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Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences…our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

Sonia Sotomayor

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
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences…our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Born Difference Experience Inheritance Judgement Nation Ourselves
Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Choice Experience Judgement Personal See
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
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
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, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Focus Myself Negative Positive
If I write a book where all I’ve ever experienced is success, people won’t take a positive lesson from it. In being candid, I have to own up to my own failures, both in my marriage and in my work environment.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Book Environment Experience Failure Myself People Success Work Writing
The dynamism of any diverse community depends not only on the diversity itself but on promoting a sense of belonging among those who formerly would have been considered and felt themselves outsiders.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Community Diversity Feeling
A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Confidence Effort
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
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
My diabetes is such a central part of my life… it did teach me discipline, it also taught me about moderation. I’ve trained myself to be super-vigilant because I feel better when I am in control.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Better Control Discipline Feeling Life Myself Sick Teaching Training
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
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

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences…our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

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Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences…our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

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Popular Authors

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