Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
115f47d	The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures.	prayer faith god sufferings	Peter Kreeft
6b4f861	We try too much and trust too little. Count the times God's Book tells us to "try." Now count the times it tells us to "trust."	faith trust god try	Peter Kreeft
9044c73	Prayer is not only conversation, it is transformation. It is not only light, it is fire. And the closer you get to Him, the hotter the fire gets. Words begin to melt. The first word that melts in His presence is the word 'I.' That is unique name. The closer you get to Him, the harder it is to begin a sentence with 'I.' It melts in the fire of 'thou.		Peter Kreeft
8c218bd	Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God.	christianity god philosophy deist presence-of-god jesus-shock theist deism catholicism theology theism	Peter Kreeft
003e291	God gives us not only the truth but also the ability to believe it; not only the new thing to see but also the new eye to see it with.	christianity faith spirituality god philosophy truth jesus-shock theology	Peter Kreeft
344d837	The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life--until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.	christianity philosophy francis-of-assisi lady-poverty saint-francis st-francis-of-assisi troubadour jesus-shock catholicism theology christ	Peter Kreeft
e26b99f	God wants us to worry about our sins we sin; the devil wants us to worry we sin. God wants us to feel free after we repent (for we really are free then); the devil is a deceiver). The devil tempts us to cavalier pride before we sin and worrisome despair afterward, since pride and despair both separate us from God, and anything that separates us from God is the devil's friend and our enemy, while anything that brings us close to God is t..	prayer faith god evil sin	Peter Kreeft
bfed765	One common cause of this mistake of preferring to imagine and admire a great ideal instead of beginning to do little deeds is our impatience with little baby steps, our lack of humility.	prayer humility-is-a-good-friend	Peter Kreeft
f66f030	God really performs the miracle of multiplying our time, but only if we give it to him first.	time god making-time-for-prayer	Peter Kreeft
bcb4b1b	The single most important piece of advice about prayer is one word: Begin!	prayer talking-to-god	Peter Kreeft
063a596	Nothing but prayer can make saints because nothing but God can make saints, and we meet God in prayer. Prayer is the hospital for souls where we meet Doctor God.	prayer god sanctity	Peter Kreeft
a277cf8	Great stories give us the grace of a mystical experience, on the level of the imagination.		Peter Kreeft
1761542	Leon Bloy wrote: 'Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint	prayer saints	Peter Kreeft
ee3bfbe	Feelings, like waves, look more substantial than they are.		Peter Kreeft
343d9da	Socrates: "The corruption of the best things are the worst things." Or, "The best, when corrupted, become the worst." As one of your English poets has said, "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."		Peter Kreeft
c1291bc	Man's soul has three powers, and God left him prophets for all three: Jewish moralists for his will, Greek philosophers for his mind, and pagan mythmakers for his heart and imagination and feelings. Of course, the latter two are not infallible.		Peter Kreeft
78d50f9	But if he had come down from the Cross, he would have made it for them to believe in him, for he would have substituted sight for faith. That is why he does not take us down from our crosses: so that we do not substitute feelings and experiences for faith. He wants the very best for us, the strongest and most precious gift, and that is faith.	suffering faith cross gift	Peter Kreeft
2541fd4	It is true, as John Bunyan said, that God infinitely prefers a heart without words to words without a heart when we pray.	prayer heart	Peter Kreeft
faf1c90	No books is more fascinating than the Bible. And no books are less fascinating than most of our commentaries on the Bible. Nothing is more formidable and unconquerable than the Church Militant. But nothing is more sleepy and sheepish than the Church Mumbling. Christ's words roused His enemies to murder and His friends to martyrdom. Our words reassure both sides and send them to sleep. He put the world in a daze. We put it in a doze.	christianity jesus bible catholic christian-philosophy jesus-shock kreeft eucharist jesus-christ church resurrection	Peter Kreeft
10afd15	If we rely on anything else besides faith to maintain the practice of the presence of God, we will certainly fail, whether this is our feelings, or experiences, or sincerity, or good intentions, or reasonings, or plans. The reason these things will fail while faith will not fail is that all these things depend on us, while faith depends on God. It is a gift of God.	trust god the-presence-of-god	Peter Kreeft
570099e	don't confuse scepticism as an attitude, or a method, with scepticism as a philosophy. Socrates was sceptical in temperament, and his method was to question everything. But he believed in absolute truth; he was no sceptic.		Peter Kreeft
