John Calvin

It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal.

Let us also learn that nothing is less consistent than to punish heavily the crimes whereby mortals are injured, whilst we connive at the impious errors or sacrilegious modes of worship whereby the majesty of God is violated.

Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime.

All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.

The executioner is a good physician for the church.

All true knowledge of God is born of obedience.

The human heart is an idol factory.

Ignorance is the mother of superstition.

There is no more dangerous illusion than to believe that we are not tempted.

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

When God wants to punish a nation, he sends them bad preachers.

We are not our own; we belong to God.

The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God and of himself.

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than an overactive mind.

God's providence is not only general, but extends to all the particular facts of life.

He who has God for his father has the church for his mother.

The mind of man is a perpetual forge of idols.

Without knowledge of God, there is no true knowledge of self.

God will not suffer that one of his children should be lost.

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.