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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

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
Diabetes taught me discipline.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Discipline Myself One Liner Sick Teaching
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.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Aspiration Growth Justice Learning Myself People Personal Professional Remember
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
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
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
The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Constitution Discrimination Eyes Race Stop Talk Way
I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Blessing Face Myself Native Perseverance
We apply law to facts. We don’t apply feelings to facts.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Difference Fact Feelings Law
There are no bystanders in this life.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Life One Liner Stand
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
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
Until we reach equality in education, we can’t reach equality in the larger society.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Education Equality Reach Society
Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Choice Experience Judgement Personal See
If you’re poor, you don’t often live near a good school. If it’s a competitive public school program, our kids are not prepared to enter those programs.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Children Competition Goodness Live Ourselves Poor Preparation Program

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.”

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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.”

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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