaboration sufficient for the occasion and the purpose, that he not only spoilt much of his work for ordinary use by over-labouring it, but spent so much time and exertion in superfluous study and thought, that when his task ought to have been completed, he had generally worked himself into an illness, without having half finished what he undertook. From this mental infirmity (of which he is not the sole example among the accomplished and able men whom I have known), combined with liability to frequent attacks of disabling though not dangerous ill-health, he accomplished, through life, little in comparison with what he seemed capable of;”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/74/mode/1up pp. 74-75

Men , Nature , Study , Health

“In advanced age, and in cases of disability from accident, natural infirmity or any other cause, the individual shall be supported by the colony, and receive every comfort which kindness can administer.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

The Social System (1826)

Age , Support , Nature

“I find that I have great faith in human nature. I believe that people are good. I believe they are to be trusted. So far as I know, no one has ever betrayed my faith, in any way. If they ever have, I've been spared the knowledge of it.
If I couldn't have faith in human nature, I wouldn't want to live. It is the one thing that could destroy for me the joy of living.
I've come to believe that life, under almost any conditions, is worth while.
I found that out when I had my accident some years ago, and was in the hospital.
I thought, for a couple of weeks, that I would be blind for life. I thought I would surely be so disabled that I would never be able to work again. I didn't suppose that I would have one five-hundredth of what I have now. Still I thought, 'Life is worth while. Just to be alive. I still think so.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"Discoveries About Myself". Motion Picture, October 1930, pg. 90. (Brewster Publications). https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n595/mode/2up

Life , People , Faith , Way

“After the Council of Nicea, … the State supported the associated churches by all the means in its power. It recognized the decisions of their councils and enforced them with civil pains and penalties; it also recognized the sentences of deposition and excommunication passed on members of the clergy or laity belonging to any one of the associated churches and followed them with civil disabilities. It did its best to destroy all Christianity outside of the associated churches, and largely succeeded. The rigour of the state persecution directed against Christian nonconformists in the fourth and fifth centuries has not received the attention due to it. The state confiscated their churches and ecclesiastical property (sometimes their private property also); it prohibited under penalty of proscription and death their meeting for public worship; it took from the nonconformist Christians the right to inherit or bequeath property by will; it banished their clergy; finally, it made raids upon them by its soldiery and sometimes butchered whole communities, as was the case with the Montanists in Phrygia and with the Donatists in Africa. And this glaringly un-Christian mode of creating and vindicating the visible unity of the Catholic Church of Christ was vigorously encouraged by the leaders of the associated churches who had the recognition and support of the State.”

Thomas Martin Lindsay (1843–1914) Scottish historian, professor and principal of the Free Church College, Glasgow

The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries (1903), p. 360 http://books.google.com/books?id=IvUsAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA360

Death , Pain , Penalty , Communication

“She never made fun of people with disabilities; she tried to empower them based on their abilities.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

2010s, (July 26, 2016)

People

Jamie Zawinski (1968) American programmer

http://www.jwz.org/doc/markup.html
JWZ
Markup.

People , Motivation , Thinking , Help

“In the long run, will our community not be a stronger, better balanced and more intelligent community when the last artificial disabilities imposed upon women by centuries of custom have been removed?”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

Women in War speech, broadcast from Sydney, Australia — February 20, 1942
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)
Source: http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/women_in_war.htm

Women , Intelligence , Communication

“We are permitted to ride, providing we sit in a position ruinous to the horse; providing we wear a riding-habit long enough to hide the obscene human foot, weighed down by ten pounds of gravel to cheat the wind in its free blowing, so running the risk of disabling ourselves completely should accident throw us from the saddle. Think how we swim! We must even wear clothing in the water, and run the gauntlet of derision, if we dare battle in the surf minus stockings!”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)

Thinking , Water , Horse , Cheating

“Nearly one-third of the population has persistent or recurrent chronic pain—and of those, one-half to two-thirds are either partially or totally disabled for periods of days, weeks, or months, and sometimes permanently.”

