“You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.”

— John Calvin

Page 35.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

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John Calvin 161

French Protestant reformer 1509–1564

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“They think we should be more “spiritual;” that is to say, willing to live upon the labor of others; willing to ask alms, saying, in the meantime, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” If this is so, why not give the money back?”

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“Let us recollect, that, under the constitution which we have derived from our ancestors, we have enjoyed more liberty, we have acquired more glory, we possess more character and power, than has hitherto fallen to the lot of any other country on the globe; and if there be any man yet undecided on this question, I entreat him that he will give the benefit of his doubt to the existing order of things,—and, that, before he gives his vote to a measure, of the consequences of which he is at least uncertain, he will weigh the substantial blessings which he knows to have been derived from the government that is, against all the speculative advantages which he is promised from the government that is to be.”

Robert Peel (1788–1850) British Conservative statesman

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Pierre Nicole (1625–1695) French Jansenists

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“Transformation is no longer lightning but electricity. We have captured a force more powerful than the atom, a worthy keeper of all our other powers.”

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“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

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“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”

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“You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.”

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John Calvin 161

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