Quotes from the Reformation and Baroque era
Christian quotes from the Reformation and Baroque era — with author, dates and source, from two millennia of Christian thought.
It is unimaginable what God can make of the fragments of our life, when we surrender them to him completely.
Blaise Pascal
When you see a child, you catch God in the act.
Martin Luther
A drop of love is worth more than an ocean of reason.
Blaise Pascal
Commit your ways and whatever grieves your heart to the most faithful care of him who governs heaven! He who gives paths, course, and way to clouds, air, and winds will also find a way for your foot to walk.
Paul Gerhardt
Go forth, my heart, and seek joy in this lovely summertime, in the gifts of your God. Behold the beauty of the gardens' adornment, and see how they have decked themselves for me and for you.
Paul Gerhardt
Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things pass away. God never changes. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.
Teresa of Ávila
That the birds of worry and grief fly over your head, you cannot change. But that they build nests in your hair — that you can prevent.
Martin Luther
Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided, but because we cannot prevent the birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them nest in our hair
Martin Luther
In essential unity; in nonessentials liberty; in all this charity.
Rupertus Meldenius
Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.
Martin Luther
My past no longer concerns me. It belongs to God's mercy. My future does not yet concern me. It belongs to divine providence. What concerns me, and what claims me, is today - it belongs to God's grace and to the surrender of my heart, my good will.
Francis de Sales
God’s love does not seek what is lovable, but creates it.
Martin Luther
Prayer, in my view, is nothing other than a conversation with a friend, with whom we often and gladly come together alone, to speak with him, because he loves us.
Teresa of Ávila
The ways of God are like a Hebrew book that can only be read from the back.
Martin Luther
How often you have fallen into great distress through your own will, when your blinded mind mistook death for life. But he who loves us eternally sets right what we confuse, brings joy where we grieve ourselves, and leads us where we go astray.
Paul Gerhardt
But when you pray, let your heart be without words rather than your words be without heart.
Martin Luther
Up, up, bid your pain and worries good night, let go what troubles and saddens the heart; for you are not the ruler who must govern everything—God sits in command and guides all things well!
Paul Gerhardt
I read the Bible the way I harvest my apple tree: I shake it, and what falls down and is ripe, I take. The rest I leave hanging for now.
Martin Luther
And though the world were full of devils and wanted to devour us whole, we would not be so afraid, we shall still prevail.
Martin Luther
Whoever lets dear God alone govern and hopes in him at all times, him he will wondrously sustain in every trouble and sorrow. Whoever trusts God, the Most High, has not built on sand.
Georg Neumark
God doesn’t love us because of our worth, we are of worth because God loves us.
Martin Luther
The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.
Martin Luther
The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay upon the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to Him is not to believe that He loves you.
John Owen
The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.
Brother Lawrence
Pray, and let God worry.
Martin Luther
Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness.
Blaise Pascal
The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.
Martin Luther
The providence of God is like a Hebrew word – it can only be read backwards.
John Flavel
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.
Blaise Pascal
There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.
Richard Sibbes
God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.
Martin Luther
I had rather be in hell with Christ, than be in heaven without Him.
Martin Luther
Learn to know Christ and Him crucified. Learn to sing to Him, and say, “Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am Your sin. You have taken upon Yourself what is mine and given me what is Yours. You have become what You were not so that I might become what I was not.
Martin Luther
All of human unhappiness comes from not being able to stay quietly in a room.
Blaise Pascal
Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
Blaise Pascal
The bells sound, they sound quite differently than usual, when one knows of a dead person whom one loves.
Martin Luther
For this reason, because they are loved, sinners are fair; but they are not loved because they are fair.
Martin Luther
Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen.
Martin Luther
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.
William Shakespeare
People quoted here
Blaise Pascal, Martin Luther, Paul Gerhardt, Teresa of Ávila, Rupertus Meldenius, Francis de Sales, Georg Neumark, John Owen, Brother Lawrence, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, William Shakespeare
Related
The Early Church, The Middle Ages, Revival & the 19th Century, The 20th Century, Today
All quotes · lumen.bible