John Calvin Quotes
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We ought always to beware of making the smallest claim for ourselves.
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Doubtful prayer is no prayer at all.
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All the more vile is the stupidity of those persons who open heaven to all the impious and unbelieving without the grace of Him whom Scripture commonly teaches to be the only door whereby we enter into salvation.
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Now the great thing is this: we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory. For a sacred thing may not be applied to profane uses without marked injury to him.
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Man with all his shrewdness is as stupid about understanding by himself the mysteries of God, as an ass is incapable of understanding musical harmony.
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It is entirely the work of grace and a benefit conferred by it that our heart is changed from a stony one to one of flesh, that our will is made new, and that we, created anew in heart and mind, at length will what we ought to will.
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... let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses.
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Let our chief goal, O God, be your glory, and to enjoy You forever.
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The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life.
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Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.
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When I took the leap, I had faith I would find a net; Instead I learned I could fly.
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The most accomplished in the Scripture are fools, unless they acknowledge that they have need of God for their schoolmaster all the days of their life.
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We unjustly defraud God of his right, unless each of us lives and dies in dependence on His sovereign pleasure.
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Faith and patience are exceptional virtues in those that suffer. Patience is the fruit and evidence of faith.
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Faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ.
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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.
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If grace acts in us, grace, and not we who do the work, will be crowned.
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Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of His fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil.
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The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.
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Unless we fix certain hours in the day for prayer, it easily slips from our memory.
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We must not think that God takes no notice of us, when He does not answer our wishes: for He has a right to distinguish what we actually need.
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Without Christ, sciences in every department are vain....The man who knows not God is vain, though he should be conversant with every branch of learning. Nay more, we may affirm this too with truth, that these choice gifts of God -- expertness of mind, acuteness of judgment, liberal sciences, and acquaintance with languages, are in a manner profaned in every instance in which they fall to the lot of wicked men.
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Whatever a person may be like, we must still love them because we love God.
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The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.