Quotes from John Calvin

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.

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.

Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of His fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil.

We shall never be fit for the service of God, if we look not beyond this fleeting life.

Involvement in public life provides the opportunity to shape our manners in accordance with civil justice.

Life is not found in commandments or declarations of penalties, but in the promise of mercy and only in a gratuitous promise.

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

Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.

The whole comes to this, that Christ, when he produces faith in us by the agency of his Spirit, at the same time ingrafts us into his body, that we may become partakers of all spiritual blessings.

The most accomplished in the Scripture are fools, unless they acknowledge that they have need of God for their schoolmaster all the days of their life.

We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.

On the one hand, undeserved success gives no satisfaction... but, on the other hand, well-deserved failure gives no satisfaction either.

But the present life should never be hated, except insofar as it subjects us to sin, although even that hatred should not properly be applied to life itself.

Though Satan instills his poison, and fans the flames of our corrupt desires within us,we are yet not carried by any external force to the commission of sin, but our own flesh entices us, and we willingly yield to its allurements.

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

But those who wish to prove to unbelievers that Scripture is the Word of God are acting foolishly, for only by faith can this be known.

The supreme and only Judge of the universe stands before the tribunal of an earthly judge.

For all the expiations have no other meaning than that God will be always merciful, as often as the sinner shall flee to the refuge of his pardon.

We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer.Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God,setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.

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'.

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

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

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.

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.