Blind from birth
People who became blind later in life
- Frankie Armstrong - English folk singer and voice teacher, sight degraded in late teens onwards from glaucoma
- Tilly Aston (1873-1947) - Australian disability activist who founded Association for the Advancement of the Blind in 1895. Vision impaired from birth, blind at 7 years of age.
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), became blind in later life.
- Jorge Luis Borges, became blind in old age from a hereditary condition
- Louis Braille, (1809-1852), became blind after an accident caused an eye infection at the age of 3.
- Andrea Bocelli - barely sighted at birth became completely blind at 12.
- Ray Charles, (1930-2004), blind from glaucoma after age 7.
- Enrico Dandolo, (died 1205), doge of Venice, blind from trauma.
- Frederick Delius, (1862-1934), became blind later in life after contracting syphilis
- Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783) - mathematician and physicist.
- Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) - astronomer, philosopher, and physicist, blind by age 72 not from looking to the Sun but from cataract and glaucoma
- W.C. Handy, (1873-1958), Blues composer, went blind in middle age
- Isaac, biblical patriarch
- Isaac the Blind, (1160-1235), perhaps blind from birth?, French cabbalist
- James Joyce, (1882 - 1941) - writer, at times blind, underwent several operations
- Helen Keller, (1880-1968), blindness resulted from fever at age 19 months
- Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1935-1977) was a blind jazz saxophonist, perhaps best known for his ability to play more than one saxophone at once.
- Esmond Knight - British actor
- Stalebread Lacombe - Jazz musician, went blind in middle age
- Francesco Landini - 14th century Italian composer; blind from childhood, from smallpox
- Fritz Lang, (1890-1976), nearly blind at the end of his life
- Mike May, (born 1954), regained partial vision due to stem cell research.
- John Milton, (1608-1674), became blind at the age of 42 (I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night).
- Bernard Morin, (b. 1931), mathematician who made important contributions to topology, blind since age 6
- Joseph Plateau, (1801-1883) - physicist, blind due to retinal exposure to sunlight.
- William Prescott, historian, from childhood blind in one eye, severe visual impairment in other eye
- Joseph Pulitzer (1847 - 1911) - publisher, blind at 43 from retinal detachement
- Omar Abdel-Rahman - religious leader and terrorist
- Joaquin Rodrigo, composer - from an illness at age three
- Samson - Biblical character, blinded by the Philistines
- John Stanley, composer, became partially blind as the result of a domestic accident at age 2
- James Thurber - lost an eye as a child when his brother shot him with an arrow and as an adult lost the sight in the other eye.
- Sue Townsend - registered blind in mid 2001 due to a diabetic condition she has suffered from for 20 years.
- Eamon de Valera, (1882-1975) - President of Ireland.
- Abdurrahman Wahid - President of Indonesia
- Doc Watson - folk guitarist, blinded by a childhood eye infection at the age of one.
- Stevie Wonder - blindness from retrolental fibroplasia caused by high oxygen concentrations in the incubator in which he was placed because of his premature birth.
People blind in one eye
- Tex Avery, (1908-1980), blind in his left eye
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Bohemund IV of Antioch, the One-Eyed
- Gordon Brown - lost the use of his left eye as a boy during a game of rugby.
- Bushwick Bill - American rapper, member of the Geto Boys, lost an eye during an argument with a girlfriend
- Dale Chihuly
- Ry Cooder - blind in one eye
- Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925-1990), lost his left eye in an car accident in 1954
- Moshe Dayan
- Ben Dreyfuss
- Sandy Duncan - lost vision in one eye following surgery.
- Peter Falk (born 1927), lost his right eye at age three as a result of a tumor.
- Nick Griffin
- Hannibal
- Rex Harrison (1908-1990), blind in one eye as the result of a childhood illness.
- Eric Hosking
- Samuel Johnson
- Jim McMahon (born 1959) - legally blind in one eye due to a pencil accident as a child
- Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), lost an eye in battle and later took advantage of his disability.
- Kirby Puckett (born 1961) - Baseball Hall of Famer; baseball career ended when he lost the sight in his right eye due to glaucoma
- Claude Rains - blind in one eye
- Richard Shaw
- Cordwainer Smith (pen name of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger) - blinded in left eye as a child, vision impaired in right eye by infection
- Art Tatum
- James Grover Thurber
- Dick Vitale (born 1939) - basketball sportscaster; blind in one eye from a childhood accident
- Rich Williams
- Xiahou Dun -Blinded by arrow during a battle. Acording to legend is said to have immedeatly ate it.
- Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi (1607-1650) - Most legends state he lost it in a sword sparring session with his father; however, the truth is unknown.
Blind painters
- Esref Armagan, realistic painter, blind since birth.
- Honoré Daumier, (1808-79), French caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, blind later in life.
- Francisco Goya, (1746-1828) - painter, became blind and deaf in late life, painted blind(ed) subjects.
- Claude Monet, (1840-1926), lost sight through cataracts in later life, improved after surgery.
- Joshua Reynolds, (1723 - 1792), British painter, blind later in life.
Fictional and Mythological Characters
- Albino from Alejandro Jodorowsky's Technopriests (impaired vision due to albinism)
- Paul Atreides, from the Dune universe
- G'Kar (Babylon 5) (blind in one eye)
- Geordi La Forge (Star Trek)
- Suzy Hendrix, played by Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark, 1967
- Jorge de Burgos, in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- Phineas, king and seer, from Salmydessus in Thrace, in Jason and the Argonauts
- Polyphemus, a cyclops, blinded by Ulysses
- Odin (Norse mythology) (gave up one eye in exchange for wisdom)
- Oedipus, blinded himself
- Tiresias, the Blind Seer (Greek mythology)
- Jamesir Bensonmum, blind butler from the film Murder by Death
- Daredevil, comic book superhero
- Doctor Mid-Nite Another comic book superhero.
