Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

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Sonia Sotomayor

Profession : Judge

Birth : June 25, 1954

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm a New Yorker, and I jaywalk with the best of them.

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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 don't prejudge.

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

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