Top 80 Tertullian Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.”

— Tertullian

52. “Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.”

— Tertullian

53. “You cannot parcel out freedom in pieces because freedom is all or nothing.”

— Tertullian

54. “Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not hear.”

— Tertullian

55. “For what war should we not be fit and eager, even though unequal in numbers, we who are so willing to be slaughtered-if, according to that discipline of ours, it was not more lawful to be slain than to slay?”

— Tertullian

56. “Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.”

— Tertullian

57. “The state of faith allows no mention of impossibility.”

— Tertullian

58. “The soul whose bosom lust did never touch Is God’s fair bride; and maiden’s souls are such.”

— Tertullian

59. “Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.”

— Tertullian

60. “Now then, you dogs, whom the apostle puts outside and who yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions.”

— Tertullian

61. “And when will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living.”

— Tertullian

62. “Prevention of birth is premature murder, and it makes no difference whether it is a life already born that one snatches away or a life that is coming to birth.”

— Tertullian

63. “Learn about the incorruptible King, and know his heroes who never inflict slaughter on the peoples.”

— Tertullian

64. “We say, and we say openly, and while ye torture us, mangled and gory we cry out, “We worship God through Christ!” Believe Him a man: it is through Him and in Him that God willeth Himself to be known and worshipped.”

— Tertullian

65. “Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity, insert into their ears the word of God, tie the yoke of Christ around their necks, and adorn their whole persons with the silk of sanctity and the damask of devotion.”

— Tertullian

66. “Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God’s plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.”

— Tertullian

67. “The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning, for lie was in God, and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things.”

— Tertullian

68. “Truth and the hatred of truth come into our world together. As soon as truth appears, it is regarded as an enemy.”

— Tertullian

69. “Divorce these days is a religious vow, as if the proper offspring of marriage.”

— Tertullian

70. “There are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit that appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, perform many cures, and foresee certain events.”

— Tertullian

71. “I revere the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and creation. In the gospel moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word.”

— Tertullian

72. “To forbid birth is only quicker murder.”

— Tertullian

73. “It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.”

— Tertullian

74. “If the sky stands still, if the earth quakes, if there is famine, if there is pestilence, at once the cry is raised: Throw the Christians to the lions! So many to one?”

— Tertullian

75. “But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts.”

— Tertullian

76. “Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity.”

— Tertullian

77. “But all the other frenzies of passions-impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes-beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.”

— Tertullian

78. “In one sense there will be something difficult even for God – namely, that which He has not done – not because He could not, but because He would not, do it. For with God, to be willing is to be able, and to be unwilling is to be unable; all that He has willed, however, He has both been able to accomplish, and has displayed His ability.”

— Tertullian

79. “He who flees will fight again.”

— Tertullian

80. “Wide are men’s inquiries into uncertainties; wider still are their disputes about conjectures.”

— Tertullian

81. “Indeed it is better to postpone, lest either we complete too little by hurrying, or wander too long in completing it.”

— Tertullian

82. “There is strife between God s ways and human ways; damned by you, we are absolved by God.”

— Tertullian

83. “Examine then, and see if He be not the dispenser of kingdoms, who is Lord at once of the world which is ruled, and of man himself who rules; if He have not ordained the changes of dynasties, with their appointed seasons, who was before all time, and made the world a body of times; if the rise and the fall of states are not the work of Him, under whose sovereignty the human race once existed without states at all.”

— Tertullian

84. “Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?”

— Tertullian

85. “See how many men of rank have been delivered from devils and healed of diseases!”

— Tertullian

86. “The nature of rumor is known to all.”

— Tertullian

87. “Credo quia absurdum”, I believe it because it is absurd.”

— Tertullian

88. “There is no public entertainment which does not inflict spiritual damage.”

— Tertullian

89. “Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.”

— Tertullian