John Bonica (1917–1994) Anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management

As quoted by Melinda Blau, "Conquering Pain: New Treatments, New Hope," New York Magazine (Mar 22, 1982)

Pain

“Solzhenitsyn can imagine what pain is like when it happens to strangers. Even more remarkably, he is not disabled by imagining what pain is like when it happens to a million strangers - he can think about individuals even when the subject is the obliteration of the masses, which makes his the exact reverse of the ideological mentality, which can think only about masses even when the subject is the obliteration of individuals.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Bitter Seeds: Solzhenitsyn
Essays and reviews, At the Pillars of Hercules (1979)

Pain , Imagination , Thinking

“Every kid with a disability has the right to go to school.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

School

“The competition between chunks of capital is getting fiercer, there is the same old same old desperate need to keep wages down, desperate need to substitute machines for labour (but that costs trillions of investment) and no matter how hard you exploit workers, you still need to sell stuff to them, and if their wages are low, they can't buy the stuff. You can force the poorly paid into borrowing money (credit cards, wonga etc) but there comes a point when that causes a credit crisis: someone somewhere says they want some dosh and a bank somewhere says they haven't got the dosh (Northern Rock, last time). Let's remember, none of this is caused by migrants or left social democrats. This is a crisis entirely born from a system that is locked into competition for markets. So, these fervid rows between squadrons of extremely unpleasant individuals are rows between people who deep down know that they can't control this system of running the making and distribution of the things we need. They are just coming up with fantasies on how to stay in power while the next phase veers from crisis to crisis. It is terrible for millions of people in awful insecure, low paid jobs and/or in insecure, lousy housing, or if they are disabled, or for millions trying to migrate their way out of poverty and despair. We should be alarmed when members of the ruling class start pleading with us to take sides with them against the 'elite': one section of the elite calling for us to oppose the elite.”

Michael Rosen (1946) British children's writer

'Neither Brussels or the City - for the many not the few'. http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/neither-brussels-or-city-for-many-not.html (6 July 2018)

Money , People , Way , Time

“Donald Trump lacks the temperament of be president. After all, this is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2016, Remarks on Donald Trump and the 2016 race

Question , Appearance

“The work that has so far been done has indeed been of the highest value. The growth during the last 50 years, of a feeling of common nationality, based upon common tradition, common disabilities, and common hopes and aspirations, has been most striking. The fact that we are Indians first, and Hindoos, Mahomedans, Parsees, or Christinas afterwards, is being realized in a steadily increasing measure, and the idea of a united and renovated India, marching onwards to a place among the nations of the world worthy of her great past, is no longer a mere idle dream of a few imaginative minds, but is definitely the accepted creed of those who form the brain of the community-the educated classes of the country.”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) social and political leader during the Indian Independence Movement

Extract from his speech during setting up and defining the charter of the Servants of Scoiety. Page=702
Sources of Indian Tradition

World , Education , Dreams , Hope

“Pregnancy is of course confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976) (majority opinion); the ruling allowed GE's employee disability insurance plan to exclude conditions arising from pregnancy.
Judicial opinions

Women , Disease , Way

“Will the Leader of the House consider making proposals to improve public access and facilities for lobbyists in this building? Is he aware that in the past few weeks elderly lobbyists have been forced to wait outside in the cold and rain before being allowed in? Is he further aware that there are no refreshment facilities for people who are not in the company of a Member of Parliament, and that the facilities for disabled people are poor?”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/nov/29/business-of-the-house in the House of Commons (29 November 1984).
1980s

People , Waiting , Past , Housing

“Akbar was the first emperor to abolish Jizyah with one stroke of pen, along with all its associations and implications, including the distinction of Muslim and Dhimmî into the bargain. His son and grandson followed his example in regard to Jizyah, generally speaking, but reimposed upon the Hindus all the other restrictions and disabilities suffered by them before.”

