“Depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd.”
Prefatory Address, p. 23
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)
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John Calvin 161
French Protestant reformer 1509–1564Related quotes
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XVI : The Warning of Experience; Mrs. Maxwell to Helen
Context: Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.
Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25
Four Dissertations (1757)
Source: Law and Authority (1886), II
Context: Legislators confounded in one code the two currents of custom of which we have just been speaking, the maxims which represent principles of morality and social union wrought out as a result of life in common, and the mandates which are meant to ensure external existence to inequality.
Customs, absolutely essential to the very being of society, are, in the code, cleverly intermingled with usages imposed by the ruling caste, and both claim equal respect from the crowd. "Do not kill," says the code, and hastens to add, "And pay tithes to the priest." "Do not steal," says the code, and immediately after, "He who refuses to pay taxes, shall have his hand struck off."
Such was law; and it has maintained its two-fold character to this day. Its origin is the desire of the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves for their own advantage. Its character is the skillful commingling of customs useful to society, customs which have no need of law to insure respect, with other customs useful only to rulers, injurious to the mass of the people, and maintained only by the fear of punishment.
“Crowd mentality is a kind of simultaneous psychosis which may take possession of any group.”
Source: Farewell to Revolution (1935), p. xi, Foreword
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 413.
Against the Galilaeans (c. 362)
Context: Men's works also are naturally perishable and mutable and subject to every kind of alteration. But since God is eternal, it follows that of such sort are his ordinances also. And since they are such, they are either the natures of things or are accordant with the nature of things. For how could nature be at variance with the ordinance of God? How could it fall out of harmony therewith?
