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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

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
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
There are no bystanders in this life.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Life One Liner Stand
A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Confidence Effort
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
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
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
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
Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Challenge Growth Life Modesty Myself Rich
An alcoholic father, poverty, my own juvenile diabetes, the limited English my parents spoke – although my mother has become completely bilingual since. All these things intrude on what most people think of as happiness.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Alcohol Father Language Limitation Mom Myself Parents Sick Talk
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
I realized that people had an unreal image of me, that somehow I was a god on Mount Olympus. I decided that if I were going to make use of my role as a Supreme Court Justice, it would be to inspire people to realize that, first, I was just like them and second, if I could do it, so could they.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Decision God Image Justice Myself People Reality Reputation
I’ve spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Hard Learning Life Myself
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
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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