Kreeft Quotes & Sayings
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Top Kreeft Quotes
There is something in us that fears prayer as a maggot fears light. We must do violence to this voice, for it is not ourselves. It is our Enemy. — Peter Kreeft
Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time. — Peter Kreeft
The most total opposite of pleasure is not pain but boredom, for we are willing to risk pain to make a boring life interesting. — Peter Kreeft
A certain participation in happiness can be had in this life, but perfect and true happiness cannot be had in this life. — Peter Kreeft
The Church has always had a conservative head and a liberal heart, and the world has never understood her, just as it never understood Christ. — Peter Kreeft
Unworthy" does not mean "undeserving", for we are all undeserving! It means "incapable of receiving. — Peter Kreeft
Sociologists and anthropologists tell us that religion has three dimensions: creed, code, and cult; or words, works, and worship; or theology, morality, and liturgy. — Peter Kreeft
When we believe that God is something other than a lover, it is inevitable that we will sin. — Peter Kreeft
Most of us know that our heart is our center, not our head. But apologetics gets at the heart through the head. The head is important precisely because it is a gate to the heart. We can love only what we know. — Peter Kreeft
Why would the apostles lie? ... Liars always lie for selfish reasons. If they lied, what was their motive, what did they get out of it? What they got out of it was misunderstanding, rejection, persecution, torture, and martyrdom. Hardly a list of perks! — Peter Kreeft
How will the Tower of Babel be undone? How will we understand each other in Heaven? Will we all speak English or Dutch or Latin? No, we will speak music. — Peter Kreeft
If Christianity is true, this changes EVERYTHING. Christ's very last words to us in scripture were: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) I hope you remember that most moving line in the most moving movie ever made, The Passion Of The Christ, when Christ turns to His mother on the way to Calvary, explaining the need for the Cross and the blood and the agony: "See, Mother, I make all things new." I hope you remember that line with your tear ducts, which connect to the heart, as well as with your ears, which connect to the brain. Christ changed every human being he ever met. In fact, He changed history, splitting it open like a coconut and inserting eternity into the split between B.C. and A.D. If anyone claims to have met Him without being changed, he has not met Him at all. When you touch Him, you touch lightning. — Peter Kreeft
We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love. — Peter Kreeft
If we turn to the divine Conductor and follow the wise and loving baton that is His will, His Word, then the music of our life will be a symphony. — Peter Kreeft
What is voluntary comes from the will; what is forced comes to the will from outside and prevents it from doing what it will. — Peter Kreeft
We too can love with the will even when we do not have loving emotions or feelings. We make this distinction toward ourselves quite easily, so we should be able to do it toward others too when necessary. — Peter Kreeft
But we will probably never see this, never move from original selfishness to universal charity and unselfishness, without the intermediate step of the family. — Peter Kreeft
The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son. — Peter Kreeft
A pure heart means a single heart, a heart in which only one desire lives: love. — Peter Kreeft
The species or nature with which we make our choices is fallen, sinful, selfish, and stupid; and we cannot by our own power attain the deepest and final end of our desires, union with God, eternal happiness. Thus, — Peter Kreeft
Pilate's skeptical sneer "What is truth?" was addressed to Truth Himself, standing there right in front of his face. The world's stupidest question was three words; God's profoundest answer was one Word. — Peter Kreeft
Agape is the catalyst that makes value appear in anything. — Peter Kreeft
God's love is as objective as light. Because the sun in a sense is light, or the source of light rather than being lit, it really gives its light to the earth. And because the earth really receives light from the sun, it is really transformed every morning from darkness to light. Just as objectively, because God is love, God really gives love to us. And because we receive real life-changing love from God, we are really transformed from darkness to light. — Peter Kreeft
The most striking feature if this map is the stark fat of the Two Roads. There is the road that leads to Life, and there is the road that leads to Death. There is Good, and there is Evil. There is Right and there is Wrong. — Peter Kreeft
The scripture notion of truth is not an abstract, static, and timeless formula, but is something that comes true in time as the fulfillment of a divine promise. Truth happens in history. — Peter Kreeft
No emotion, merely as an emotion, is a sin, because we cannot directly control the arising of an emotion in our soul. — Peter Kreeft
City of God interprets all of the human story, from Creation to the Last Judgment, as the drama of divine providence and human free choice, especially the choice between the two most fundamental options of membership in one or the other of the "two cities." The City of God is the invisible community of all who love God; the City of the World is all those who love the world and themselves as their God. — Peter Kreeft
We sin because we see sin as a bargain. We unconsciously calculate that it's worth it, that it pays. — Peter Kreeft
God writes the story of our lives with the pen strokes of our own free choices. — Peter Kreeft
Prayer is not only conversation, it is transformation. It is not only light, it is fire. And the closer you get to Him, the hotter the fire gets. Words begin to melt. The first word that melts in His presence is the word 'I.' That is His unique name. The closer you get to Him, the harder it is to begin a sentence with 'I.' It melts in the fire of 'thou. — Peter Kreeft
True love, unlike popular sentimental substitutes, is willing to suffer. Love is not "luv." Love is the cross. Our problem at first, the sheer problem of suffering, was a cross without Christ. We must never fall into the opposite and equal trap of a Christ without a cross. — Peter Kreeft
I think nobody alive today is a more powerful agent of conversion than someone like Mother Teresa. You can refute arguments but not her life. When she came to the National Prayer Breakfast and lectured President Clinton about abortion, he had nothing to say to her. He can't argue with a saint. It's too bad there isn't an easier way, because becoming a saint is not the easiest thing in the world. It's much easier to become an apologist or a philosopher or a theologian. — Peter Kreeft
Thus, though Christians are in no way bound by the Jewish ceremonial or civil laws (because they were all in some way preparatory for Christ), we are still under the Ten Commandments in one way, though not in two other ways. — Peter Kreeft
Prayer is fundamentally a transformation of will, a lifting of the heart and will to God. — Peter Kreeft
The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures. — Peter Kreeft
That's what's so striking about the title of Kushner's book: When Bad Things Happen to Good People. How is that fair?
