John Calvin Quotes

I still have to work on patience.

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.

It's like an inner struggle for me, between saying I don't give a **** and trying to make it work. You want to do the right thing, but I'm sick of people thinking I'm difficult.

Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.

I knuckle down with my demons, and with my weaknesses.

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.

I'm terrible with patience.

The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

The life of a good man is a continual warfare with his passions.

I wish I had more patience.

When I try to be patient on my own, my patience is forced and short-lived. It is obvious to everyone that I am desperately trying to be patient.

I didn't stay patient enough at times, maybe.

You said you were allowed to lose it,' some part of her reminded herself. 'Not yet, not yet.

No confict is so severe as his who labors to subdue himself.

Got to fight to control the violent side, every day and night.

All the trials we endure cannot be compared to these interior battles.

The greatest evil that one has to fight constantly, every minute of the day until one dies, is the worst part of oneself.

Everything dictated silence and self-control but I couldn't restrain myself and spoke my mind.

The most exhausting effort in my life has been to suppress my own nature in order to make it serve my biggest plans.

If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.

When I read the Bible, I see that we should have victory in our life and be overcomers, and I can't even control my temper. I'm impatient. I'm hard to get along with. I'm selfish and self-centered, and I don't seem to have any control over it.

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.

Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor.

I feel like a small battlefield in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. After all, the problems must be accommodated, have somewhere to struggle and come to rest and we, poor little humans, must put our inner space at their service and not run away.

I learned a lot about humility and patience, keeping my mouth shut.