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I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.

Sonia Sotomayor

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
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
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
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
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 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
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Hope Life Man Myself Reach Rich Woman
I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Focus Myself Negative Positive
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
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.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Doubt Failure Hurt Live Myself
The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Fire Forever 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
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
You can’t dream unless you know what the possibilities are.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Dreams Possible Yourself
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
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

I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.

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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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