Top 50 Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.

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.

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

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

A career is something that you train for and prepare for and plan on doing for a long time.

I am a very spiritual person. Maybe not traditionally religious in terms of Sunday Mass every week, that sort of thing.

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.

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.

What’s quote-unquote a ‘good’ lawyer, doctor, or whatever the profession is. And if you’re a male who grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image.

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.

We apply law to facts. We don’t apply feelings to facts.

I found in my experiences that it’s not that men are consciously discriminating against promoting women, but I do believe as people we have self-images about what’s good.

Until we get equality in education, we won’t have an equal society.

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

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

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.

I do think there is a value in the services of judges for long periods of time.

I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up.

I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court, and with that candor comes a measure of vulnerability.

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.

I wouldn’t approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart. They don’t determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law.

I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out.

I don’t prejudge.

My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences.

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.

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.

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.

Much of the uncertainty of law is not an unfortunate accident: it is of immense social value.

We have to look and ensure that we’re paying attention to what we’re doing, so that we don’t reflexively institute processes and procedures that exclude people without thought.

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.

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.

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.

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.

I don’t prejudge issues. I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me.

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.

I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights.

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.

I am a New Yorker, and 7:00 A.M. is a civilized hour to finish the day, not to start it.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I’m talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.

If I write a book where all I’ve ever experienced is success, people won’t take a positive lesson from it. In being candid, I have to own up to my own failures, both in my marriage and in my work environment.

This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear.

It’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases, it’s the law.

Diabetes taught me discipline.