black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.

Sonia Sotomayor

I don’t have a professional aspiration. But I do have a personal one: I want to continue growing as a person. I want to reach out more to people, learn more from them. Ultimately, I would like to be a great justice that people remember with respect and fondness.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Aspiration Growth Justice Learning Myself People Personal Professional Remember
We have to look and ensure that we’re paying attention to what we’re doing, so that we don’t reflexively institute processes and procedures that exclude people without thought.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Attention Institution Pay People Procedure Thinking
There are uses to adversity, and they don’t reveal themselves until tested. Whether it’s serious illness, financial hardship, or the simple constraint of parents who speak limited English, difficulty can tap unexpected strengths.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Adversity Difficult Expectation Limitation Reveal Serious Sick Simplicity Strength
I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Believe Constitution Honor Respect
As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Equality Existence Inequality Ourselves Protection Race Society Task
I have always been actively involved in my community, belonging to organizations that promote the interests of Latinos. But I also know that the issues we confront are the same issues, in many respects, as the larger community. So what we do helps not just us but everybody.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Active Community Help Issues Myself Organization Respect
You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Choice Hard Work Life Understand Yourself
To me, lawyering is the height of service – and being involved in this profession is a gift.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Gift Law Myself Professional Service
I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Age Break Imagination Myself Old People Time Understand View
Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Failure Fear Greatness Reward Success Teacher
I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Focus Myself Negative Positive
Don’t be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Herself Party Shy Teacher Willing
The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn’t have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Adult Care Children End Existence Interdependence Myself Truth
We educated, privileged lawyers have a professional and moral duty to represent the underrepresented in our society, to ensure that justice exists for all, both legal and economic justice.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Economics Education Justice Legal Moral Privilege Professional Representation Society
Through reading, I escaped the bad parts of my life in the South Bronx. And, through books, I got to travel the world and the universe. It, to me, was a passport out of my childhood and it remains a way – through the power of words – to change the world.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Bad Book Escape Life Myself Power Reading Travel Universe Word
I think that even someone who got into an institution through affirmative action could prove they were qualified by what they accomplished there.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Accomplishment Action Institution Myself Quality Thinking

A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Sonia Sotomayor Quotes