Top 350 John Calvin Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When the Bible speaks, God speaks.”

— John Calvin

2. “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.”

— John Calvin

Featured in: Judging Quotes

3. “All truth is God’s truth.”

— John Calvin

4. “The Human heart is an idol factory.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

Featured in: Spirituality Quotes

6. “Prayer doesn’t change things – God changes things in answer to prayer.”

— John Calvin

7. “The Scriptures should be read with the aim of finding Christ in them. Whoever turns aside from this object, even though he wears himself out all his life in learning, he will never reach the knowledge of the truth.”

— John Calvin

Featured in: Scripture Quotes

8. “I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? Everything in Christ.”

— John Calvin

9. “True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.”

— John Calvin

10. “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.”

— John Calvin

11. “Without the Gospel everything is useless and vain.”

— John Calvin

Featured in: Salvation Quotes

12. “Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.”

— John Calvin

13. “There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.”

— John Calvin

14. “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

15. “Joy and thanksgiving expressed in prayer and praise according to the Word of God are the heart of the Church’s worship.”

— John Calvin

16. “Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.”

— John Calvin

17. “Peace is not to be purchased by the sacrifice of truth.”

— John Calvin

18. “Humility is the beginning of true intelligence.”

— John Calvin

19. “We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.”

— John Calvin

20. “It is a most blessed thing to be subject to the sovereignty of God.”

— John Calvin

21. “If a preacher is not first preaching to himself, better that he falls on the steps of the pulpit and breaks his neck than preaches that sermon.”

— John Calvin

22. “The whole gospel is contained in Christ.”

— John Calvin

23. “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

24. “How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ.”

— John Calvin

25. “For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself?”

— John Calvin

26. “All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions.”

— John Calvin

27. “My heart I give you, Lord, eagerly and entirely.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

29. “When I took the leap, I had faith I would find a net; Instead I learned I could fly.”

— John Calvin

30. “Christ is much more powerful to save, than Adam was to destroy.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

32. “Faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ.”

— John Calvin

33. “The church is the gathering of God’s children, where they can be helped and fed like babies and then guided by her motherly care, grow up to manhood in maturity of faith.”

— John Calvin

34. “We must make the invisible kingdom visible in our midst.”

— John Calvin

35. “Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

37. “Whatever a person may be like, we must still love them because we love God.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

39. “You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy.”

— John Calvin

40. “If God were not to test us, there would be no patience.”

— John Calvin

41. “When God designs to forgive us he changes our hearts and turns us to obedience by His Spirit.”

— John Calvin

42. “Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with nothing to offer and everything to recieve.”

— John Calvin

43. “Our assurance, our glory, and the sole anchor of our salvation are that Christ the Son of God is ours, and we in turn are in him sons of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, called to the hope of eternal blessedness by God’s grace, not by our worth.”

— John Calvin

44. “The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.”

— John Calvin

45. “Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness.”

— John Calvin

46. “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.”

— John Calvin

47. “The marks of Jesus are imprisonment, chains, scourgings, blows and stoning in bearing testimony to the Gospel. Galatians 6:17 – 17 Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”

— John Calvin

48. “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

49. “Only those who have learned well to be earnestly dissatisfied with themselves, and to be confounded with shame at their wretchedness truly understand the Christian gospel.”

— John Calvin

50. “The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.”

— John Calvin