110+ Sonia Sotomayor Quotes On Reading, Empathetic And Innovative

Sonia Sotomayor is an American judge who currently serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama in May 2009 and was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009. She is the first Hispanic and Latina Justice of the Supreme Court. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Sonia Sotomayor on reading, empathetic, innovative.

Top 10 Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

1. Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared.
2. I do know one thing about me: I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Until we reach equality in education, we can't reach equality in the larger society.
6. The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.
7. There are no bystanders in life [...] Our humanity makes us each a part of something greater than ourselves.
8. I have come to believe that in order to thrive, a child must have at least one adult in her life who shows her unconditional love, respect, and confidence.
9. 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.
10. 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 Short Quotes

• Don't mistake politeness for lack of strength.
• We apply law to facts. We don't apply feelings to facts.
• I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights.
• My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.
• I'm young at heart. I'm young in spirit, and I'm still adventurous.
• A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.
• It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.
• It's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases, it's the law.
• I'm a New Yorker, and I jaywalk with the best of them.
• I hope in my book [My Beloved World], that the sense that I really feel connected comes through.

Sonia Sotomayor Quotes About People

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. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

I stand on the shoulders of countless people, yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

If I write a book where all I've ever experienced is success, people won't take a positive lesson from it. In being candid, I have to own up to my own failures, both in my marriage and in my work environment. — Sonia Sotomayor

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people. — Sonia Sotomayor

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. — Sonia Sotomayor

I visit the island [Puerto Rico] as often as I humanly can. And I visit with community as frequently as possible, given the demands on me. I meet with kids. I meet with adults. I try to spend time and to listen to people talk about their lives. — Sonia Sotomayor

Without question, so many people, throughout my life, never think of Puerto Rico as part of the United States. — Sonia Sotomayor

So many people grew up with challenges, as I did. There weren't always happy things happening to me or around me. But when you look at the core of goodness within yourself - at the optimism and hope - you realize it comes from the environment you grew up in. — Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor Quotes About Experiences

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences. — Sonia Sotomayor

I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. 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

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

My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage. — Sonia Sotomayor

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. — Sonia Sotomayor

This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system. — Sonia Sotomayor

Although wisdom is built on life experiences, the mere accumulation of years guarantees nothing. — Sonia Sotomayor

All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law, I know. I know. — Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor Quotes About Life

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

My diabetes is such a central part of my life... it did teach me discipline... it also taught me about moderation... I've trained myself to be super-vigilant... because I feel better when I am in control. — Sonia Sotomayor

Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

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

I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court, and with that candor comes a measure of vulnerability. — Sonia Sotomayor

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. — Sonia Sotomayor

I've spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me. — Sonia Sotomayor

There are no bystanders in this life. — Sonia Sotomayor

This is, for an accomplished Latino, an accomplished African American, an accomplished anyone who disproves stereotypes, it's a constant battle in your life. — Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor Quotes About Judge

It is very important when you judge to recognize that you have to stay impartial. That's what the nature of my job is. I have to unhook myself from my emotional responses and try to stay within my unemotional, objective persona. — Sonia Sotomayor

The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way. — Sonia Sotomayor

I accept the proposition that...“to judge is an exercise of power” and because...“there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives – no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging,” I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. — Sonia Sotomayor

I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law. — Sonia Sotomayor

Reaching a conclusion has to start with what the parties are arguing, but examining in all situations carefully the facts as they prove them or not prove them, the record as they create it, and then making a decision that is limited to what the law says on the facts before the judge. — Sonia Sotomayor

The task of a judge is not to make the law - it is to apply the law. — Sonia Sotomayor

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial. — Sonia Sotomayor

I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. It's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law. — Sonia Sotomayor

I do think there is a value in the services of judges for long periods of time. — Sonia Sotomayor

People in some situations act worse than animals. You can't be a judge if you try to be a robot. Because then you're not going to be able to look at both sides, and hear both sides. At the same time, if you're being ruled by emotion, then you're not being fair and impartial. — Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor Quotes About Person

I think being a Catholic made me a better person. It taught me how to choose good over evil, and how to be a more caring human being. — Sonia Sotomayor

I hope that as the Senate and American people learn more about me, they will see that I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. — Sonia Sotomayor

I stand on the shoulders of countless people, yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration - that person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor. — Sonia Sotomayor

I am a very spiritual person. Maybe not traditionally religious in terms of Sunday Mass every week, that sort of thing. — Sonia Sotomayor

Every lawyer, no matter whom they represent, is trying to help someone, whether it's a person, a corporation, a government entity, or a small or big business. To me, lawyering is the height of service - and being involved in this profession is a gift. — Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor Famous Quotes And Sayings

Don't let fear stop you. Don't give up because you are paralyzed by insecurity or overwhelmed by the odds, because in giving up, you give up hope. Understand that failure is a process in life, that only in trying can you enrich yourself and have the possibility of moving forward. The greatest obstacle in life is fear and giving up because of it. — 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

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

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

I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions. — Sonia Sotomayor

There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that's happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy, and how far we want to protect it and from whom. — Sonia Sotomayor

My job as a prosecutor is to do justice. And justice is served when a guilty man is convicted and an innocent man is not. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

I was raised in a Bronx public housing project, but studied at two of the nation's finest universities. I did work as an assistant district attorney, prosecuting violent crimes that devastate our communities. — 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

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

There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects. — Sonia Sotomayor

Even though Article IV of the Constitution says that treaties are the 'supreme law of the land,' in most instances they're not even law. — Sonia Sotomayor

