Peter Kreeft Quotes

Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.

The best way to win an argument is to begin by being right.

You can't argue with the truth.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.

Everyone has been a witness sometime - It doesn't change it if you don't believe.

When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion.

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.

No sane person should believe that something is subjective merely because it cannot be settled beyond controversy.

If I'm in a political argument, I think I can, with reasonable accuracy and without boasting, put the other person's side of the case at least as well as they could. One has to be able to say that in any well-conducted argument.

Right reason is stronger than force.

Faith is not contrary to reason.

Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone.

As far as I remember, even younger than eight, I have always been guided by reason. Not cold reason, but that which leads to the truth, to the real, and to sane Justice.

It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation — and reason is the best confirmation

Happily I had very early learned the fallacy of building much on logic and verbal argument. Single sets of truths I knew to be as little conclusive in theology as in physics; and, in one as in the other, no theory to be worth anything, however plausibly backed up with Scripture texts or facts, which was not gathered bona fide from the analysis of all the attainable phenomena, and verified wherever possible by experiment.

One of the essential and most valid objections against the act of faith is that it is irrational, inasmuch as it offends against the syllogistic rule that the conclusion of an argument shall contain nothing more than the premises.

If we can't agree on objective truth, then how are we ever going to agree on opinions?

He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.

It’s critical that we know what we believe, no matter what we feel...that we know what is true, no matter what we see.

I believe in things that have proof.

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.