Scotus Quotes & Sayings

Authority that is not confirmed by true reason seems weak. Whereas true reason does not need to be confirmed by any authority. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena

Well, let's see. There's - of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others. But, um. — Sarah Palin

Classroom Activities
1. Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia! — Jon Stewart

If only the court had acted more slowly,' RBG said, and cut down one state law at a time the way she had gotten them to do with the jury and benefit cases. The justices could have been persuaded to build an architecture of women's equality that could house reproductive freedom. She said the very boldness of Roe, striking down all abortion bans until viability, had 'halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue. (85). — Irin Carmon

If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science. And he immediately indicates what the greatest science is, namely the science which is about those things that are most knowable. But there are two senses in which things are said to be maximally knowable: either because they are the first of all things known and without them nothing else can be known; or because they are what are known most certainly. In either way, however, this science is about the most knowable. Therefore, this most of all is a science and, consequently, most desirable. — John Duns Scotus

Observe the forms and beauties of sensible things and comprehend the Word of God in them. If you do so, the truth will reveal to you in all such things only He who made them. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena

For those of us who originally disagreed with ObamaCare and now disagree with the majority opinion of the SCOTUS, the challenge remains the same as it would have been had the Court ruled otherwise. We need to elect Mitt Romney and House and Senate majorities that will repeal ObamaCare and replace it with free-market, pro-liberty solutions. — Bob Beauprez

The end of all motion is its beginning; for it terminates at no other end save its own beginning from which begins to be moved and to which it tends ever to return, in order to cease and rest in it. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena

Quote from Ranger Captain David Craig, character in Voice in the Wilderness, page 187:
"If the House and the Senate had the guts to stick to it [Constitution], and we could trust SCOTUS to uphold it, we wouldn't be in this mess. — H.L. Wegley

John Duns Scotus, OFM, taught that the opposite of good was not bad but nonbeing itself. The opposite of truth was not falsity but nonbeing itself. And the opposite of unity was not multiplicity but nonbeing itself. All the opposites are all held and contained within pure being, even the finite and the infinite, matter and Spirit, male and female, etc., and this harmony between things is called beauty, which for some is a fourth transcendental itself. This worldview creates a very positive theology and anthropology based on original blessing instead of original sin. It also creates a philosophical basis for nondual thinking and the nature of evil. Evil is nonbeing and unconsciousness. Beauty is the fullness of being and full consciousness. — Richard Rohr

Every visible and invisible creature is an appearance of God. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena

For Scotus, as for Bonaventure, the Trinity is the absolute beginning point - and ending point too. Outpouring Love is the inherent shape of the universe, and when we love, only then do we fully exist in this universe. We do not need to "understand" what is happening, or who God is, before we can live in love. The will to love precedes any need to fully understand what we are doing, the Franciscan School would say. — Richard Rohr

Christ wears "two shoes" in the world: scripture and nature. Both are necessary to understand the Lord, and at no stage can creation be seen as a separation of things from God. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena

We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena

To restrict or legalize abortion, to allow or forbid gay marriage, a legislator would need to write and pass a law, get it signed by the president or a governor, and perhaps override a veto. A Supreme Court justice need only persuade four other people. If he or she is not internally constrained by the authority of a text, he or she is not constrained. — Michael J. Gerson

For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority. — Johannes Scotus Eriugena