Inspirational Quotes by Peter Kreeft
“What we do in our parishes and homes contributes to what Christ is doing: preparing the Second Coming. That is the final meaning of our daily work.”
“The root reason for this is the denial of the human essence, the human equality, the human family—judging people’s worth only by how efficiently or intelligently or quickly they function. This is confusing the essence with the nonessential.”
“Christ, the new Moses, liberates His people, the Church, the new Israel, from the spiritual slavery of sin and from the power of the world (symbolized by Egypt), which is under the dominion of Satan (symbolized by Pharaoh), through the sea (death) and the wilderness (Purgatory) to the promised land (Heaven).”
“Each angel is inferior or superior to every other angel. From the fact that angels are pure spirits it logically follows that they are unequal.”
“The good Jew, like the good Christian, sees behind the law to the Lawgiver, whose will is perfect love.”
“The major heresies of our day are not about God but about man.”
“Live a life of love, especially the love of God, and observe the joy of it. Live a life of lovelessness and observe the joylessness of it.”
“Truth is unchanging. The principles of morality are unchanging. The human essence is unchanging. Therefore there is no hope of a New Man, Heaven on Earth, Babel Rebuilt, a Brave New World, or Superman.”
“Third, it can mean deep, wondering reverence, or “awe” at something immeasurably superior. This is an emotion that is much rarer today than ever before in the history of the world, probably because modern life is so full of scientific knowledge and technological power over nature that we live in a dream of arrogant cleverness and a cocoon of predictable comforts.”
“Love is strengthened and perfected by suffering. Couples who have had only ease lack depth. True love needs to suffer. “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Kindness—mere kindness—cannot tolerate suffering. Love can.”
“It is much easier to fail to love your parents than to fail to love your children. That is why there is a commandment that commands love and respect to parents, but not to children. In an age of abortion, there ought to be an eleventh commandment against neglecting, harming, abusing, or even murdering your own children.”
“Furthermore, the most popular modern answer to the question of what it means to be a good person is to be kind. Do not make other people suffer. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s O.K. By this standard, God is not good it he lets us suffer. But by ancient standards, God might be good even though he lets us suffer, if he does it for the sake of the greater end of happiness, perfection of life and character and soul, that is, self.”
“God loves us more than we love Him.”
“Praying anywhere" can easily become "praying nowhere", just as "praying anytime" can easily become "praying at no time". Everything in general becomes nothing in particular".”
“No one can be saved, and attain eternal joy, without all of the following: (1) a morally honest acceptance of the demands of virtue, (2) a serious effort to practice it, (3) an intellectually honest confession of failure, (4) repentance, and (5) at least an implicit faith and hope in God as Savior.”
“A God made in the world's image can't save the world.”
“It's the most essential thing of all just because it's not a matter of how you do it at all, but of whether you do it. Like being born, or cooking: how you do it is less important than whether you do it. You can find thousands of books on prayer that give you methods of praying, hundreds of "hows"; but they do you no good at all unless you actually pray. Otherwise it's like reading a cookbook instead of cooking. You can't eat a cookbook!”
“When you’re in a burning building looking out of the twentieth story window down to the street and all you see is clouds of billowing smoke, you have to choose to believe the firemen below who tell you they have a safety net and it’s safe to jump. When the clouds of smoke disappear, you don’t have to believe any more: you see it. In this world, it’s a leap in the dark; in the next world, it’s a leap in the light.”
“Honesty is a moral virtue, a matter of the will. Honesty means willing the truth with the whole of your heart. This demands sacrifice. We have little hope of attaining honesty unless we realize how demanding it is. It demands sacrifice of self-will, self-image, the desire to win, and the comfort of being right. The “honesty” often praised today is usually only emotional honesty with others, not intellectual honesty with one’s self; only “letting it all hang out,” not asking what is the real truth. Sometimes “honesty” is only a code word for shamelessness. Rarely does it mean the absolute, fanatical, selfless love of truth.”
“The true philosopher lives his life as a dress rehearsal for death.”
― Peter Kreeft ,
from Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ
topics: philosophy-fiction-jesus
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Peter John Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of numerous books as well as a popular writer on Christian theology, and specifically Roman Catholic apologetics. He also formulated together with Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God".
Kreeft took his A.B. at Calvin College (1959), and an M.A. at Fordham University (1961). In the same university he completed his doctoral studies in 1965. He briefly did post graduate studies at Yale University. He joined the Philosophy faculty of the Department of Philosophy of Boston College in 1965. In 1994 he was a signer of the document Evangelicals and Catholics Together.