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I’ve spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.

Sonia Sotomayor

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Blessing Experience Myself Opportunity Ordinary Person
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
Experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Aspiration Dreams Experience Reality True Value
A role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, “Yes, someone like me can do this.”
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Existence Inspirational Model Myself Possible Reason Role
The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Constitution Discrimination Eyes Race Stop Talk Way
To me, lawyering is the height of service – and being involved in this profession is a gift.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Gift Law Myself Professional Service
Every lawyer, no matter whom they represent, is trying to help someone, whether it’s a person, a corporation, a government entity, or a small or big business. To me, lawyering is the height of service – and being involved in this profession is a gift.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Business Gift Government Help Law Person Professional Representation Service Try
I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Bad Believe Experience Goodness Judgement Life Opportunity Person
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
We apply law to facts. We don’t apply feelings to facts.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Difference Fact Feelings Law
There are no bystanders in this life.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Life One Liner Stand
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
It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Different Growth
Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Career Fun Pretend
I do know one thing about me: I don’t measure myself by others’ expectations or let others define my worth.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Expectation Myself Self Love Worth
Without question, so many people, throughout my life, never think of Puerto Rico as part of the United States. Many people have no idea what the relationship is between Puerto Rico and the United States. And certainly, I have been asked if we are citizens.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Citizenship Ideas Life Myself People Question Relationship Thinking
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
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 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
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
If the system is broken, my inclination is to fix it rather than to fight it. I have faith in the process of the law, and if it is carried out fairly, I can live with the results, whatever they may be.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Break Carry Fight Live Myself Process Result System
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
Although wisdom is built on life experiences, the mere accumulation of years guarantees nothing.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Build Experience Life Philosophy Wisdom
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
A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Confidence Effort
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
My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Judiciary Law Myself Philosophy

I’ve spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.

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I’ve spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.

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