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You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.

Sonia Sotomayor

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
Diabetes taught me discipline.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Discipline Myself One Liner Sick Teaching
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
I have always been actively involved in my community, belonging to organizations that promote the interests of Latinos. But I also know that the issues we confront are the same issues, in many respects, as the larger community. So what we do helps not just us but everybody.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Active Community Help Issues Myself Organization Respect
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
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
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
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
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
Some people choose not to engage the battle and then don’t seek out that kind of success. And others do.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Battle Choice Engagement Kindness People Seek
The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Fire Forever Myself
My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Judiciary Law Myself Philosophy
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
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
To me, lawyering is the height of service – and being involved in this profession is a gift.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Gift Law Myself Professional Service
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
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
A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Confidence Effort
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.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Life Philosophy Threat Value Yourself
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
We apply law to facts. We don’t apply feelings to facts.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Difference Fact Feelings Law
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.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Bad Book Escape Life Myself Power Reading Travel Universe Word
Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Choice Experience Judgement Personal See
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
There are no bystanders in life. Our humanity makes us each a part of something greater than ourselves.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Greatness Humanity Life Ourselves Stand
The President Barack Obama had suggested that I not watch the news during the confirmation process. I assiduously followed his advice.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Advice Myself President Process

You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.

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You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.

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