2df5960	Atheism robs death of meaning. And if death has no meaning, how can life ultimately have meaning? For death is the end of life. Here		Peter Kreeft
b33e78f	We are not free to love God insofar as we are enslaved to creatures. And we all are. We are addicted to whatever we cannot part with that is less than God, our true good. And that includes ourselves--especially ourselves and our own will. So we must renounce this too, this especially. God's world is not the problem; our attitude is. God does not want us to renounce the unspeakably beautiful world he gave us as creation, as gift, as it reall..	faith god perspective	Peter Kreeft
63b6e46	What our Heavenly Father wants us to do about our spiritual failures is like what our earthly father wants us to do about our earthly failures. When we fall off the horse, or the bike, or the high road to Heaven, we must simply climb on again as soon as we are aware of the fact that we have fallen off, rather than sitting there stewing in self-pity or self-hatred.	perseverance faith trust god humilty	Peter Kreeft
f6b7ed9	Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.		Peter Kreeft
622e1c4	In reality, the damned are in the same place as the saved--in reality! But they hate it; it is their Hell. The saved love it, and it is their Heaven. It is like two people sitting side by side at an opera or a rock concert: the very thing that is Heaven to one is Hell to the other. Dostoyevski says, 'We are all in paradise, but we won't see it'...Hell is not literally the 'wrath of God.' The love of God is an objective fact; the 'wrath of G..	heaven divine-love damnation wrath-of-god eternal-punishment hell	Peter Kreeft
64fd2a1	Philosophy says truth, literature shows truth.		Peter Kreeft
88a22ca	with every choice we move either closer to God or farther away from him.		Peter Kreeft
444c637	When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God's love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off the self, trying to turn on the light and turn up the heat, when we can just go outside into God's glorious Sonlight and receive his rays! How silly to fuss with artificial tanning salons and lotions and lights when the Son is out!	prayer sonlight presence	Peter Kreeft
2744014	Despair itself can be hopeful if it is honest.		Peter Kreeft
0afc43b	We must pray in order to grow, and we must grow because Infinite Love will not, cannot, settle for less than the greatest joy of which his beloved creature is capable.	prayer joy god love	Peter Kreeft
a9fbe21	There is something in us that fears prayer as a maggot fears light. We must do violence to this voice, for it is not ourselves. It is our Enemy.	perseverance prayer	Peter Kreeft
c7d6a46	Other possible means were not lacking on God's part." One drop of blood--from Christ's circumcision at the age of eight days--would have been sufficient to purchase all mankind's salvation. Why then did He give us twelve quarts instead of one drop? The simple and stunning answer, from Monica Miller's book on the movie "The Passion of the Christ", is: Because He had twelve quarts to give. The strategy of war and of games is to win with the m..		Peter Kreeft
f3252d6	Haven't you forgotten the first and most important lesson in all of philosophy, the lesson taught to all of us by Socrates, the father of philosophy? That you are wise only when you are humble, that the very first bit of wisdom and the prerequisite for all others is the realization that we are not wise		Peter Kreeft
aa0545f	From the premise that Christianity is true it follows that the far-off glimpse of joy produced by fantasy is a glimpse of truth; that a great eucatastrophic tale like is a gift of divine grace, an opening of the curtain that veils Heaven to earthly eyes, a tiny telepathic contact with the Mind of God.		Peter Kreeft
c190a00	Philosophy makes literature clear, literature makes philosophy real.		Peter Kreeft
a1b7cb2	Philosophy is not confined to philosophers, thank God. Everyone has a philosophy. As Cicero famously said, you have no choice between having a philosophy and not having one, only between having a good one and having a bad one. And not to admit that you have a philosophy at all is to have a bad one. For it is one that does not know itself. So how could it know anything else, especially us?		Peter Kreeft
fabbde3	Mercy is Truth clothed; judgment is Truth naked.		Peter Kreeft
cff0b25	Those who know, do not say; those who say, do not know.		Peter Kreeft
33eb27d	I find my data first in myself, not first in the poets. For if I did not find it in myself, I would not be able to find it in the poets.	poets poetry philosophy peter-kreeft sea water	Peter Kreeft
545a6d9	The universal sin Saint Paul pinpoints in Romans 1:18 is to suppress the truth.		Peter Kreeft
bd92a2e	Love suffers far more for the pains of the beloved than for its own pains.		Peter Kreeft
c39ba67	Marriage is earth's closest image for Heaven because it is all or nothing, forever - a leap of faith.		Peter Kreeft
fa42b55	Three reasons God commands us to pray correlate to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: . 'The true, the good, and the beautiful' are the three things we need and love the most, because they are the three attributes of God.	prayer god	Peter Kreeft

