Inspiring Special Education Quotes: A Powerful Collection to Motivate and Empower

"If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn."

- Ignacio Estrada

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"All children with special needs have a right to be part of a family, a community and society."

- Angela Dare

"In special education, there’s too much emphasis placed on the deficit and not enough on the strength."

- Temple Grandin

"Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or in the same way."

- John Evans

"What most Special Education teachers are really angels disguised as extraordinary humans."

- Joe Martin

"A good teacher isn’t someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed."

- Justin Trudeau

"I touch the future. I teach."

- Christa McAuliffe

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

- Henry Adams

"Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world, and that’s you."

- Kij Johnson

"Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge, and children with special needs inspire a very, very special love."

- Sarah Palin

"Parenting a child with special needs will be the greatest challenge of your life, and if you make good choices, it may also prove one of the most rewarding."

- Judy Winter

"Children with special needs are unique individuals."

- Neena Dash

"Education is a shared commitment between dedicated teachers, motivated students and enthusiastic parents with high expectations."

- Bob Beauprez

"Great education is a combination of a supporting environment, dedicated teachers and students who take joy in learning."

- Hermann J Steinherr

"If you look behind every exceptional person there is an exceptional teacher."

- Stephen Hawking

"Invest in our teachers, and our children will succeed."

- Barack Obama

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire."

- William Butler Yeats

"Special education is not a place. It's a service."

- Loretta Claiborne

"Every child deserves a champion: an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists they become the best they can possibly be."

- Rita Pierson

"Let us remember: one book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world."

- Malala Yousafzai

"Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way."

- George Evans

"Every student can learn, just not on the same day or in the same way."

- George Evans

"Inclusion is not a strategy to help people fit into the systems and structures which exist in our societies; it is about transforming those systems and structures to make it better for everyone."

- Diane Richler

"Inclusive education is not a privilege. It is a fundamental human right."

- Ban Ki-moon

"We need to give every individual the opportunity to reach their full potential, regardless of their background or circumstance."

- Cory Booker

"Inclusive education seeks to address the learning needs of all children, with a specific focus on those who are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion. The goal is to promote opportunities for all children to participate and be treated equally."

- Andie Fong Toy

"It shouldn’t matter how slowly a child learns. What matters is that we encourage them to never stop trying."

- Robert John Meehan

"When inclusive education is fully embraced, we abandon the idea that children have to become ‘normal’ in order to contribute to the world. We begin to look beyond typical ways of becoming valued members of the community, and in doing so, begin to realize the achievable goal of providing all children with an authentic sense of belonging."

- Norman Kunc

"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world."

- Malala Yousafzai

"A good special education teacher is hard to find and even harder to hang on to."

- Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

"I decided to study special education and fell in love with working with individuals with autism. That’s what I planned to do with my life."

- Clay Aiken

"When you listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become wiser, more inclusive, and better as an organization."

- Pat Wadors

"Teachers can make such a profound impact on our lives and should be honored as heroes."

- Rainn Wilson

"You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it."

- J.D. Salinger

"It’s the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom."

- Michael Morpurgo

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism."

- Colleen Wilcox

"The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth."

- Dan Rather

"What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches."

- Karl Menninger

"A good teacher is like the rising sun that comes to fill the empty and dark minds with the light of the education"

- Anamika Mishra

"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching kids what counts is best."

- Bob Talbert

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

- Maya Angelou

"When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become wiser, more inclusive, and better as an organization."

- Pat Wadors

"Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need."

- Rick Riordan

"The secret in education lies in respecting the student."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it."

- Steve Jobs

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t."

- Thomas A. Edison

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible!"

- Audrey Hepburn

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

- Peter Drucker

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."

- Albert Einstein

"The only real limitation on your abilities is the level of your desires. If you want it badly enough, there are no limits on what you can achieve."

- Brian Tracy

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said."

- Peter Drucker

"The highest result of education is tolerance."

- Helen Keller

"No child left behind requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of this accountability."

- Dianne Feinstein

"For those with learning disabilities, today's tools for differentiation no longer hold the stigma they used to nor highlight disabilities, but provide opportunities to find success in the classroom."

- Sharon LePage Plante

"When you judge someone based on a diagnosis, you miss out on their abilities, beauty, and uniqueness."

- Sevenly.org

"All of the children of silence must be taught to sing their own song."

- Thomas Gallaudet

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude."

- Scott Hamilton

"The gap between the abilities and capacities of children related to their learning, adjustment and development found at the time of their birth, may further be widened by the nature of the environmental difference encountered by them in their nourishment and education."

- S. K. Mangal

"There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book."

- Frank Serafini

"My teacher gave me the best gift of all… Believing in me!"

"Every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times."

"Teachers are those who help find strengths, wipe away tears, overpower demons and conquer fears."

"Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning."

"It takes a big heart to shape little minds."

"The influence of a good teacher can never be erased."

"Every student is capable of success"

"Inclusion is not a choice, it’s a human right"

"A good education can change anyone. A good teacher can change everything!"

"Children learn more from who you are than what you teach."

"See the able, not the label."

"A child with special needs.. requires love, requires guidance, requires encouragement, requires positive influences, requires a life teacher… JUST LIKE ALL OTHER CHILDREN."

"Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

- Anonymous

"You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails"

"It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it"

"Different doesn’t mean difficult"

"Our job is to teach the kids we have. Not the ones we used to have. Not the ones we would like to have. The ones we have right now…all of them."

"Every student can learn, just now on the same day or in the same way."

"It’s not about the grade, it’s about the effort"

"Different is not less"

"Only a special person can hear what a child cannot say."

"Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when I know there are footprints on the moon."

"Don’t underestimate me. I know more than I say, I think more than I speak, and I notice more than you realize."

"No Child Left Behind requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special Education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms."

"If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world."

"Fair isn’t everybody getting the same thing…Fair is everybody getting what they need in order to be successful."

"Special Education is a service, not a place!"

- Anonymous