Quotes 5 May 17

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”-  Theodore Roosevelt, Man in the Arena Speech.1910

"no legitimate historian has ever said that Calvin "presided" over any executions—or any other law enforcement or judicial activity, for that matter. Calvin was not even a citizen of Geneva. He couldn't even vote. All he could do was give his opinion and after he did, the city council did whatever it wanted, which was frequently something other than what Calvin wanted just so they could show who was boss. People who blame Calvin for the decisions of the Geneva council are either deliberately ignoring the political and legal realities of 16th century Geneva or are quoting from someone who has deliberately decided to ignore them.  ……….But most people today have no clue as to how the independent cantons of Switzerland were governed at the end of the Middle Ages, and so deceivers today get away with saying whatever they want about Calvin. If the government of Geneva executed someone, they say it must have been Calvin's fault. No matter how "scholarly" these people pretend to be, those who plant these libels online are not historians and they have no concern for the truth.
In actual fact, Calvin was not even allowed to run the Genevan church without the city council constantly looking over his shoulder and often overruling him. For example: Calvin wanted to observe communion weekly, but the council only allowed it quarterly. The council basically treated Calvin as a kind of manager, someone who was there primarily to do their bidding. He was their foreign-born (French) employee whom they could fire whenever they pleased—and they actually did fire him and run him out of town early in his career only to invite him back a while later when things got out of hand.If the council of Geneva didn't trust Calvin enough to give him complete charge of the church, what makes anyone think they would put him in charge of deciding who lives and who dies? I'll tell you who: people who are bent on smearing the man because they hate his doctrine." - Ron Henzel