Quotes from Peter Kreeft

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).

I often thought of comparing life to a dream, because death always seemed to be an awakening.

Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.

Every good choice makes the next one easier and more delightful.

As Buddha said, "All that we are is determined by our thoughts.

Yes, organized religion is a crutch. You mean you didn't know that you are a cripple? If you don't know that, then you are a very serious cripple indeed, mentally and spiritually.

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.

nothing else can ever cure our sick world except saints, and saints are never made except by prayer.

Plato was right when he said that all evil comes from ignorance. He forgot that ignorance also comes from evil.

Right Response to Reality—the Three R's—is the fundamental principle of morality, of sanctity, and of sanity.

The good Jew, like the good Christian, sees behind the law to the Lawgiver, whose will is perfect love.

the will can obey the passions instead of the reason, and this accounts for the fact that we often know what is good and what is evil—even what is good for us, what is truly best for us, for our own ultimate happiness—and yet choose evil over good, choose what we know is not in our own best interests. We can choose misery over joy if our will, led by our passions, commands our mind to focus on the short-range pleasures and ignore the long-run miseries.

Romans 8:28 (ESV): For those who love God all things work together for good.

We pray to obey God, not to "play God". We pray, not to change God's mind, but to change our own; not to command God, but to let God command us. We pray to "let God be God". Prayer is our obedience to God even when it asks God for things, for God has commanded us to ask (Mt 7:7).

When the worldly toys in which we foolishly place our hopes for happiness are taken away from us, our foolishness is also taken away, and this brings us closer to true happiness, which is not in worldly things but in wisdom.

The ultimate reason we must become holy is that that is the only way to become real.

First, you must read it, not as you read other books, but slowly and thoughtfully (that is why I made it very short) and above all prayerfully, that is, under the eye of God, in the presence of Truth and therefore in absolute honesty. Second, you must actually do it, not just read about doing it, think about doing it, understand how to do it, plan to do it, or imagine yourself doing it. It is a cookbook, not a dinner.

Dostoyevsky says, "love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams" (The Brothers Karamazov).

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.

We cannot go from our darkness to his light, because we are working in the dark. But God can go from his light to our darkness, because he is working in the light.

A certain participation in happiness can be had in this life, but perfect and true happiness cannot be had in this life.

Learning to pray is dress rehearsal for eternal life.

When I ask my "Catholic" students what they would say to God if they died tonight and God asked them why He should let them into Heaven, fewer than 5% ever even mention Jesus Christ.

For even though our prayer-contact with God may be almost infinitely poor, the God we thus contact is infinitely rich!