Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

Experience is what enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

The thing I have to keep in mind and I try to keep in mind about myself, about anyone, is you do the best you can do at the time.

I was a self-centered bore. I was masochistic, and only thought I was happy. When I woke up and said, "there must be something wrong with me", I grew up. Because I never understood myself, how could I hope to understand anyone else? That's why I can truly say that now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her.

Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.

I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes - it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all.

Personally, I really hope I can treat everyone equally. I think I have done a pretty good job so far but I know I can do it better.

Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.

It's always nice to look in the mirror at the end of the day and see that you helped somebody's life... even if only a little bit.

Be the kind of person you want to be with... If you don't like the people in your life, you are the one who has to change, not them.

Experience is a valuable thing. It enables us to recognize mistakes when we repeat them.

Experience increases our wisdom but doesn't reduce our follies.

In order to help people, you have to first learn how to help yourself.

I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.

Life is a learning experience, only if you learn.

Mastery of awareness requires that you never take personal offense.

You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.

Cease to be a disobedient child in the school of experience, and begin to learn, with humility and patience, the lessons that are set for your ultimate perfection.

I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility. Humility leads to clarity. Humility leads to an open mind and a forgiving heart. With an open mind and a forgiving heart, I see every person as superior to me in some way; with every person as my teacher, I grow in wisdom. As I grow in wisdom, humility becomes ever more my guide. I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility.

We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

The more time we spend considering the shortcomings of others, the smaller a person we become.

Long experience has told me that to be criticized is not always to be wrong.

I write about my life and the lives of people around me and situations, and the idea's for each record to try to make you a better person, to understand the life that you lead more.

The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character.