John Calvin quotes

John Calvin was a prominent figure in the Protestant Reformation. Born in 1509, Calvin's theological teachings played a significant role in shaping the development of early Protestantism. His most famous work, "Institutes of the Christian Religion," outlined his beliefs and influenced Protestant theology. Calvin's ideas emphasized the sovereignty of God and predestination. He established a theocratic government in Geneva, Switzerland, based on his religious principles. Today, Calvinism is a widely recognized Protestant denomination. Explore more about John Calvin and his contributions to Protestantism.

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

- John Calvin

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

- John Calvin

Humility is the beginning of true intelligence.

- John Calvin

For the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.

- John Calvin

Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with nothing to offer and everything to receive.

- John Calvin

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

Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.

- John Calvin

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.

- John Calvin

However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.

- John Calvin

Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.

- John Calvin

For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God.

- John Calvin

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

- John Calvin

Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?

- John Calvin

God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.

- John Calvin

No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.

- John Calvin

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

Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.

- John Calvin

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

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

- John Calvin

There is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God.

- John Calvin

I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.

- John Calvin

Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ.

- John Calvin

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

- John Calvin