Inspirational Quotes by Peter Kreeft
“It is significant that in most languages there is a single word for the essential virtue regarding both of these two relationships, which are the only two relationships where we cannot pay all that is owed. The word is “piety” (pietas). It means honor to both ancestors and God, the authors of our life.”
“St. Thomas connects servile fear with dead faith (loveless faith) and filial fear with living faith.”
“To a humble mind nothing is more astonishing than to hear its own excellence.”
“If humility were not self-forgetfulness, any virtuous person would have the practical dilemma of either directing his attention to his own virtue, which naturally leads to pride, or denying it, which would be a lie.”
“To undo a contradiction, make a distinction.”
“to dispense from the laws.”
“Thus the quintessentially “conservative” dogma of Christ’s divinity as the pre-incarnate eternal Logos is the basis for the quintessentially “liberal” hope that good pagans can go to Heaven. He is indeed the one and only Way, Truth, and Life, the only Savior. But when Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or even honest agnostics give their heart to truth and goodness; when they make the ultimate value and point and purpose and meaning and end of their lives that which God is, absolute truth and absolute goodness, they are in fact giving their heart to Jesus even though they do not know it.”
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).”
“the mere necessity brings with it a dispensation, since necessity knows no law. . . .”
“his total refusal to be tempted by the prostitute”
“The Exodus also = salvation; Egypt = sin; Pharoah = Satan; Moses = Christ; the Jews = the Church; the Red Sea = death; the wilderness = Purgatory; the Old Law = the New Law; the gospel; the old Mount (Sinai) = the new mount from which Jesus preached His “sermon on the mount” (Mt 5-7); and the Promised Land = Heaven. The “=” is not mathematical but symbolic.”
“Earthly life is full of soporifics, anaesthetics, pain-dullers. In fact, compared with Purgatory our whole life on earth will appear to have been life only half awake. In Purgatory we will be fully awake, fully sensitive, and fully cognizant of the evil of all of our sins. Our clear knowledge of God’s brightness and beauty will make our clear knowledge of our own darkness and ugliness more painful than any similar light that shows up our most terrible defects here on earth.”
“(“fiat!”)”
“Likewise the subjection of woman to man results from the perfection of the male and the imperfection of the female sex.”
“The second reason was to make public and visible an invisible spiritual reality. This is the purpose of all the sacraments. Indeed, it is the fundamental purpose of matter itself.”
“John’s privilege among prophets is somewhat analogous to Mary’s privilege among women. No prophet is closer to Christ than John. Christ did not call him the greatest of all the prophets and more than a prophet (Mt 11:9) because he was more complete in his eloquence, his wisdom, or even his sanctity, than any other prophet, but because he completed the whole era of prophets, the Old Law, or Old Covenant, in introducing Christ to the world. As Mary’s womb gave Christ to the world ontologically, John’s baptism gave Christ to the world epistemologically.”
“Hence man never desires infinite meat, or infinite drink. . . . But non-natural concupiscence is altogether infinite . . . Hence he that desires riches, may desire to be rich not up to a certain limit but to be simply as rich as possible (I-II,30,4).”
“Because CPR resuscitates thousands today, it is now a commonly known “NDE” or near—death experience, that at the moment of death your whole life passes before you in an instant, with perfect clarity; and in this “life review” everything is seen truly, nothing is covered up. God is apparently sharing a foretaste of His own vision of our life with us, as He will do completely in Purgatory and / or Heaven; and repented and forgiven sins are part of this bitter yet sweet vision. St. Thomas had no CPR, and therefore few NDEs as his data, as we do, but he knew this anyway, if not inductively from data, then deductively from philosophy.”
“The transformation of Christ’s bodily scars into badges of glory shows us what happens, even in this life, to our souls when we lovingly and trustingly offer our sufferings to Christ and unite them to His. He turns “deformity” into “dignity”.”
“It’s just as dangerous and just as heretical to under—do as to over—do what Scripture says.”
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Peter John Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of numerous books as well as a popular writer on Christian theology, and specifically Roman Catholic apologetics. He also formulated together with Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God".
Kreeft took his A.B. at Calvin College (1959), and an M.A. at Fordham University (1961). In the same university he completed his doctoral studies in 1965. He briefly did post graduate studies at Yale University. He joined the Philosophy faculty of the Department of Philosophy of Boston College in 1965. In 1994 he was a signer of the document Evangelicals and Catholics Together.