Quotes from Peter Kreeft

the doctrine of anamnesis: that all learning-that is, all learning of eternal truths-is really a remembering

Heart" here refers especially to deep feeling or emotion. "Heart" means not only (1) intuitive reason ("the heart has its reasons") and (2) will

angelism, confusing man with an angel by denying his likeness to animals, and animalism, confusing man with an animal by denying his likeness to angels.

More accurately stated, man is not both angel and animal because he is neither angel nor animal; he is between angels and animals, a unique rung on the cosmic ladder.

Virtue" used to mean power, might, or energy.)

other little wooden fences can come down too. How? When? God only knows.

each one needs something outside itself to actualize its potentiality for change.

We must distinguish the act of faith from the object of faith, believing from what is believed.

Love is supposed to bring us out of the dark prison of the "my will be done" ego into the joys of "thy will be done", both horizontally and vertically, toward both the human and the divine Other.

And since perfected souls will be incapable of envy, all will rejoice in their lesser level of brightness, because it will be exactly what God wills for the common good; and all will identify with that common good as the fulfillment of their individual good, rather than a rival to it, as we fools do now.

Jungians call the "collective unconscious".

Hypocrisy, it is said, is "the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

The distinction between the natural and the supernatural is a distinction between two abstract aspects, not two concrete things.

Heaven will do to earth what the New Law did to the Old: not replacement but consummation (Mt 5:17).

For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people: saints, who know they are sinners; and sinners, who think they are saints.

His glory is to be our concern; our glory is His concern. That is what love is: a holy Exchange.

Aristotle had discovered only half the principle of inertia—that a body at rest remains at rest unless moved by another—but not the other half—that a body in motion remains in motion unless acted on by another.

Aristotle also believed that a vacuum was impossible.

But if scandal arise from truth, the scandal should be borne rather than the truth be set aside

His divinity existed without His humanity before the Incarnation, but ever since the Incarnation His humanity is joined forever to His divinity. His Ascension was not the undoing of His Incarnation.

This is what God did in the Incarnation. Being became a being, the Subject became an object, God became a man, I AM became a He.

Our faith here can only be in God, not in our faith (that's presumption). He will never abandon us, but we can abandon Him. That's why we must be vigilant.

Play and mirth is also "necessary for the intercourse of human life" and "to cheer the heart of man". This is why God invented not just water but also wine (Ps 104:15).

all power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely").