John Calvin > Quotes

“We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.”
― John Calvin

“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
― John Calvin

“There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.”
― John Calvin

“The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.”
― John Calvin

“True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.”
― John Calvin

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field,...it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”
― John Calvin

“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent”
― John Calvin

“It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"!
(Institutio III.2.3)”
― John Calvin

“Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”
― John Calvin

“Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them. ”
― John Calvin

“The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.”
― John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.”
― John Calvin

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.”
― John Calvin

“...a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous...”
― John Calvin

“men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success”
― John Calvin

“However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.”
― John Calvin

“Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.”
― John Calvin

“Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?
”
― John Calvin

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness. ”
― John Calvin

“For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God”
― John Calvin

“God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.”
― John Calvin

“There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.”
― John Calvin

“Those who set up a fictitious worship, merely worship and adore their own delirious fancies; indeed, they would never dare so to trifle with God, had they not previously fashioned him after their own childish conceits.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions”
― John Calvin

“Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“This is why Paul upholds the teaching of the gospel in such a forceful way ... Seeing such an example and such a picture of man’s great weakness and fickleness, Paul states that the truth of the gospel must supersede anything that we may devise … he is showing us that we ought to know the substance of the doctrine which is brought to us in the name of God, so that our faith can be fully grounded upon it. Then we will not be tossed about with every wind, nor will we wander about aimlessly, changing our opinions a hundred times a day; we will persist in this doctrine until the end. This, in brief, is what we must remember.”
― John Calvin, Sermons on Galatians

“No one can travel so far that he does not make some progess each day. So let us never give up. Then we shall move forward daily in the Lord's way. And let us never despair because of our limited success. Even though it is so much less than we would like, our labour is not wasted when today is better than yesterday!”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“It is a promise which eminently deserves our observation that all who are united to Christ and acknowledge Him to be Christ and Mediator will remain to the end safe from all danger, for what is said of the body of the Church belongs to each of its members since they are one in Christ.”
― John Calvin

“The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.”
― John Calvin, Commentary on Psalms - Volume 5

“In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion