Quotessence
Home / Authors / Abraham Kuyper
Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper Quotes

Dutch Politician

Filter quotes by topic

AllChristDoeChristianityChurchCommon GraceArtCalvinismHandsJesusSoul

Famous Abraham Kuyper Quotes

“the holy art of “giving for Jesus’ sake” ought to be much more strongly developed among us Christians. Never forget that all state relief for the poor is a blot on the honor of your savior. The fact that the government needs a safety net to catch those who would slip between the cracks of our economic system is evidence that I have failed to do God’s work. The government cannot take the place of Christian charity. A loving embrace isn’t given with food stamps. The care of a community isn’t provided with government housing. The face of our Creator can’t be seen on a welfare voucher. What the poor need is not another government program; what they need is for Christians like me to honor our savior.”

ChristianityPovertyCharityChristian Behavior
Book:The Problem of Poverty
Create image

“Indeed, man is incapable of doing any good. Are all unbelievers then wicked and repulsive men? Not at all. In our experience we find that the unbelieving world excels in many things. Precious treasures have come down to us from the old heathen civilization. In Plato you find pages that you devour. Cicero fascinates you and bears you along by his noble tone and stirs in you holy sentiments…It is not exclusively the spark of genius or the splendor of talent, which excites your pleasure in the words and actions of unbelievers, but it is often their beauty of character, their zeal, their devotion, their love, their candor, their faithfulness, and their sense of honesty. Who of us has not been put to the blush by the virtues of the heathen? It is thus a fact, that your dogma of total depravity by sin does not always tally with your experience in life. Well, my friends, by its doctrine of common grace Calvinism can hold on to both what the Bible teaches on human depravity and to what experience teaches about the virtues of the heathen.”

CalvinismCommon GraceTotal Depravity
Author:Abraham Kuyper
Create image

“Unchecked, the dominating influences of money and of barren intellectualism would reduce the life of emotions to freezing point. And, unable to grasp the holier benefits of religion, the mysticism of the heart reacts in the art-intoxication. .... In this cold, irreligious and practical age the warmth of this devotion to art has kept alive many higher aspirations of our soul, which otherwise might readily have died, as they did in the middle of the last century.”

HeartArtSoulMightAgeLastsCultureEmotionChristianityAliveInfluenceMiddleCenturyColdHigherBenefitsDiedPracticalsDevotionAspirationMysticismWarmthBarrenIntellectualismIntoxicationDominatingFreezing
Book:Lectures on Calvinism
Create image

“The sovereignty of the state as the power that protects the individual and that defines the mutual relationships among the visible spheres, rises high above them by its right to command and compel. But within these spheres ... another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the state. This authority the state does not confer but acknowledges.”

DoeStatesIndividualProtectAuthorityCommandAcknowledgeVisibleMutualSpheresSovereignty
Author:Abraham Kuyper
Create image

“... we have gratefully to receive from the hand of God the institution of the state with its magistrates as a means of preservation.... On the other hand ... by virtue of our natural impulse, we must ever watch against the danger which lurks for our personal liberty in the power of the state.”

MeanStatesHandsNaturalLibertyWatchesVirtueDangerInstitutionsImpulsePreservationHands Of GodMagistratesPersonal Liberty
Book:Lectures on Calvinism
Create image

“Whatever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand - in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science - he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of God. He is employed in the service of his God. He has strictly to obey his God. And above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God.”

MenWorldMindMayArtHandsFacesFaithIndustryGloryStandingAimCommerceAgricultureEmployedArt And Science
Author:Abraham Kuyper
Create image

“A charity which knows only how to give money is not yet Christian love. You will be free of guilt only when you also give your time, your energy, and your resourcefulness to help end such abuses for good, and when you allow nothing that lies hidden in the storehouse of your Christian religion to remain unused against the cancer that is destroying the vitality of our society in such alarming ways.”

KnowsWayGivingEndsHelpingChristianLyingEnergyLove YouAbuseGuiltCharityCancerOur SocietyDestroyingVitalityChristian LoveResourcefulness
Author:Abraham Kuyper
Create image

“Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by his grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to him alone who has granted it this ascendancy.”

MenHumansWholeMightSchoolFormSpiritGraceInfluenceConditionsSubjectsGeniusExerciseResponsibleLaysGrantedHuman LifePossessedSovereignSovereigntyIrresistibleGift From GodAscendancy
Book:Lectures on Calvinism
Create image

“One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul. and sooner than that I should seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me. It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God's holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God”

PeopleShouldMindHas BeensSoulStatesHomeSchoolDesirePassionNationsPayChristianityLordFailingCreationBearsHolyConscienceBreathsSacredWitnessMotiveSpiteOppositionWorldlyRulingSpursHomageOrdinancesRuling Passion
Author:Abraham Kuyper
Create image