Quotes by Sonia Sotomayor

About Sonia Sotomayor:

Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She is the 111th appointment to the Court, has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic heritage, its third female justice, and its twelfth Roman Catholic justice. Sotomayor shares with John Roberts and Elena Kagan being among the youngest justices on the Supreme Court.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

Sonia Sotomayor

In examining witnesses, I learned to ask general questions so as to elicit details with powerful sensory associations: the colors, the sounds, the smells that lodge an image in the mind and put the listener in the burning house.

Sonia Sotomayor

The first case I sat on... was Citizens United. Talk about being thrown in. Needless to say, if I was scared before, I was terrified.

Sonia Sotomayor

My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.

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

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.

Sonia Sotomayor

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

I'm young at heart. I'm young in spirit, and I'm still adventurous.

Sonia Sotomayor

Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in every job you're going to do.

Sonia Sotomayor

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

Sonia Sotomayor

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 i...

Sonia Sotomayor

With my academic achievement in high school, I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that's been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that.

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

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

The dynamism of any diverse community depends not only on the diversity itself but on promoting a sense of belonging among those who formerly would have been considered and felt themselves outsiders.

Sonia Sotomayor

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 dep...

Sonia Sotomayor

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,...

Sonia Sotomayor

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 la...

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

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

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 peop...

Sonia Sotomayor

Author Bio

  • NameSonia Sotomayor
  • Descriptionfirst Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court Justice
  • AliasesSonia Maria Sotomayor
  • BornJune 25, 1954
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJudge; Lawyer