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 SOTOMAYORThrough 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.
More Sonia Sotomayor Quotes
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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 don’t have a professional aspiration. But I do have a personal one: I want to continue growing as a person. I want to reach out more to people, learn more from them. Ultimately, I would like to be a great justice that people remember with respect and fondness.
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You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will – undoubtedly – fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I’m just not going to let this get me down.
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The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.
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I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.
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I’ve spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.
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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.
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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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I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.
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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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There are no bystanders in life. Our humanity makes us each a part of something greater than ourselves.
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We apply law to facts. We don’t apply feelings to facts.
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The President Barack Obama had suggested that I not watch the news during the confirmation process. I assiduously followed his advice.
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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.
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My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.
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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.
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Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.
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I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.
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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.
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I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.
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If your child marches to a different beat, a different drummer, you might just have to go along with that music. Help them achieve what’s important to them.
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Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career.
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Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.
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Diabetes taught me discipline.
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Although wisdom is built on life experiences, the mere accumulation of years guarantees nothing.
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Remember that no one succeeds alone. Never walk alone in your future paths.
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