Akbar (1542–1605) 3rd Mughal Emperor

Harsh Narain, Jizyah and the spread of Islam, chapter 3

Suffering

“A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. It is not a gentle process in either case. … It's nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no longer a menace; we can peacefully co-exist, with a little wisdom. The same policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace. We're all on the Earth together, and we have to learn some accommodation. … The message is clear: those who will not accommodate, who will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest and wildest strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged, reluctantly, to cage or disarm, and we will do our best to disable the memes they fight for. Slavery is beyond the pale. Child abuse is beyond the pale. Discrimination is beyond the pale. The pronouncing of death sentences on those who blaspheme against a religion (complete with bounties or reward for those who carry them out) is beyond the pale. It is not civilized, and it is owed no more respect in the name of religious freedom than any other incitement to cold-blooded murder. … That is — or, rather, ought to be, the message of multiculturalism, not the patronizing and subtly racist hypertolerance that "respects" vicious and ignorant doctrines when they are propounded by officials of non-European states and religions.”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Death , Wisdom , Faith , Religion

“Everything that seems like a disability with Trump always turns out to be an advantage. If we were in the laboratory, designing the perfect presidential candidate, it’s unlikely we would have produced a tasteless, publicity‐seeking, coarse, billionaire, reality TV star. Ha! Look at how wrong we were. It turns out, that is exactly what we needed.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2016, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)

Star , Reality , Perfection

“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility

Universe

“The other major impression to emerge from Magick Without Tears is that -- as odd as it sounds -- one of Crowley's chief drawbacks was his sense of humour. This is a disability he shares with Bernard Shaw: both were driven by a strange compulsion to be flippant. But when he becomes absorbed in an idea, Shaw can remain serious for a sufficiently long time to convince the reader of his intellectual stature. In Crowley, the flippancy has the tone of a schoolmaster trying to be funny for the benefit of the sixth form, or a muscular Christian trying to convince you that he isn't really religious. 'How can a yogi ever feel worried?... That question I have been expecting for a very long time!' (Crowley has never learned that exclamation marks give the impression of a gushing schoolgirl.) 'And what you expect is to see my middle stump break the wicket-keeper's nose, with the balls smartly fielded by Third Man and Short Leg!' It makes us aware that there was something wrong with Crowley's 'self-image.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

He is one of those people who, no matter how hard they try, never feel quite grown up.
Source: Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast (1987), p. 150

People , Feeling , Idea , Question

“Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Feelings of Inferiority", item 12
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

Personality

“To be clear: there is no question that postmodernism has advanced the struggle against all forms of oppression, including the oppression experienced by trans people, those with disabilities or who face age discrimination, and many other forms of oppression that were neglected before postmodernist theories began to flourish in the 1980s and 1990s…. At the same time, however, postmodernism also arose as a blanket rejection of political generalization, and categories of s and material realities, referred to as "truths," "totalities," and "universalities"--in the name of espousing "anti-essentialism." (To be sure, such a blanket rejection of political generalization is itself a political generalization--which is an inherent contradiction of postmodernist thought!)”

Sharon Smith (writer) (1956) American historian

A Marxist Case For Intersectionality (2017)

People , Truth , Age , Question

“There is a mystery about the Jews … and within this mystery lies the reason for the folk pride of the house of Abraham. This pride exists despite the disabilities that come from many centuries of ostracism.”

Herman Wouk (1915–2019) Pulitzer Prize-winning American author whose novels include The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War and War and …

This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life (1959)

Housing

“Minds are in limited supply, and each mind has a limited capacity for memes, and hence there is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible. This competition is the major selective force in the memosphere, and, just as in the biosphere, the challenge has been met with great ingenuity. For instance, whatever virtues (from our perspective) the following memes have, they have in common the property of having phenotypic expressions that tend to make their own replication more likely by disabling or preempting the environmental forces that would tend to extinguish them: the meme for faith, which discourages the exercise of the sort of critical judgment that might decide that the idea of faith was, all things considered a dangerous idea; the meme for tolerance or free speech; the meme of including in a chain letter a warning about the terrible fates of those who have broken the chain in the past; the conspiracy theory meme, which has a built-in response to the objection that there is no good evidence of a conspiracy: "Of course not — that's how powerful the conspiracy is!" Some of these memes are "good" perhaps and others "bad"; what they have in common is a phenotypic effect that systematically tends to disable the selective forces arrayed against them. Other things being equal, population memetics predicts that conspiracy theory memes will persist quite independently of their truth, and the meme for faith is apt to secure its own survival, and that of the religious memes that ride piggyback on it, in even the most rationalistic environments. Indeed, the meme for faith exhibits frequency-dependent fitness: it flourishes best when it is outnumbered by rationalistic memes; in an environment with few skeptics, the meme for faith tends to fade from disuse.”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

