Quotes from 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.

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

To be pure in heart is to take no delight in cunning, but converse sincerely with men, and express nothing, by word or look, which is not felt in the heart.

Men are idol factories.

When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious.

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

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

When we recognize the rod of a father, should we not show ourselves docile children rather than rebelliously desperate men who have been hardened in their evil doings?

Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols.

God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church.

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.

Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.

We are nowhere forbidden to laugh, or be satisfied with food...or to be delighted with music or to drink wine.

Now among the other things proper to recreate man and give him pleasure, music is either the first or one of the principal;and we must think that it is a gift of God deputed for that purpose'.

To will is human, to will the bad is of fallen nature, but to will the good is of Grace.

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

The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.

Accursed is that peace of which revolt from God is the bond, and blessed are those contentions by which it is necessary to maintain the kingdom of Christ.

Faith is tossed about by various doubts, so that the minds of the godly are rarely at peace.

Let that ethical philosophy therefore of free-will be far from a Christian mind.

God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.

If God does nothing random, there must always be something to learn.

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

Joy is a quiet gladness of heart as one contemplates the goodness of God's saving grace in Christ Jesus.