I do know one thing about me: I don’t measure myself by others’ expectations or let others define my worth.
SONIA SOTOMAYORAn 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.
More Sonia Sotomayor Quotes
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I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.
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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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I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.
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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.
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To me, lawyering is the height of service – and being involved in this profession is a gift.
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Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared.
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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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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.
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I think that even someone who got into an institution through affirmative action could prove they were qualified by what they accomplished there.
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My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.
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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.
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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.
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Until we reach equality in education, we can’t reach equality in the larger society.
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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.
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I savor life. When you have anything that threatens life it prods you into stepping back and really appreciating the value of life and taking from it what you can.
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