Top 80 Tertullian Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

— Tertullian

2. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire.”

— Tertullian

3. “See how these Christians love one another.”

— Tertullian

4. “The first reaction to truth is hatred.”

— Tertullian

5. “You can’t undo anything you’ve already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest.”

— Tertullian

6. “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of those who oppose us.”

— Tertullian

7. “Woman is a temple built over a sewer.”

— Tertullian

8. “The more you mow us down, the more numerous we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”

— Tertullian

9. “Hope is patience with the lamp lit.”

— Tertullian

10. “Nothing that is God’s is obtainable by money.”

— Tertullian

11. “Daily, every moment, prayer is necessary to men.”

— Tertullian

12. “The entire fruit is already present in the seed.”

— Tertullian

13. “Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God.”

— Tertullian

14. “The Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed because it is absurd. And he was buried and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.”

— Tertullian

15. “Patience is God’s nature.”

— Tertullian

16. “Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.”

— Tertullian

17. “The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain. Therefore they will suffer if you take away their pleasure by not feeling pain.”

— Tertullian

18. “He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies.”

— Tertullian

19. “A man becomes a Christian, he is not born one.”

— Tertullian

20. “Patience ornaments the woman and proves the man.”

— Tertullian

21. “What is nobler than to tread under foot the gods of the nations, to exorcise evil spirits, to perform cures, to seek divine revelations, and to live to God? These are the pleasures – these are the spectacles – that befit Christian men.”

— Tertullian

22. “I believe BECAUSE it’s impossible.”

— Tertullian

23. “Can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.”

— Tertullian

24. “Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder.”

— Tertullian

25. “You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.”

— Tertullian

26. “If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.”

— Tertullian

27. “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem.”

— Tertullian

28. “The Christian does not hurt even his enemy.”

— Tertullian

29. “It is certain because it is impossible. -Certum est quia impossibile.”

— Tertullian

30. “The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be fattened on God.”

— Tertullian

31. “Now we allow that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does.”

— Tertullian

32. “Fear is the foundation of safety.”

— Tertullian

33. “Where our work is, there let our joy be.”

— Tertullian

34. “Woman, thou shouldst ever be clothed in rags and in mourning, appearing only as a penitent, drowned in tears, and expiating thus the sin of having caused the fall of the human race. Woman thou art the gate of the devil. It is thou who hast corrupted those whom Satan dare not attack face to face.”

— Tertullian

35. “Nature is schoolmistress, the soul the pupil; and whatever one has taught or the other has learned has come from God – the Teacher of the teacher.”

— Tertullian

36. “It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions.”

— Tertullian

37. “Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.”

— Tertullian

38. “Shall we carry a flag? It is a rival to Christ.”

— Tertullian

39. “Custom without truth is error grown old.”

— Tertullian

40. “The usual complaint is, ‘I have no other way of earning a living.’ The harsh reply can be, ‘Do you have to live?’”

— Tertullian

41. “For those women sin against God when they rub their skin with ointments, stain their cheeks with rouge, and make their eyes prominent with antimony. To them, I suppose, the artistic skill of God is displeasing!”

— Tertullian

42. “It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man’s religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us.”

— Tertullian

43. “Christians are made, not born.”

— Tertullian

44. “We live in the world with you. We do not forsake forum or bath or workshop, or inn, or market, or any other place of commerce. We sail with you, fight with you, farm with you.”

— Tertullian

45. “A holy woman may be beautiful by the gift of nature, but she must not give occasion to lust. If beauty be hers, so far from setting it off she ought rather to obscure it.”

— Tertullian

46. “Discipline is an index to doctrine.”

— Tertullian

47. “Men remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance.”

— Tertullian

48. “Illustrious confessors of Jesus Christ, a Christian finds in prison the same joys as the prophets tasted in the desert. Call it not a dungeon, but a solitude. When the soul is in heaven, the body feels not the weight of fetters; it carries the whole man along with it.”

— Tertullian

49. “It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.”

— Tertullian

50. “I believe because it is absurd.”

— Tertullian