Top 350 John Calvin Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “In knowing God, each of us also knows himself.”

— John Calvin

102. “All men were created to busy themselves with the labor for the common good.”

— John Calvin

103. “The first part of a good work is the will, the second is vigorous effort in the doing of it. God is the author of both. It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act.”

— John Calvin

104. “Unless we fix certain hours in the day for prayer, it easily slips from our memory.”

— John Calvin

105. “God does not bestow his spirit on his people in order to set aside the use of his word, but rather to render it fruitful.”

— John Calvin

106. “But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men!”

— John Calvin

107. “The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.”

— John Calvin

108. “Wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.”

— John Calvin

109. “The Creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite, and at the same time, the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells of God.”

— John Calvin

110. “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.”

— John Calvin

111. “Original sin, therefore, appears to be a hereditary, depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all the parts of the soul, rendering us obnoxious to the divine wrath and producing in us those works which the scripture calls ’works of.”

— John Calvin

112. “The highest honor in the church is not government but service.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

114. “The blood of Christ is necessary to purge the faults clinging to our best works.”

— John Calvin

115. “Against the persecution of a tyrant the godly have no remedy but prayer.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

117. “But as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God.”

— John Calvin

118. “The Holy Spirit has consecrated us as temples of God. We, therefore, must let the glory of God shine through us, and we must not pollute ourselves with sin.”

— John Calvin

119. “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.”

— John Calvin

120. “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.”

— John Calvin

121. “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.”

— John Calvin

122. “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

123. “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.”

— John Calvin

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

— John Calvin

125. “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

126. “The subject then of these chapters may be stated thus, – man’s only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.”

— John Calvin

127. “In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.”

— John Calvin

128. “There are babies a span long in hell.”

— John Calvin

129. “All true knowledge of God is born out of obedience.”

— John Calvin

130. “The unborn baby, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and should not be robbed of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.”

— John Calvin

131. “The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.”

— John Calvin

132. “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”

— John Calvin

133. “Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.”

— John Calvin

134. “While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.”

— John Calvin

135. “The fire of affliction reveals the quality of our faith.”

— John Calvin

136. “Repentance is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of Him; and it consists in the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the Spirit.”

— John Calvin

137. “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.”

— John Calvin

138. “Satan is an astute theologian.”

— John Calvin

139. “There is no inconsistency in saying that God rewards good works, provided we understand that nevertheless men obtain eternal life gratuitously.”

— John Calvin

140. “The sufferings of Christ are the means of forgiveness of sin and eternal glory.”

— John Calvin

141. “Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.”

— John Calvin

142. “Prayers belong strictly to the worship of God. Fasting is a subordinate aid, which is pleasing to God no farther than as it aids the earnestness and fervency of prayer.”

— John Calvin

143. “To know God as the sovereign disposer of all good, inviting us to present our requests, and yet not to approach or ask of him, were so far from availing us, that it were just as if one told of a treasure were to allow it to remain buried in the ground.”

— John Calvin

144. “In our good works nothing is our own.”

— John Calvin

145. “Concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, we must also be aware that he is our Advocate, and that without him we cannot approach God.”

— John Calvin

146. “The cross of Christ only triumphs in the breast of believers over the devil and the flesh, sin and sinners, when their eyes are directed to the power of His Resurrection.”

— John Calvin

147. “They babble and talk absurdly who, in the place of God’s providence, substitute bare permission – as if God sat in a watchtower awaiting chance events, and his judgments thus depended upon human will.”

— John Calvin

148. “Unless men establish their complete happiness in God, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.”

— John Calvin

149. “If there had been any unbelief in Mary, that could not prevent God from accomplishing his work in any other way which he might choose. But she is called blessed, because she received by faith the blessing offered to her, and opened up the way to God for its accomplishment.”

— John Calvin

150. “I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness – nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew.”

— John Calvin