Quotes from John Calvin

Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness.

Our true and genuine wisdom can be summed up as the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

There is no wisdom but that which is founded on the fear of God, which Solomon also declares to be the chief part of wisdom.

While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.

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.

The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.

Unless God's Word illumine the way, the whole life of men is wrapped in darkness and mist, so that they cannot but miserably stray.

Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.

The grace of God has no charms for men till the Holy Spirit gives them a taste for it.

To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.

If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field,...it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.

A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot

The Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.

Where God's Spirit does not reign, there is no humility, and men ever swell with inward pride.

Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty.

The subject then of these chapters may be stated thus, - man's only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.

It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.

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

Prosperity inebriates men, so that they take delights in their own merits.

It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.

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

In our good works nothing is our own.

If grace acts in us, grace, and not we who do the work, will be crowned.