Motivational Quotes

Prayer

To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention -- on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God -- that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.

- Auden, W. H.

Best Quotes about Prayer

One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.

G. E. Lessing

Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart.

Graham, Ruth

Why is it when we talk to God, we're praying, but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic?

Tomlin, Lily

When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him.

Peale, Norman Vincent

Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, which regenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience enable us to follow Jesus example. Long prayers, superstition, and creeds clip the strong pinions of love, and clothe religion in human forms. Whatever materializes worship hinders man's spiritual growth and keeps him from demonstrating his power over error.

Eddy, Mary Baker

A childish soul not inoculated with compulsory prayer is a soul open to any religious infection.

Cockburn, Alexander

We know little of the things for which we pray.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

Our thanks to God should always precede our requests.

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

10.

Don't put people down, unless it's on your prayer list.

Michalski, Stan

11.

Do not make prayer a monologue -- make it a conversation.

12.

Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night.

Herbert, George

13.

The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. Its results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigor, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationships.

Carrel, Dr. Alex

14.

Father in Heaven! When the thought of thee wakes in our hearts let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

15.

Short prayers reach heaven.

Proverb

16.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

Gandhi, Mahatma

17.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

Shaw, George Bernard

18.

Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

19.

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Hugo, Victor

20.

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.

Cohen, Leonard

21.

Pray for what you want, but work for what you need.

22.

Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.

Hammarskjold, Dag

23.

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

Lawrence, Brother

24.

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

Augustine, St.

25.

Spiritual favors are not always to be looked for, and not always to be relied on.

Barr, Amelia E.

26.

The fates are not quite obdurate; they have a grim, sardonic way of granting them who supplicate the thing they wanted yesterday.

Montgomery, Roselle Mercier

27.

The object of most prayers is to wangle an advance on good intentions.

Brault, Robert

28.

If this obstacle is from Thee, Lord, I accept it; but if it is from Satan, I refuse him and all his works in the name of Calvary.

Kuhn, Isobel

29.

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

Oscar Wilde

30.

Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.

John of the Cross, St.

31.

If I regard wickedness in my heart the Lord will not hear. [Psalms 66:18]

Bible

32.

Practice in life whatever you pray for and God will give it to you more abundantly.

Pusey, Edward Bouverie

33.

Auden, W. H.

34.

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Socrates

35.

No one can pray well, but those who live well.

Proverb

36.

If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high you'd laugh and say nothing that simple, but you've been told many times before messiah's point you to the door though no one's got the guts to leave the temple.

Townsend, Peter

37.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

Franklin, Benjamin

38.

My prayer to God is a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies look ridiculous! God has granted it.

Voltaire

39.

A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.

Lessing, Doris

40.

Answered prayers cause more tears than those that remain unanswered.

Teresa of Avila, St.

41.

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart

42.

Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why he should grant this, or that; he knows best what is good for us.

Selden, John

43.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

44.

Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.

Tupper, Martin

45.

When we take one step toward to God, he takes seven steps toward us.

Proverb, Indian

46.

Ask God for what man can give, and you may get it.

Proverb, English

47.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

Seneca

48.

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.

Gandhi, Mahatma

49.

Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers.

O'Malley, Austin

50.

Indeed many things which we shall not be able to discover either by the experiment of works or by the investigations of reason we shall deserve to be taught by importunate prayer, by the revelation of divine inspiration.

Richard of Saint Victor