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.Collection: History
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.Collection: Knowledge
You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.Collection: Society
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.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Music
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.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Alone
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.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Happiness
I am a New Yorker, and 7:00 A.M. is a civilized hour to finish the day, not to start it.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Legal
I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.Collection: Positive
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.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Home
Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society.Collection: Society
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Failure
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.Collection: Business
Being a justice. If you love law the way I do... you're given the job of a lifetime... you're permitted to address the most important legal questions of the country, and sometimes the world. And in doing so, you make a difference in people's lives.Collection: Legal
If the system is broken, my inclination is to fix it rather than to fight it. I have faith in the process of the law, and if it is carried out fairly, I can live with the results, whatever they may be.Collection: Faith
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.Collection: Hope
I do know one thing about me: I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth.
The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.
I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences.
I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights.
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.
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.
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.
We apply law to facts. We don't apply feelings to facts.
All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.
I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.
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.
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.
I think it's important to move people beyond just dreaming into doing. They have to be able to see that you are just like them, and you made it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear.
Much of the uncertainty of law is not an unfortunate accident: it is of immense social value.
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.
When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.
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.
No matter how liberal I am, I'm still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.
I don't prejudge issues. I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me.
I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.
Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.
Diabetes taught me discipline.
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.