Inspirational Quotes by Peter Kreeft

“2. Greed, or acquisitive desire.”

“8. Charity (agape), or willing the good of the other. Since this love comes from the will rather than the feelings, and since angels have wills, angels have this love.”

“Humans are the lowest (least intelligent) of spirits and the highest (most intelligent) of animals. We are rational animals, incarnate minds, the smartest of animals and the stupidest of spirits:”

“Your problem, however big it is (or however small), is His wise and loving will to you, even though it may not look wise or loving. It is His deliberate permissive will. And your response to it is your response to Him.”

“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. Socrates is puzzled because he is looking for the burn marks.”

“Not all who listen, believe. If you call the Gospel a crazy fairy tale, a far-too-good-to-be-true myth, an insane extension of wishful thinking, or even a blasphemous lie, I will respect you and argue with you. But if you call it a platitude, I can only pity you, for that means you have never listened to it.”

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

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

“he rewards our efforts with peace and joy.”

“Even God cannot make us love him. “Forced love” is a meaningless impossibility, like “virtuous sin”.”

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

“When we use the prayers of the Church, we use the greatest prayers ever written, the words and sentiments of great saints and hymn writers and liturgists. We do this rightly, because God deserves the best, and these prayers are the best. They were composed by other people, but we make them our own when we pray them, like a lover reciting a sonnet by Shakespeare to his beloved. It is Shakespeare’s gift: Shakespeare gave it to him, and now he gives it to his beloved.”

“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.”

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

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

“we catch the good infection of Godliness by contact.”

“He stoops down even into the spiritual nursery and carefully watches over spiritual infants like us.”

“Light, life, and love parallel the three absolute values of truth, goodness, and beauty, the supreme values of the three parts of the soul; intellect, will, and emotions. God is all truth, goodness, and beauty; everything that is true, good, or beautiful is a reflection of God, a participation in God, a shadow of God. Therefore every choice for or against any truth, any goodness or any beauty is a choice for or against God—whether He is known or unknown, named or anonymous. A choice to change a diaper, praise a sunset, admit a mistake, or give up a subway seat is a choice for God: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brothers, ye did it unto Me.”15”

“The Church also seems to be in the social service business, the counseling business, the fundraising business, the daycare business-dozens of the same worthy businesses the secular world is also in. Why? What justifies these things? The Church's ultimate end for all these things is different from the world's end; it is salvation. This is its distinctive "product." Why put out a product that is just the same as other compa- vies' products already on the market? Why would anyone expect such a product to sell? That's why modernist or liberal Christianity, charitable as its services are, is simply not selling. The only reason for any of the Church's activities, the only reason for the very existence of the Church at all, is exactly the same as the reason Jesus came to earth: to save poor and lost humanity.”

“We love Mary for one reason: because we love Jesus. The more we love Jesus, the more we love Mary. If we could grade Catholics on a scale of sainthood, a kind of spiritual graph, three lines would be almost identical in height or depth: how saintly you are, how much you love Jesus, and how much you love Mary. That’s the empirical fact. Here comes the explanation. Look at the Hail Mary prayer. It stops halfway through. The speaker has to take a silence break before and after the name “Jesus.” He’s at the heart of that prayer as He was at the heart of her body, her womb. Look at the title we give her in that prayer: “Mother of God.” Unbelievable, astonishing, incredible, amazing, infinitely wonderful! What? Jesus in Mary, Jesus incarnating, Jesus coming down to us in Mary. Suppose He had chosen to come in another way. He could have. He could have appeared instantly as a full-grown man descending from the sky, the reverse of the Ascension. He could have come down on a mountaintop, or in the Temple. And if he had, every Christian in the world who adored Him would make a pilgrimage to that mountain or that Temple. They would love that place above all places in the universe. They would make a very big deal of it. Why? Because they make a very big deal about Him.”