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. — Sonia Sotomayor

I honestly felt no envy or resentment, only astonishment at how much of a world there was out there and how much of it others already knew. The agenda for self-cultivation that had been set for my classmates by their teachers and parents was something I'd have to develop for myself. — Sonia Sotomayor

I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run. — Sonia Sotomayor

There are uses to adversity, and they don't reveal themselves until tested. Whether it's serious illness, financial hardship, or the simple constraint of parents who speak limited English, difficulty can tap unexpected strengths. — Sonia Sotomayor

When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started. — Sonia Sotomayor

You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

The President [Barack Obama] had suggested that I not watch the news during the confirmation process. I assiduously followed his advice. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

Each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister. — Sonia Sotomayor

[On the desert:] The wind was a constant, and when you paid attention, it seemed like the earth's own breathing. — Sonia Sotomayor

I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences, but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate. — 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

So they can create a class they don't like-here, homosexuals-or a class that they consider is suspect in the marriage category, and they can create that class and decide benefits on that basis when they themselves have no interest in the actual institution of marriage as married? — Sonia Sotomayor

That tide of insecurity would come in and out over the years, sometimes stranding me for a while but occasionally lifting me just beyond what I thought I could acomplish. Either way, it would wash over the same bedrock certainty: ultimately, I know myself. — Sonia Sotomayor

I am growing to love DC.This [Washington] is a beautiful city. I think every citizen should come see their capital. A lot of the museums are free, there are restaurants that are reasonably priced. — Sonia Sotomayor

There had been questions raised about whether we could ever really unite to work together on an issue, whether we could do it with equal passion and fervor. And it happened during my nomination and I think I forever will be grateful for that love, for that support and for proving those naysayers wrong. — Sonia Sotomayor

I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up. — Sonia Sotomayor

I got a message from one of my friends in Puerto Rico, who said, 'Sonia, there's nobody working in Puerto Rico - they're all glued to the television'. And I got a similar message from a friend in Spain. — Sonia Sotomayor

how many times would a defendant's lawyer enter the courtroom before a session and ask each of the male clerks and paralegals around me, 'Are you the assistant in charge?' while I sat there invisible to him at the head of the table? — Sonia Sotomayor

I didn't know I had a sense of limitation until I got into the greater world. — Sonia Sotomayor

I think that even someone who got into an institution through affirmative action could prove they were qualified by what they accomplished there. — Sonia Sotomayor

Remember that no one succeeds alone. Never walk alone in your future paths. — Sonia Sotomayor

I've never had my dexterity called into question, but I think if that was ever the case, I could acquit myself by tossing a ball back and forth horizontally between my hands. — Sonia Sotomayor

I don't prejudge issues. I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me. — Sonia Sotomayor

It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different. Now I understand that I've gotten to enjoy things that others have not, whether it's the laughter, the poetry of my Spanish language - I love Spanish poetry, because my grandmother loved it - our food, our music. Everything about my culture has given me enormous education and joy. — Sonia Sotomayor

as for the possibility of 'having it all,' career and family with no sacrifice to either, that is a myth we would do well to abandon, together with the pernicious notion that a woman who chooses one of the other is somehow deficient. — Sonia Sotomayor

Oh my God, I don't think you can say anyone looks forward to controversy. — Sonia Sotomayor

As you may know from my life story, my cousin who was my soul mate went to a public school. And he died of AIDS. Would I and my brother have been able to resist the lure of drugs in the surrounding schools? Who knows. — Sonia Sotomayor

Same way I have my entire life. Keep my family and friends close. My Latino friends close. I visit the island [Puerto Rico] as often as I humanly can. — Sonia Sotomayor

One thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students' achievement when they succeed is really only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance to even try. It is the same prejudice that insists all those destined for success must be cast from the same mold as those who have succeeded before them, a view that experience has already proven a fallacy. — Sonia Sotomayor

You can't dream unless you know what the possibilities are. — Sonia Sotomayor

My mom loved the book [My beloved world] and she said to me, 'I never knew you had done so much.' — Sonia Sotomayor

All I can say is that with business and the interest of any party before me, I will consider and apply the law as it is written by Congress and informed by precedent. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

I have had positive experiences with cameras. When I have been asked to join experiments using cameras in the courtroom, I have participated; I have volunteered. — Sonia Sotomayor

I'm a common law judge. I believe in deciding every case on its facts, not on a legal philosophy. And I believe in deciding each case in the most limited way possible, because common law judges have a firm belief that the best development of the law is the one that lets society show you the next step, and that next step is in the new facts that each case presents. — Sonia Sotomayor

You always wonder whether the attacks on my capabilities came from an honest evaluation of my accomplishments or from stereotypical presumptions that we, people of color, just can't do it, for some reason. This is, for an accomplished Latino, an accomplished African American, an accomplished anyone who disproves stereotypes, it's a constant battle in your life. — Sonia Sotomayor

I am growing to love DC. But the core of Sonia is a New Yorker. — Sonia Sotomayor

I got a label because I was Hispanic and a woman and [therefore] I had to be liberal. — Sonia Sotomayor

I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government. — Sonia Sotomayor

Life Lessons by Sonia Sotomayor

1. Judge Sonia Sotomayor's work shows that hard work and dedication can lead to success, no matter what your background is.
2. She has demonstrated that it is possible to break down barriers and challenge the status quo in order to create a more equitable society.
3. Her example shows that it is possible to make a difference in the world, even when faced with adversity and discrimination.