Sonia Sotomayor Quotes (12 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Sonia Sotomayor: 12 quotes2 likes

Famous Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

“America has a deeply confused image of itself that is in perpetual tension. We are a nation that takes pride in our ethnic diversity, recognizing its importance in shaping our society and in adding richness to its existence. Yet, we simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way that ignore these very differences that in other contexts we laud. That tension between "the melting pot and the salad bowl" – a recently popular metaphor used to described New York's diversity – is being hotly debated today in national discussions about affirmative action.”

Sonia Sotomayor

Address to the Raising the Bar symposium (2001)

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

Sonia Sotomayor

Q&A session at quarterly meeting of the Philadelphia Bar Association (11 March 2011), as reported in "Sotomayor receives Philadelphia Bar's Diversity Award" by Jeff Blumenthal http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/jeff-blumenthal/2011/03/sotomayor-receives-philadelphia-bars.html?ed=2011-03-11&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub, in Philadelphia Business Journal (11 March 2011).

“I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. 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, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate. There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering.”

Sonia Sotomayor

Address to the Raising the Bar symposium (2001)

“Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”

Sonia Sotomayor

Address to the Raising the Bar symposium (2001)

“Awareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms. And the Government’s unrestrained power to assemble data that reveal private aspects of identity is susceptible to abuse.”

Sonia Sotomayor

United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945, 956 (2012) (concurring).

“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

1997 Senate confirmation hearing, reported in Deborah Tedford, " "Senate Will Have To Confirm Court Choice http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104532843&ft=1&f=3", NPR (26 May 2009).