Top 93 Tertullian Quotes
#2. The Christian does not hurt even his enemy.
Tertullian
#3. Those who fled will fight another time.
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#4. For what war should we not be fit and eager, even though unequal in numbers, we who are so willing to be slaughtered-if, according to that discipline of ours, it was not more lawful to be slain than to slay?
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#5. Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God
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#6. The blood of the Christians is seed
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#7. Learn about the incorruptible King, and know his heroes who never inflict slaughter on the peoples.
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#8. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
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#9. If the sky stands still, if the earth quakes, if there is famine, if there is pestilence, at once the cry is raised: Throw the Christians to the lions! So many to one?
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#10. Discipline is an index to doctrine.
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#12. Can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.
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#13. The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?'
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#14. It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of those who oppose us.
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#15. You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest.
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#16. It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the church, nor is it permitted for her to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer [the eucharist], nor to claim for herself a share in any masculine function- not to mention any priestly office.
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#17. Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder.
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#18. I believe BECAUSE it's impossible.
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#19. There is strife between God s ways and human ways; damned by you, we are absolved by God.
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#20. It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us.
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#21. The Lord challenges us to suffer persecutions and to confess Him. He wants thiose who belong to him to be brave and fearless. He himself shows how weakness of the flesh is overcome by courage of the Spirit ... A christian is fearless.
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#22. Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.
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#23. If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.
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#24. It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.
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#25. You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.
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#26. The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning, for lie was in God, and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things
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#27. Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.
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#28. For it is really better for us not to know a thing, because [God] has not revealed it to us, than to know it according to man's wisdom, because he has been bold enough to assume it.
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#29. The entire fruit is already present in the seed.
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#30. Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity, insert into their ears the word of God, tie the yoke of Christ around their necks, and adorn their whole persons with the silk of sanctity and the damask of devotion.
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#31. Indeed it is better to postpone, lest either we complete too little by hurrying, or wander too long in completing it.
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#32. There are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit that appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, perform many cures, and foresee certain events.
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#33. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These three are one [thing], not one [Person], as it is said, 'I and my Father are One,' in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number.
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#34. Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.
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#35. A man becomes a Christian, he is not born one.
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#36. The first reaction to truth is hatred.
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#37. It is to believed because it is absurd.
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#38. The state of faith allows no mention of impossibility.
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#39. The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be fattened on God
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#40. See how many men of rank have been delivered from devils and healed of diseases!
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#41. For those women sin against God when they rub their skin with ointments, stain their cheeks with rouge, and make their eyes prominent with antimony. To them, I suppose, the artistic skill of God is displeasing!
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#42. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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#43. Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.
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#44. Patience ornaments the woman and proves the man.
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#45. You say we worship the sun; so do you.
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#46. Illustrious confessors of Jesus Christ, a Christian finds in prison the same joys as the prophets tasted in the desert. Call it not a dungeon, but a solitude. When the soul is in heaven, the body feels not the weight of fetters; it carries the whole man along with it.
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#47. Men remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance.
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#48. Where our work is, there let our joy be.
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#49. Woman is a temple built over a sewer.
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#50. I revere the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and creation. In the gospel moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word.
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#51. Daily, every moment, prayer is necessary to men.
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#52. To forbid birth is only quicker murder.
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#54. Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.
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#55. Custom without truth is error grown old.
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#57. Where our joy is, there should our work be.
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#58. What is nobler than to tread under foot the gods of the nations, to exorcise evil spirits, to perform cures, to seek divine revelations, and to live to God? These are the pleasures - these are the spectacles - that befit Christian men.
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#59. It is certain because it is possible.
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#60. He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies
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#61. A holy woman may be beautiful by the gift of nature, but she must not give occasion to lust. If beauty be hers, so far from setting it off she ought rather to obscure it.
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#62. He is a man, who is to be a man, the fruit is always present in the seed.
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#63. You cannot parcel out freedom in pieces because freedom is all or nothing.
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#64. Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
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#65. Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money.
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#66. Prevention of birth is premature murder, and it makes no difference whether it is a life already born that one snatches away or a life that is coming to birth.
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#67. Woman, thou shouldst ever be clothed in rags and in mourning, appearing only as a penitent, drowned in tears, and expiating thus the sin of having caused the fall of the human race. Woman thou art the gate of the devil. It is thou who hast corrupted those whom Satan dare not attack face to face.
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#68. The nature of rumor is known to all.
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#69. Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not hear.
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#70. See how these Christians love one another.
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#71. But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts.
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#72. Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.
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#73. And when will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living.
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#74. It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.
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#75. We say, and we say openly, and while ye torture us, mangled and gory we cry out, "We worship God through Christ!" Believe Him a man: it is through Him and in Him that God willeth Himself to be known and worshipped.
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#77. God the Father's a deep root; the Son's the shoot that breaks into the world; the Spirit spreads the beauty & fragrance
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#78. Whatever is born is the work of God. So whatever is plastered on, is the devil's work ... How unworthy of the Christian name it is to wear a fictitious face - you on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined! You, to whom lying with the tongue is not lawful, are lying in appearance.
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#79. Now then, you dogs, whom the apostle puts outside and who yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions.
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#80. But all the other frenzies of passions-impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes-beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.
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#81. The more you mow us down, the more numerous we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.
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#82. Shall we carry a flag? It is a rival to Christ.
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#84. All the Scriptures give clear proof of the Trinity, and it is from these that our principle is deduced ... the distinction of the Trinity is quite clearly displayed.
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#85. The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain. Therefore they will suffer if you take away their pleasure by not feeling pain.
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#86. It is certain because it is impossible
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#87. Now we allow that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does.
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#88. The soul whose bosom lust did never touch Is God's fair bride; and maiden's souls are such.
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#89. Let the emperor make war on heaven; let him lead heaven captive in his triumph; let him put guards on heaven; let him impose taxes on heaven! He cannot ... He gets his sceptre where he first got his humanity; his power where he got the breath of life.
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#90. Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.
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#91. Nature is schoolmistress, the soul the pupil; and whatever one has taught or the other has learned has come from God - the Teacher of the teacher.
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#92. Divorce these days is a religious vow, as if the proper offspring of marriage.
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#93. Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?
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