Inspirational Quotes by Peter Kreeft

“If Christianity is true, this changes EVERYTHING. Christ's very last words to us in scripture were: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) I hope you remember that most moving line in the most moving movie ever made, The Passion Of The Christ, when Christ turns to His mother on the way to Calvary, explaining the need for the Cross and the blood and the agony: "See, Mother, I make all things new." I hope you remember that line with your tear ducts, which connect to the heart, as well as with your ears, which connect to the brain. 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.”

“The more consciously and freely we choose an evil, the more responsible we are for it and the more guilty we are of it; this is why spiritual sins like pride are greater in guilt than carnal sins.”

“that the ones who laugh the loudest and the most are usually the shallowest and the most foolish? And that the wisest are usually the gravest? Perhaps the wise are grave because they remember the grave.”

“The literary establishment in England was stunned, shocked, and scandalized by an event of millennial significance when a major bookstore chain innocently polled English-speaking readers, asking them to choose the greatest book of the twentieth century. By a wide margin The Lord of the Rings won. Three times the poll was broadened: to a worldwide readership, into cyberspace via Amazon.com, and even to "the greatest book of the millennium". The same champion won each time. The critics retched and kvetched, wailed and flailed, gasped and grasped for explanations. One said that they had failed and wasted their work of "ed-u-ca-tion". "Why bother teaching them to read if they're going to read that?”

“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.”

“انما الحكيم وحده يعرف الحماقة. اما الحمقي فلا يعرفون الحكمة ولا الحماقة. فكما نحتاج الي حكمة لنعرف الحماقة, والي نور لنعرف الظلمة, كذلك نحتاج الي عمق كي نعرف الباطل, الي معني كي نعرف اللامعني. ويقول باسكال: "اي شخص لا يري بطلان الحياة لابد ان يكون بالحقيقة باطلا جدا".”

“As society grows, it knows more and more about less and less. It knows more about the little things and less about the big things. It knows more about everything and less about Everything.”

“To whom will the sublime beauty of a sunset or a Ninth Symphony of Beethoven reveal itself, but to him who approaches it reverently and unlocks his heart to it? To whom will the mystery that lies in life and manifests itself in every plant reveal itself in its full splendor, but to him who contemplates it reverently? But he who sees in it only a means of subsistence or of earning money, that is, something that can be used or employed, will not discover the meaning, structure, and significance of the world in its beauty and hidden dignity.”

“Learning to pray is dress rehearsal for eternal life.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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).”

“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.”

“If I did not love you more today than I did yesterday, I would love you less, and that is intolerable. So I must find more ways to love you every day.”

“The practice of the presence of God, though we begin it at special times of prayer, is designed to spill out and over and into all times.”

“Our conversation with God should be utterly free and familiar, because God is the only person who will never, ever misunderstand us and never, ever reject us (hate us, ignore us, or be indifferent to us).”

“The Witch's conception of what Narnia should be like is similar to what Sauron desires for Middle-earth (and what Satan desires for our own world) : a barren landscape devoid of life peopled by joyless automatons who neither laugh nor take pleasure in anything. It is Satan, not Christ who is the cosmic killjoy.”

“The basic attitude of reverence is the presupposition for every true love, above all, the love of neighbor, because it alone opens our eyes to the value of men as spiritual persons, and because, without this awareness, no love is possible. Reverence for the beloved one is also an essential element of every love. To give attention to the specific meaning and value of his individuality, to display consideration toward him, instead of forcing our wishes on him, is part of reverence. It is from reverence that there flows the willingness of a lover to grant the beloved the spiritual "space" needed to freely express his own individuality. All these elements of every true love flow from reverence. What would a mother's love be without reverence for the growing being, for all the possibilities of value that yet lie dormant, for the preciousness of the child's soul?”

“The next step is the only step on which one should put their weight.”