Consciousness Explained (1991)

Fate , Truth , Faith , Exercises

“Recently, a whole series of cases has been reported to me in which judges, lawyers, and officials of the Judiciary who are disabled war veterans and whose record in office is flawless, have been forcibly sent on leave, and are later to be dismissed for the sole reason that they are of Jewish descent.
It is quite intolerable for me personally…that Jewish officials who were disabled in the war should suffer such treatment, [especially] as, with the express approval of the government, I addressed a Proclamation to the German people on the day of the national uprising, March 21st, in which I bowed in reverence before the dead of the war and remembered in gratitude the bereaved families of the war dead, the disabled, and my old comrades at the front.
I am certain, Mr. Chancellor, that you share this human feeling, and request you, most cordially and urgently, to look into this matter yourself, and to see to it that there is some uniform arrangement for all branches of the public service in Germany.
As far as my own feelings are concerned, officials, judges, teachers and lawyers who are war invalids, fought at the front, are sons of war dead, or themselves lost sons in the war should remain in their positions unless an individual case gives reason for different treatment. If they were worthy of fighting for Germany and bleeding for Germany, then they must also be considered worthy of continuing to serve the Fatherland in their professions.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Letter to Chancellor Adolf Hitler http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/hindenburg-and-hitler-on-jewish-war-veterans/, (April 4th 1933)
President

War , People , Family , Feeling

“The system of compulsory able-bodiedness, which in a sense produces disability, is thoroughly interwoven with the system of compulsory heterosexuality that produces queerness.”

Robert McRuer (1966) American academic

Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (NYU Press: 2006), p. 2

Sense

“The first revolutionary step of Akbar was the abolition of the Jiziyah, the hated discriminatory tax paid by Hindu Zimmis. The Hindus, as Zimmis, had become second class citizens in their own homeland and were suffered to live under certain disabilities.”

Akbar (1542–1605) 3rd Mughal Emperor

Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

Hate , Suffering

“What people with disabilities want is to relate. This is something unique. It makes people who are closed up in the head become human. The wonderful thing about people with disabilities is that when someone important comes, they don’t care. They care about the relationship. So they have a healing power, a healing power of love.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

Love , People

“When we were first told the extent of Ivan's disability I thought that we would suffer having to care for him but at least he would benefit from our care. Now as I look back I see that it was all the other way round. It was only him that ever really suffered and it was us — Sam, me, Nancy and Elwen — who gained more than I ever believed possible from having and loving such a wonderfully special and beautiful boy.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In a letter to activists after the death of his son http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-leader-david-camerons-moving-379874 (28 February 2009)
2000s, 2009

Love , Beauty , Way , Boy

“People may wonder why I am content to prescribe such a general and apparently vague formula as "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better" for all and every ailment. The reason is, strange as it may seem, that our subconscious mind does not need the details. The general suggestion that everything "in every way" is going well is quite sufficient to set up the procedure of persuasion which will carry its effects to the different organs and improve every function. I have had remarkable demonstration of this in the course of my long teaching and experiments. Time and again I have seen patients cured, not only of the particular disease for which they sought relief, but also of minor disabilities which they had almost forgotten.”

Emile Coué (1857–1926) French psychologist and pharmacist

Source: Autosuggestion : My method (2014), Chapter III: Auto-suggestion in practice.

