John Calvin Quotes

Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue but of the life.

Sometimes it seems things go by too quickly. We are so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take the time to enjoy where we are.

Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.

When the Bible speaks, God speaks.

To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.

Satan is an astute theologian.

We can experience joy in adverse circumstances by holding God's benefits in such esteem that the recognition of them and meditation upon them shall overcome all sorrow.

No man can come to God but by an extraordinary revelation of the Spirit.

Human will does not by liberty obtain grace, but by grace obtains liberty.

Faith and hope...are the wings by which our souls, rising above the world, are lifted up to God.

Those who fall away have never been thoroughly imbued with the knowledge of Christ but only had a slight and passing taste of it.

Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.

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.

Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.

Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.

A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot

The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ efficaciously unites us to himself.

The Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.

We cannot rely on God's promises without obeying his commandments.

The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross.

Holiness is not a merit by which we can attain communion with God, but a gift of Christ, which enables us to cling to him, and to follow him.

The Lord has given us a table at which to feast, not an altar on which a victim is to be offered; He has not consecrated priests to make sacrifice, but servants to distribute the sacred feast.

There is no place for faith if we expect God to fulfill immediately what he promises.

There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.

God is not limited to any person, but calls freely whomsoever He pleases, and bestows on those who are called whatever rewards He thinks fit.

There is nothing in afflictions which ought to disturb our joy.

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

The Gospel acts without threats... it teaches us about the supreme goodwill of God towards us.

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

Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.

The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.

All true knowledge of God is born out of obedience.

God would remain absolutely hidden if we were not illuminated by the brightness of Christ.

My heart I give you, Lord, eagerly and entirely.

Let us consider this settled, that no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection.

We are nowhere forbidden to laugh.

There are sons of God who do not yet appear so to us, but now do so to God; and there are those who, on account of some arrogated or temporal grace, are called so by us, but are not so to God.

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.

Let our chief goal, O God, be your glory, and to enjoy You forever.

The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood works, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.

To will is human, to will the bad is of fallen nature, but to will the good is of Grace.

Angels are the dispensers and administrators of the divine beneficence toward us.

Hatred grows into insolence when we desire to excel the rest of mankind and imagine we do not belong to the common lot; we even severely and haughtily despise others as our inferiors.

The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.

I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.

Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority.

Let that ethical philosophy therefore of free-will be far from a Christian mind.

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

Where God's Spirit does not reign, there is no humility, and men ever swell with inward pride.

The whole gospel is contained in Christ.