Elena Kagan

“What we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly.”

“Rarely, if ever has the Court overruled a decision—let alone one of this import—with so little regard for the usual principles of stare decisis.”

“Well, that didn’t take long. Now one may wonder yet again.”

“It is a court. It speaks best when it speaks as a court, rather than a place when nine people get together and write individually.”

“Courts are supposed to explain things, to litigants, to the public generally,”

“I don’t enjoy that. I find it frustrating.I find it disappointing. I find it sometimes maddening.”

“A casual observer might think we said the president has the authority to dismantle [the agency]…. That [question] wasn’t even before us,”

“As we have done more and more on the emergency docket, there becomes a real responsibility to explain things better.”

“would, I think, go far in persuading other people that we were adhering to the highest standards of conduct.”

“I didn’t really pull [any] punches about the importance that I thought that decision had about our political system and the way we govern ourselves… There, you’re not writing the dissent because you just thought you saw the thing differently and you think everybody should know that there were two sides to this issue. You are writing the dissent because you want to convince the future. You want to convince the present, too, but for all those people out there who in some way can carry on the efforts against this kind of undermining of democracy, go for it… Maybe the Court will change its mind…maybe it won’t.”

“At the same time, he had a real passion for justice…,”

“was a brilliant lawyer in the technical and craft aspect of the job,”

“Somebody said that Justice Jackson served on the Court for barely longer than I have now, and it made me feel so deflated,”

“This is a long process. It's a process that in no country is over. We can all improve,”