People , Disease , Way , Time

“So that being with Law-Suites, and Riots, wearied and disabled to prosecute his Art and. Invention at present, even until the first Patent was extinct: Nothwithstanding the Author his sad. Sufferings, Imprisonments wrongfully for several thousand pound in the Counter in London, yet did obtaine a new Patent, dated the 2d of May, Anno 14. Caroli Primi of ever Blessed Memory, not only for the making of Iron into cast-works, and bars, but also for the Melting, Extracting, Refing and Reducing of all Mines, Minerals and. Mettals, with Pit-cole, Sea-cole, Peat, and Turf, for the preservation of Wood and Timber of this Island; into which Patent, the Author, for the better support and management of his Invention, so much opposed formerly at the Court, at the Parliament, and at the Law, took in David Ramasey, Esquire, Resident at the Court; Sir George Horsey, at the Parliament; Roger Foulke, Esquire, a Counsellour of the Temple, and an Ingenious Man; and also an Iron Master, my Neighbour, and one who did well know my former Sufferings, and what I had done in the Invention of making of Iron with Pit-cole, etc.”

Dud Dudley (1600–1684) British metallurgist

Source: Metallum Martis, 1665, p. 16-17

Sadness , Law , Art , Support

“If I wasn't as busy as I am… I would be a completely disabled guy.”

John Bonica (1917–1994) Anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management

as quoted by Latif Nasser, "The amazing story of the man who gave us modern pain relief" (2015) TED Talks

Guy , Business

“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 (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, 2001
From books

Life , People , World

“Our children grow up in a culture permeated with the idea that there are "smart people" and "dumb people". The social construction of the individual is as a bundle of aptitudes. There are people who are "good at math" and people who "can't do math." Everything is set up for children to attribute their first unsuccessful or unpleasant learning experiences to their own disabilities. As a result, children perceive failure as relegating them either to the group of "dumb people" or, more often, to a group of people "dumb at x" (where, as we have pointed out, x often equals mathematics). Within this framework children will define themselves in terms of their limitations, and this definition will be consolidated and reinforced throughout their lives. Only rarely does some exceptional event lead people to reorganize their intellectual self-image in such a way as to open up new perspectives on what is learnable.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

Children , People , Way , Mathematics

“The best chance disabled students have for productive adult lives comes from being mainstreamed among other students. My daughter Jade is living proof of that. She has a disability, but we have made sure that she has gotten the same kind of exposure as other kids her age. There are a few exceptions; there are students whose special needs are such that mainstreaming won't work for them. But in the majority of cases, mainstreaming should be supported, encouraged, and facilitated for disabled students.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Age , Support , Chance , Daughters

“If, on the eve of the war, a fortune teller had pointed to all the Australian men between the ages of 20 and 30, and had predicted that a number equal to 60 per cent of that age group would be killed or permanently disabled in the coming war, she would have been ridiculed but she would have been correct.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Rise of a New Australia (2016)

Men , War , Age

“You must obey this now for a Law, that he that will not worke shall not eate (except by sicknesse he be disabled:) for the labours of thirtie or fortie honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintaine an hundred and fiftie idle loyterers.”

John Smith (explorer) (1580–1631) Admiral of New England, was an English soldier, explorer, and author

Advice to his company when he was governor of Jamestown Colony, Virginia (1608); reported in The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & The Summer Isles (1907), vol. 1, chapter 10, p. 174.

Men , Law

“This chapter [of the destruction of temples], however, though significant, was only a part of the Muslim behaviour-pattern as recorded by Muslim historians of medieval India. The other parts were:
1) mass slaughter of people not only during war but also after the armies of Islam had emerged victorious;
2) capture of large numbers of non-combatant men, women and children as booty and their sale as slaves all over the Islamic world;
3) forcible conversion to Islam of people who were in no position to resist;
4) reduction to the status of zimmis or non-citizens of all those who could not be converted and imposition of inhuman disabilities on them;
5) emasculation of the zimmis by preventing them from possessing arms;
6) impoverishment of the zimmis through heavy discriminatory taxes and misappropriation of a major part of what the peasants produced;
7) ruination of the native and national culture of the zimmis by suppressing and holding in contempt all its institutions and expressions.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Women , Men , War , Children

“Before being Christians or Jews or Muslims, before being Americans or Russians or Africans, before being generals or priests, rabbis or imams, before having visible or invisible disabilities, we are all human beings with hearts capable of loving”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Jean Vanier: Philosopher.. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jean-vanier-philosopher-who-dislikes-the-religion-of-success-wins-12m-templeton-prize-for-promoting-spiritual-awareness-10101621.html The Independent, 11 March 2015
From interviews and talks

