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Experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire.

Sonia Sotomayor

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Sonia Sotomayor
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: June 25
Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
University Teacher
The Bronx
New York City
Sonia Maria Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor
Experience
Odds
True
According
Cannot
Dreams
Dream
Value
Real
Coming
Taught
Within
Stirring
Values
Aspire

More quotes by Sonia Sotomayor

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I've spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me.
Sonia Sotomayor
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Every lawyer, no matter whom they represent, is trying to help someone, whether it's a person, a corporation, a government entity, or a small or big business. To me, lawyering is the height of service - and being involved in this profession is a gift.
Sonia Sotomayor
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That tide of insecurity would come in and out over the years, sometimes stranding me for a while but occasionally lifting me just beyond what I thought I could acomplish. Either way, it would wash over the same bedrock certainty: ultimately, I know myself.
Sonia Sotomayor
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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
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The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.
Sonia Sotomayor
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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.
Sonia Sotomayor
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When you have strong views about how to approach thinking about the law, then that view is going to lead to certain results in certain situations. And so people seem to think this predictability is based on some kind of partisan political view. But it's not.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I do know one thing about me: I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth.
Sonia Sotomayor
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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
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I got a message from one of my friends in Puerto Rico, who said, 'Sonia, there's nobody working in Puerto Rico - they're all glued to the television'. And I got a similar message from a friend in Spain.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences.
Sonia Sotomayor
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As you discover what strength you can draw from your community in this world from which it stands apart, look outward as well as inward. Build bridges instead of walls.
Sonia Sotomayor
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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.
Sonia Sotomayor
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When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.
Sonia Sotomayor
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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
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Diabetes taught me discipline.
Sonia Sotomayor
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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
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Without question, so many people, throughout my life, never think of Puerto Rico as part of the United States.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I had many reasons for writing memoir but among them was the hope that every Latino child and adult would find something familiar in it.
Sonia Sotomayor
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The task of a judge is not to make the law - it is to apply the law.
Sonia Sotomayor