Quotes from Peter Kreeft

Spirit means essentially two things: 1. The power of thinking—conscious, deliberate, rational understanding. Not sense perception; that's the work of a bodily organ, like the eye. 2. The power of willing and choosing and deliberately loving. Not sensory appetite; that's the work of a bodily function, like hunger.

It is an a fortiori argument: if even the veneration of a beloved father's relics after he dies is a good thing, how much more the veneration of a saint's?

martyrdom is not only not the same as suicide, it is the polar opposite of suicide, since the suicide loves nothing in life enough to keep living, while the martyr loves something so much that he gives up everything for it, even life. The suicide sees less value and meaning in life than anyone else, while the martyr sees more.

the doctrine of anamnesis: that all learning-that is, all learning of eternal truths-is really a remembering

Heart" here refers especially to deep feeling or emotion. "Heart" means not only (1) intuitive reason ("the heart has its reasons") and (2) will

angelism, confusing man with an angel by denying his likeness to animals, and animalism, confusing man with an animal by denying his likeness to angels.

More accurately stated, man is not both angel and animal because he is neither angel nor animal; he is between angels and animals, a unique rung on the cosmic ladder.

other little wooden fences can come down too. How? When? God only knows.

each one needs something outside itself to actualize its potentiality for change.

We must distinguish the act of faith from the object of faith, believing from what is believed.

Love is supposed to bring us out of the dark prison of the "my will be done" ego into the joys of "thy will be done", both horizontally and vertically, toward both the human and the divine Other.

And since perfected souls will be incapable of envy, all will rejoice in their lesser level of brightness, because it will be exactly what God wills for the common good; and all will identify with that common good as the fulfillment of their individual good, rather than a rival to it, as we fools do now.