115f47d

The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures.

prayer faith god sufferings

Peter Kreeft

6b4f861

We try too much and trust too little. Count the times God's Book tells us to "try." Now count the times it tells us to "trust."

faith trust god try

Peter Kreeft

9044c73

Prayer is not only conversation, it is transformation. It is not only light, it is fire. And the closer you get to Him, the hotter the fire gets. Words begin to melt. The first word that melts in His presence is the word 'I.' That is unique name. The closer you get to Him, the harder it is to begin a sentence with 'I.' It melts in the fire of 'thou.

Peter Kreeft

8c218bd

Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God.

christianity god philosophy deist presence-of-god jesus-shock theist deism catholicism theology theism

Peter Kreeft

003e291

God gives us not only the truth but also the ability to believe it; not only the new thing to see but also the new eye to see it with.

christianity faith spirituality god philosophy truth jesus-shock theology

Peter Kreeft

344d837

The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life--until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.

christianity philosophy francis-of-assisi lady-poverty saint-francis st-francis-of-assisi troubadour jesus-shock catholicism theology christ

Peter Kreeft

e26b99f

God wants us to worry about our sins we sin; the devil wants us to worry we sin. God wants us to feel free after we repent (for we really are free then); the devil is a deceiver). The devil tempts us to cavalier pride before we sin and worrisome despair afterward, since pride and despair both separate us from God, and anything that separates us from God is the devil's friend and our enemy, while anything that brings us close to God is t..

prayer faith god evil sin

Peter Kreeft

bfed765

One common cause of this mistake of preferring to imagine and admire a great ideal instead of beginning to do little deeds is our impatience with little baby steps, our lack of humility.

prayer humility-is-a-good-friend

Peter Kreeft

f66f030

God really performs the miracle of multiplying our time, but only if we give it to him first.

time god making-time-for-prayer

Peter Kreeft

bcb4b1b

The single most important piece of advice about prayer is one word: Begin!

prayer talking-to-god

Peter Kreeft

063a596

Nothing but prayer can make saints because nothing but God can make saints, and we meet God in prayer. Prayer is the hospital for souls where we meet Doctor God.

prayer god sanctity

Peter Kreeft

a277cf8

Great stories give us the grace of a mystical experience, on the level of the imagination.

Peter Kreeft

1761542

Leon Bloy wrote: 'Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint

prayer saints

Peter Kreeft

ee3bfbe

Feelings, like waves, look more substantial than they are.

Peter Kreeft

343d9da

Socrates: "The corruption of the best things are the worst things." Or, "The best, when corrupted, become the worst." As one of your English poets has said, "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

Peter Kreeft

c1291bc

Man's soul has three powers, and God left him prophets for all three: Jewish moralists for his will, Greek philosophers for his mind, and pagan mythmakers for his heart and imagination and feelings. Of course, the latter two are not infallible.

Peter Kreeft

78d50f9

But if he had come down from the Cross, he would have made it for them to believe in him, for he would have substituted sight for faith. That is why he does not take us down from our crosses: so that we do not substitute feelings and experiences for faith. He wants the very best for us, the strongest and most precious gift, and that is faith.

suffering faith cross gift

Peter Kreeft

2541fd4

It is true, as John Bunyan said, that God infinitely prefers a heart without words to words without a heart when we pray.

prayer heart

Peter Kreeft

faf1c90

No books is more fascinating than the Bible. And no books are less fascinating than most of our commentaries on the Bible. Nothing is more formidable and unconquerable than the Church Militant. But nothing is more sleepy and sheepish than the Church Mumbling. Christ's words roused His enemies to murder and His friends to martyrdom. Our words reassure both sides and send them to sleep. He put the world in a daze. We put it in a doze.

christianity jesus bible catholic christian-philosophy jesus-shock kreeft eucharist jesus-christ church resurrection

Peter Kreeft

10afd15

If we rely on anything else besides faith to maintain the practice of the presence of God, we will certainly fail, whether this is our feelings, or experiences, or sincerity, or good intentions, or reasonings, or plans. The reason these things will fail while faith will not fail is that all these things depend on us, while faith depends on God. It is a gift of God.

trust god the-presence-of-god

Peter Kreeft

570099e

don't confuse scepticism as an attitude, or a method, with scepticism as a philosophy. Socrates was sceptical in temperament, and his method was to question everything. But he believed in absolute truth; he was no sceptic.

