Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

41 Sourced Quotes

People who live in difficult circumstances need to know that happy endings are possible.

Sonia Sotomayor
I would warn any minority student today against the temptations of self-segregation: take support and comfort from your own group as you can, but don't hide within it.

Sonia Sotomayor
I find the speech in this case patently offensive, hateful, and insulting. The Court should not, however, gloss over three decades of jurisprudence and the centrality of First Amendment freedoms in our lives because it is confronted with speech it does not like.

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

Sonia Sotomayor
You can't say: This much love is worth this much misery. They're not opposites that cancel each other out; they're both true at the same time.

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
In such cases, one can feel powerless and wonder why the others were not persuaded by what one took to be so salient in the case. There is, on the other hand, a singularly satisfying feeling that one gets when one has arrived at a particularly penetrating analysis and is able to convince both of one's colleagues of its merit.

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
The best I could say about third grade was that it was a more or less continuous state of dread.

Sonia Sotomayor
Traveling with Mami to Puerto Rico was a little like being around Rip van Winkle on the day he woke up. She wore an expression of constant wonderment: everything surprised her by how much it had changed, except for the things that surprised her because they were just as she remembered them.

Sonia Sotomayor