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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

I’m young at heart. I’m young in spirit, and I’m still adventurous.

– 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

I think that the day a justice forgets that each decision comes at a cost to someone, then I think you start losing your humanity.

– Sonia Sotomayor

With my academic achievement in high school, I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that’s been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that.

– Sonia Sotomayor

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.

– Sonia Sotomayor

Oh my God, I don’t think you can say anyone looks forward to controversy.

– Sonia Sotomayor

What’s quote-unquote a ‘good’ lawyer, doctor, or whatever the profession is. And if you’re a male who grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image.

– Sonia Sotomayor

I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It’s not the mother she became after my father died, and that’s been the greatest prize of my life.

– Sonia Sotomayor

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

– 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

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

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 believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.

– Sonia Sotomayor

I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.

– Sonia Sotomayor

It is important for all of us to appreciate where we come from and how that history has really shaped us in ways that we might not understand.

– Sonia Sotomayor

I don’t prejudge.

– Sonia Sotomayor

The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

– Sonia Sotomayor

When you come from a background like mine, where you’re entering worlds that are so different than your own, you have to be afraid.

– Sonia Sotomayor

Until we get equality in education, we won’t have an equal society.

– 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

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

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

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

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

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

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.

– Sonia Sotomayor

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

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 listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people’s signals.

– Sonia Sotomayor

I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out.

– Sonia Sotomayor

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