Peter Kreeft

2df5960

Atheism robs death of meaning. And if death has no meaning, how can life ultimately have meaning? For death is the end of life. Here

Peter Kreeft

b33e78f

We are not free to love God insofar as we are enslaved to creatures. And we all are. We are addicted to whatever we cannot part with that is less than God, our true good. And that includes ourselves--especially ourselves and our own will. So we must renounce this too, this especially. God's world is not the problem; our attitude is. God does not want us to renounce the unspeakably beautiful world he gave us as creation, as gift, as it reall..

faith god perspective

Peter Kreeft

63b6e46

What our Heavenly Father wants us to do about our spiritual failures is like what our earthly father wants us to do about our earthly failures. When we fall off the horse, or the bike, or the high road to Heaven, we must simply climb on again as soon as we are aware of the fact that we have fallen off, rather than sitting there stewing in self-pity or self-hatred.

perseverance faith trust god humilty

Peter Kreeft

f6b7ed9

Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.

Peter Kreeft

622e1c4

In reality, the damned are in the same place as the saved--in reality! But they hate it; it is their Hell. The saved love it, and it is their Heaven. It is like two people sitting side by side at an opera or a rock concert: the very thing that is Heaven to one is Hell to the other. Dostoyevski says, 'We are all in paradise, but we won't see it'...Hell is not literally the 'wrath of God.' The love of God is an objective fact; the 'wrath of G..

heaven divine-love damnation wrath-of-god eternal-punishment hell

Peter Kreeft

64fd2a1

Philosophy says truth, literature shows truth.

Peter Kreeft

88a22ca

with every choice we move either closer to God or farther away from him.

Peter Kreeft

444c637

When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God's love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off the self, trying to turn on the light and turn up the heat, when we can just go outside into God's glorious Sonlight and receive his rays! How silly to fuss with artificial tanning salons and lotions and lights when the Son is out!

prayer sonlight presence

Peter Kreeft

2744014

Despair itself can be hopeful if it is honest.

Peter Kreeft

0afc43b

We must pray in order to grow, and we must grow because Infinite Love will not, cannot, settle for less than the greatest joy of which his beloved creature is capable.

prayer joy god love

Peter Kreeft

a9fbe21

There is something in us that fears prayer as a maggot fears light. We must do violence to this voice, for it is not ourselves. It is our Enemy.

perseverance prayer

Peter Kreeft

c7d6a46

Other possible means were not lacking on God's part." One drop of blood--from Christ's circumcision at the age of eight days--would have been sufficient to purchase all mankind's salvation. Why then did He give us twelve quarts instead of one drop? The simple and stunning answer, from Monica Miller's book on the movie "The Passion of the Christ", is: Because He had twelve quarts to give. The strategy of war and of games is to win with the m..

Peter Kreeft

f3252d6

Haven't you forgotten the first and most important lesson in all of philosophy, the lesson taught to all of us by Socrates, the father of philosophy? That you are wise only when you are humble, that the very first bit of wisdom and the prerequisite for all others is the realization that we are not wise

Peter Kreeft

aa0545f

From the premise that Christianity is true it follows that the far-off glimpse of joy produced by fantasy is a glimpse of truth; that a great eucatastrophic tale like is a gift of divine grace, an opening of the curtain that veils Heaven to earthly eyes, a tiny telepathic contact with the Mind of God.

Peter Kreeft

c190a00

Philosophy makes literature clear, literature makes philosophy real.

Peter Kreeft

a1b7cb2

Philosophy is not confined to philosophers, thank God. Everyone has a philosophy. As Cicero famously said, you have no choice between having a philosophy and not having one, only between having a good one and having a bad one. And not to admit that you have a philosophy at all is to have a bad one. For it is one that does not know itself. So how could it know anything else, especially us?

Peter Kreeft

fabbde3

Mercy is Truth clothed; judgment is Truth naked.

Peter Kreeft

cff0b25

Those who know, do not say; those who say, do not know.

Peter Kreeft

33eb27d

I find my data first in myself, not first in the poets. For if I did not find it in myself, I would not be able to find it in the poets.

poets poetry philosophy peter-kreeft sea water

Peter Kreeft

545a6d9

The universal sin Saint Paul pinpoints in Romans 1:18 is to suppress the truth.

Peter Kreeft

bd92a2e

Love suffers far more for the pains of the beloved than for its own pains.

Peter Kreeft

c39ba67

Marriage is earth's closest image for Heaven because it is all or nothing, forever - a leap of faith.

Peter Kreeft

fa42b55

Three reasons God commands us to pray correlate to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: . 'The true, the good, and the beautiful' are the three things we need and love the most, because they are the three attributes of God.

prayer god

Peter Kreeft