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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

Although wisdom is built on life experiences, the mere accumulation of years guarantees nothing.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Build Experience Life Philosophy Wisdom
Some people choose not to engage the battle and then don’t seek out that kind of success. And others do.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Battle Choice Engagement Kindness People Seek
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
In every position that I’ve been in, there have been naysayers who don’t believe I’m qualified or who don’t believe I can do the work. And I feel a special responsibility to prove them wrong.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Believe Myself Position Qualification Responsibility Work Wrong
I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Blessing Face Myself Native Perseverance
Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Choice Experience Judgement Personal See
The challenges I have faced – among them material poverty, chronic illness, and being raised by a single mother – are not uncommon, but neither have they kept me from uncommon achievements.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Achievement Challenge Face Material Myself Poor Poverty Sick
I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Focus Myself Negative Positive
Remember that no one succeeds alone. Never walk alone in your future paths.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Alone Future Oneself Path Remember Success Walk
I came to accept during my freshman year that many of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding were simply limits of class and cultural background, not lack of aptitude or application as I’d feared.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Acceptance Culture Fear Knowledge Law Myself Simplicity Understand
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
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
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
The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Fire Forever Myself
When everyone at school is speaking one language, and a lot of your classmates’ parents also speak it, and you go home and see that your community is different -there is a sense of shame attached to that. It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Attachment Community Different Growth Home Language Parents See Shame Talk Yourself
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 was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.

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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.

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