Love , Heart

“The Constitution forbids the passing of a bill of attainder: that is, a law entailing upon the child the disabilities and hardships imposed upon the parent. Every slave law in America might be repealed on this very ground. The slave is made a slave because his mother is a slave. But to all this it is said that the practice of the American people is against my view. I admit it. They have given the Constitution a slaveholding interpretation. I admit it. Thy have committed innumerable wrongs against the Negro in the name of the Constitution. Yes, I admit it all; and I go with him who goes farthest in denouncing these wrongs. But it does not follow that the Constitution is in favor of these wrongs because the slaveholders have given it that interpretation. To be consistent in his logic, the City Hall speaker must follow the example of some of his brothers in America — he must not only fling away the Constitution, but the Bible. The Bible must follow the Constitution, for that, too, has been interpreted for slavery by American divines. Nay, more, he must not stop with the Constitution of America, but make war with the British Constitution, for, if I mistake not, the gentleman is opposed to the union of Church and State. In America he called himself a Republican. Yet he does not go for breaking down the British Constitution, although you have a Queen on the throne, and bishops in the House of Lords.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

War , People , Law , Parent

“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.... But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world.... Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur'anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

As quoted in Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism (1987) by Amir Taheri, pp. 241-3.
Disputed

Men , War , People , World

“You have to understand the Tea-bagger mindset; they have this nostalgia for this America that they think was stolen from them, that used to be, that was better – it's really the 1950s, okay? That's what they think was Shangri-La, and, y'know what they really don't get is that it's kind of insulting to a lot of Americans to pine for this era, cause it wasn't that good for a lot of people. It was good if you were a white man. It wasn't that good if you were Mexican, or black, or Jewish, or disabled, or gay, or a woman.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

But I'm Not Wrong (2010)

People , Understanding , Thinking , Nostalgia

“Hillary (Clinton) has spent decades doing the relentless work to actually make a difference in their lives. Advocating for kids with disabilities as a young lawyer, fighting for children's health care as first lady, and for quality child care in the senate.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, 2016 Democratic National Convention (2016)

Children , Health , Fight

““Under it there can be only one faith, one people and one all overriding authority. The State is a religious trust administered solely by His people (the faithful) acting in obedience to the Commander of the Faithful, who was in theory, and very often in practice too, the supreme General of the Army of militant Islam (Janud). There could be no place for non-believers. Even Jews and Christians could not be full citizens of it, though they somewhat approached the Muslims by reason of their being ‘People of the Book’ or believers in the Bible, which the Prophet of Islam accepted as revealed… “As for the Hindus and Zoroastrians, they had no place in such a political system. If their existence was tolerated, it was only to use them as hewers of wood and drawers of water, as tax-payers, ‘Khiraj-guzar’, for the benefit of the dominant sect of the Faithful. They were called Zimmis or people under a contract of protection by the Muslim State on condition of certain services to be rendered by them and certain political and civil disabilities to be borne by them to prevent them from growing strong. The very term Zimmi is an insulting title. It connotes political inferiority and helplessness like the status of a minor proprietor perpetually under a guardian; such protected people could not claim equality with the citizens of the Muslim theocracy.”

Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) Indian historian

Jadunath Sarkar, cited in R.C. Majumdar (ed.), The History of the Indian People and Culture, Volume VI, The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay, 1960, pp. 617-18. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583

People , Books , Faith , Strong

“To deny one's self, to take up the cross, denotes something immeasurably grander than self-imposed penance or rigid conformity to a Divine statute. It is the surrender of self to an ennobling work, an absolute subordination of personal advantages and of personal pleasures for the sake of truth and the welfare of others, and a willing acceptance of every disability which their interests may entail.”

George C. Lorimer (1838–1904) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 169.

Pleasure , Truth , Personality

“We do not wish to penalise the machine for its inability to shine in beauty competitions, nor to penalise a man for losing in a race against an aeroplane. The conditions of our game make these disabilities irrelevant.”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Beauty , Game