Quotes from Peter Kreeft

It is tempting to remain in the comfortable theater of the imagination instead of the real world, to fall in love with the idea of becoming a saint and loving God and neighbor instead of doing the actual work, because the idea makes no demands on you.

The more you treat someone you hate as if you loved them, the more you will find yourself loving them.

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.

Socrates: "Know thyself." 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.

We pray, not simply as some solitary self-improvement program, but because we have been addressed by God. Prayer is a response to a prior divine invitation.

So nothing can be ours by right, by nature, or by necessity. But one thing is mine by my free choice: the self I give away in love. This is the thing even God cannot do for me. It really is my choice. God can love, but He cannot compel my free love. If it is compelled, it is not free. If it is free, it is not compelled.

You see, passion alone is a blind power. It's fire without light. It just ignites whatever it touches, good or evil, truth or lies, unselfishness or selfishness, love or lust.

God's solution to the problem of evil is his Son Jesus Christ. The Father's love sent his Son to die for us to defeat the power of evil in human nature: that's the heart of the Christian story.

For any act to be morally right, three things are necessary: (1) right act, (2) right motive, and (3) right circumstances. If any one of these factors is not right, the act is wrong.

He offers total mercy and forgiveness to all who will accept it by trusting Him and repenting of their sins, but He does not, and cannot, give forgiveness to those who will not receive His gift. Gifts are freely given and freely received. Heaven cannot be forced on a creature with free will.

The deepest healing is the healing of the deepest wound. The deepest wound is the frustration of the deepest need. The deepest need is the need for meaning, purpose, and hope.

A great story must have, first of all, a good plot, a great deed, a good work, something worth doing. You cannot write a great story about saving a button on a sweater and nothing more. You can, however, write a great story about saving the world, which is what Tolkien did.

Psychology can make us feel good, but religion can make us be good.

the contemplative life not only does not exclude, but requires, the active life.

ora et labora, prayer and work.

When a maniac is at the door, feuding brothers reconcile.

Kennedy: You mean it's not a matter of good deeds versus bad deeds, a kind of moral bookkeeping? Lewis: No indeed. Look at the thief on the cross. He made it to paradise even though his life's red ink certainly outweighed the black. Kennedy:

When you feel threatened by the Church, listen to the One who speaks from beneath those humble, human appearances: "It is I; be not afraid.

St. Thomas thus detects a primary source of presumption in seeking genuinely good things, like human happiness on earth, as if we did not need divine grace to attain them; and in the hope that we can obtain God's pardon and mercy without our confessing and repenting of sin.

Paradoxically, sloth reigns most in our technologically busy world where leisure has been abolished and life has been programmed and scheduled down to the last detail.

His purpose was not just to make us safe but to make us saints.

Many saints were made out of passionate sinners—the angry, the hating, the lustful, the cynical; but none were ever made out of the slothful.

The meaning of life is to become a saint.

Not all prayer is in words, because not all conversation is in words.