Thomas Edison
Famed inventor and businessman

"My teachers say I'm addled . . .
my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided I must be a dunce."

"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Richard Branson
Entrepreneur and Virgin Brand mogul

"Perhaps my early problems with dyslexia made me more intuitive: when someone sends me a written proposal, rather than dwelling on detailed facts and figures, I find that my imagination grasps and expands on what I read."

Leonardo da Vinci
Inventor, painter, architect, engineer,musician and anatomist

"You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills."

Walt Disney
Film producer and director, founder of The Walt Disney Company

"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language."

Tom Cruise
Actor

“I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.”

Keira Knightley
Oscar nominated actress

“I got really good help from some amazing teachers and my mother and father worked tirelessly with me, so by the time I was 11 I had kind of overcome the dyslexia and now it's not really a problem."

Pablo Picasso
Famed painter and sculptor


"For those who know how to read, I have painted my autobiography."

Muhammad Ali
Heavyweight boxing champion—considered one of the greatest sportsmen of the 20th century

“As a high school student, many teachers labeled me as dumb. . . . I barely graduated. . . . I could barely read my textbooks."

Albert Einstein
Nobel-prize winning theoretical physicist


"He told me that his teachers reported that... he was mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams." - Hans Albert Einstein, on his father Albert "Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."

Agatha Christie
Author of 80 mystery novels, and the best-selling fiction writer of all time.

"I, myself, was always recognized... as the 'slow one' in the family... Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was... an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day."

Nelson Rockefeller
Former Governor of New York, 41st Vice President of the United States of America

"I was one of the 'puzzle children' myself - a dyslexic... And I still have a hard time reading today. Accept the fact that you have a problem. Refuse to feel sorry for yourself. You have a challenge; never quit!"

Charles Schwab
Founder and CEO of Charles Schwab Corporation


"...That's the real problem with kids who struggle with learning... some kids feel like they're stupid. I want them to know that they're not. They just learn differently. Once they understand that a have the tools to learn in their individual way, then they can feel good about themselves."

Gwen Stefani
Grammy-award winning singer

"It was such a turning point to find that I had a talent and I had something to contribute, somewhere."

George Burns
Actor and comedian

"For me the toughest thing about dyslexia was learning to spell it."

Winston Churchill
Former Prime Minister of Britain, Nobel Prize-winning author

"I was, on the whole, considerably discouraged by my school days. It was not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the beginning of the race."

Bruce Jenner
Gold medal-winning Olympian


"If I had not been dyslexic, I would not have won the Olympic decathlon games. “ … A champion lives deep down inside each one of us. Find the area in your life you can excel in, and dare yourself to be the best you can possibly be."

W.B Yeats
Nobel Prize winner for poetry


“Willie was sent to lessons in spelling and grammar, but he never learned to spell. To the end of his life he produced highly idiosyncratic versions of words.” —Biographer A. Norman Jeffares on William Butler Yeats

Cher
Academy Award winning actress; Grammy Award winning songwriter

"I never read in school. When I was in school, it was really difficult. Almost everything I learned, I had to learn by listening."

Orlando Bloom
Actor

“Dyslexia is not due to lack of intelligence, it's a lack of access. It's like, if you're dyslexic, you have all the information you need, but find it harder to process."

Henry Winkler
Actor (“The Fonz”), director

"Somebody asked me if I could go back and start again with a different brain. Years ago I thought yes. . . now I know I wouldn't. . . . . So I now see them (dyslexic abilities) as an asset."