Sonia Sotomayor quotes - page 3

Sonia Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, known for being the first Latina to serve on the Court. Her background and decisions have deeply influenced discussions on race, justice, and equality in America. She continues to inspire many through her dedication to public service and her advocacy for marginalized communities. Here are 92 of her quotes:

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

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

Diabetes taught me discipline.

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

My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.

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

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

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

It is our responsibility to explain to the public how an often unpredictable system of justice is one that serves a productive, civilized, but always evolving, society.

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

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

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

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

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

Sonia Sotomayor

When I'm concentrating, I can be fixed in place for hours. In fact, there was a joke in my office that everybody would come and chat outside my door because they knew - no matter how loud they talked - if I was concentrating, it would not disturb me at all.

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

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

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

Sonia Sotomayor

I do know one thing about me: I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth.

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