Well, the answer to that is that there are no good people. — Peter Kreeft
Christ is the Word of God in person. The Bible is the Word of God in writing. Both are the Word of God in the words of men. Both have a human nature and a divine nature. — Peter Kreeft
Three reasons God commands us to pray correlate to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: prayer gives truth to our mind, goodness to our will, and beauty to our heart. 'The true, the good, and the beautiful' are the three things we need and love the most, because they are the three attributes of God. — Peter Kreeft
Of course the more you love the sinner the more you hate and make war on the sin, just as the more you love the person, the more you hate and kill the cancer cells that are killing the person. Compassion for cancer cells does not come from compassion for persons; it comes precisely from lack of compassion for persons. — Peter Kreeft
If you are truly confident about something, you welcome honest questions about it. — Peter Kreeft
No books is more fascinating than the Bible. And no books are less fascinating than most of our commentaries on the Bible. Nothing is more formidable and unconquerable than the Church Militant. But nothing is more sleepy and sheepish than the Church Mumbling. Christ's words roused His enemies to murder and His friends to martyrdom. Our words reassure both sides and send them to sleep. He put the world in a daze. We put it in a doze. — Peter Kreeft
It is possible to love one's friend for another reason than God, whereas God is the only reason for loving one's enemy. — Peter Kreeft
Nothing but prayer can make saints because nothing but God can make saints, and we meet God in prayer. Prayer is the hospital for souls where we meet Doctor God. — Peter Kreeft
Every blade of grass is a blade of grace, a grace note in God's single Song. Nature is not blind and dumb. Nature is eloquent. Human science is blind and dumb if it does not hear this eloquence. — Peter Kreeft
Love is the binding force on every level of existence. — Peter Kreeft
Suffering is not blessed because it is suffering but because it is [Christ's]. Suffering is not the context that explains the cross; the cross is the context that explains suffering. — Peter Kreeft
If you love, you will suffer. The only way to protect yourself against suffering is to protect yourself against love - and that is the greatest suffering of all, loneliness. — Peter Kreeft
The more consciously and freely we choose an evil, the more responsible we are for it and the more guilty we are of it; this is why spiritual sins like pride are greater in guilt than carnal sins. — Peter Kreeft
It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil. — Peter Kreeft
Haven't you forgotten the first and most important lesson in all of philosophy, the lesson taught to all of us by Socrates, the father of philosophy? That you are wise only when you are humble, that the very first bit of wisdom and the prerequisite for all others is the realization that we are not wise — Peter Kreeft
If a person claims to have met Jesus without being changed then they have not met the real Jesus. — Peter Kreeft
Faith is the root, the necessary beginning. Hope is the stem, the energy that makes the plant grow. Love is the fruit, the flower, the visible product, the bottom line. The plant of our new life in Christ is one; the life of God comes into us by faith, through us by hope, and out of us by the works of love. — Peter Kreeft
Being a Christian is more like having your soul possessed by a spirit than having your mind clothed with new beliefs ... It is like being haunted by the Holy Ghost. — Peter Kreeft
For everything naturally desires good, — Peter Kreeft
You do not have to wait until you become a saint. [Prayer] is the way to become a saint. — Peter Kreeft
When you give yourself away you find that a new and more real self has somehow been given to you. — Peter Kreeft
The flood of love will fill all the containers to the fullest, but some containers will be larger than others. — Peter Kreeft
To those of you who would classify yourselves as conservatives I would say, meditate long and hard on Jesus' saying "Whatever you do to the least of these you have done to me". — Peter Kreeft
2. Greed, or acquisitive desire. — Peter Kreeft
Everything smaller than Heaven bores us because only Heaven is bigger than our hearts. — Peter Kreeft
St. Thomas would have agreed with Leon Bloy, who often wrote that in the end there is only one tragedy in life: not to have been a saint. — Peter Kreeft
his total refusal to be tempted by the prostitute — Peter Kreeft
God is love, and music is the language of love; therefore, music is the language of God. Music is a language more profound than words. How often have you heard a great piece of music and felt that? Great music does not just make you feel good; great music suggests some profound truth or mysterious meaning that is objectively true but not translatable into words. — Peter Kreeft
It was a very stupid mistake to think you could deal with heresy by burning heretics. It's the very same mistake that modernist Catholics are making today in reverse. They think you can love heretics by loving heresies. — Peter Kreeft
You have an evil twin who is always with you. He is called your ego. — Peter Kreeft
Wisdom, which is the habit of distinguishing appearance from reality.) — Peter Kreeft
Those who know, do not say; those who say, do not know. — Peter Kreeft
Trusting God's grace means trusting God's love for us rather than our love for God. [ ... ] Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God's love for us rather than trying to rouse God's awareness of our love for him, like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29). — 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. — Peter Kreeft
Atheism is cheap on people, because it snobbishly says nine out of ten people through history have been wrong about God and have had a lie at the core of their hearts. — Peter Kreeft
Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like a child, your will must bring it back, like a mother. [ ... ] The will-parent must discipline the mind-child, avoiding both the opposite extremes commonly made in disciplining either children or thoughts: tyranny or permissiveness. — Peter Kreeft
Greed for the things money can buy ("natural wealth") is a bad thing, but it is finite. You can only enjoy a finite amount of food or drink, houses or cars, or even sex. But greed for money ("artificial wealth") is infinite. You can always want more. It's like a drug: you have to have higher and higher doses of it to give you the same "buzz" you used to get from little bits of it. And this never stops. It is Hell's false infinite. — Peter Kreeft
When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God's love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off the self, trying to turn on the light and turn up the heat, when we can just go outside into God's glorious Sonlight and receive his rays! How silly to fuss with artificial tanning salons and lotions and lights when the Son is out! — Peter Kreeft
Your heart may be paltry compared with the heart of a great saint, but your heart is what God wants from you. — Peter Kreeft
Only Judaism and Christianity are religions of public record, eyewitnessed facts. — Peter Kreeft
Only when there is virtue in souls can there be peace and happiness in society. — Peter Kreeft
But that is all prayer requires: faith, hope, and love. Great holiness, or piety, or sanctity are not required. Prayer is a road to holiness. — Peter Kreeft
An open mind is not an end in itself but a means to the end of finding truth. — Peter Kreeft
Socrates: So even our walks are dangerous here. But you seem to have avoided the most dangerous thing of all.
Bertha: What's that?
Socrates: Philosophy.
Bertha: Oh, we have philosophers here.
Socrates: Where are they?
Bertha: In the philosophy department.
Socrates: Philosophy is not department.
Bertha: Well, we have philosophers.
Socrates: Are they dangerous?
Bertha: Of course not.
Socrates: Then they are not true philosophers. — Peter Kreeft
Learning to pray is dress rehearsal for eternal life. — Peter Kreeft
Socrates says we must be either fools because we think we are wise, or wise because we know we are fools. Christ says we must be either sinners who think we are saints, or saints who know we are sinners. Even — Peter Kreeft
Christ transforms the meaning and value of suffering from something to be feared or at best endured into something redemptive [and transformative]. — Peter Kreeft
Scholastics called the "irascible" (averting) and "concupiscible" (attracting) emotions. — Peter Kreeft
(4) But only man knows consciously and rationally, and only man's loves can be conscious and rational and responsible through free will. — Peter Kreeft
Grey is the devil's favorite color. — Peter Kreeft
Great saints are never wimps. — Peter Kreeft
It is said that there are three sources of evil, "the world, the flesh, and the Devil"; but the world and the flesh would be innocent were it not for the Devil. — Peter Kreeft
Do you know any better way to make saints than to be one yourself? — Peter Kreeft
A saint is Christ's bride, totally attached, faithful, dependent. A saint is also totally independent, detached from idols and from other husbands ... A saint is higher than anyone else in the world. A saint is the real mountain climber. A saint is also lower than anyone else in the world. As with water, he flows to the lowest places - like Calcutta. — Peter Kreeft
This is the reason why it is crucial to distinguish anger from hatred. There is a kind of anger (nonsinful kind) which ... is in God himself, while hate is not in God but is in Satan. If we do not clearly distinguish anger from hatred, then we do not clearly distinguish God from Satan! — Peter Kreeft
Like white light refracted through a prism and split into many colors, God's eternal love-nature, expressed through the prism of time, becomes God's multicolored love story. History is His story. — Peter Kreeft
The field of earth and of our human nature is now no longer barren but full of the seed of divine life. But it takes time for the seed to grow, for the Kingdom to come, and we are commanded to pray and work for that coming, that growth, even if we do not yet see the fruits, or even the blossoms, or even the leaves ... — Peter Kreeft
Suppose the god, the goal of progress, is changing. Then progress becomes impossible. How could we progress toward a goal that keeps receding? How could a runner make progress toward a finish line if someone kept moving it as he ran? — Peter Kreeft
The saints, too, had wandering minds. The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home. They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd. — Peter Kreeft