Motivational Quotes

Prayer

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, but I will instruct you in the good and right way. [I Samuel 12:23]

- Bible

Best Quotes about Prayer

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

Saint Theresa of Jesus

Short prayers reach heaven.

Proverb

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

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

O'Malley, Austin

There is no greater distance than that between a man in prayer and God.

Illich, Ivan

Whatsoever we beg of God, let us also work for it.

Taylor, Jeremy

If you can't pray a door open, don't pry it open.

Rader, Lyell

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.

Lessing, Gotthold

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.

10.

Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

11.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

12.

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

13.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

Shaw, George Bernard

14.

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

Proverb, English

15.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Gandhi, Mahatma

16.

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

17.

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

Peale, Norman Vincent

18.

Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart.

Graham, Ruth

19.

God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers and thrust the thing we have prayed for in our face, like a gauntlet with a gift in it.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

20.

When you lie down with a short prayer, commit yourself into the hands of your Creator; and when you have done so, trust Him with yourself, as you must do when you are dying.

Taylor, Jeremy

21.

The man who says his evening prayer is a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.

Baudelaire, Charles

22.

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

23.

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

24.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

Eckhart, Meister

25.

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

26.

You can pray for someone even if you don't think God exists.

Real Live Preacher

27.

Our thanks to God should always precede our requests.

28.

When a man has done all he can do, still there is a mighty, mysterious agency over which he needs influence to secure success. The one way he can reach it is by prayer.

Conwell, Russel H.

29.

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.

West, Charles C.

30.

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.

31.

Prayer is less about changing the world than it is about changing ourselves.

Wolpe, David J.

32.

Religion is in the heart, not in the knees.

Jerrold, Douglas William

33.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.

Phillips Brooks

34.

That prayer has great power which a person makes with all his might. It makes a sour heart sweet, a sad heart merry, a poor heart rich, a foolish heart wise, a timid heart brave, a sick heart well, a blind heart full of sight, a cold heart ardent. It draws down the great God into the little heart; it drives the hungry soul up into the fullness of God; it brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place where they speak much of love.

Magheburg, Mechthild of

35.

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, but I will instruct you in the good and right way. [I Samuel 12:23]

Bible

36.

Prayer and practice is good rhyme.

Proverb, Scottish

37.

One hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of prayer.

Proverb

38.

Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.

Gandhi, Mahatma

39.

You must pray that the way be long, full of adventures and experiences.

Constantine Peter Cavafy

40.

But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before Him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. [Job 5:8-9]

Bible

41.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

Hillesum, Etty

42.

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

Hugo, Victor

43.

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

Barr, Amelia E.

44.

Seven days without prayer makes one weak.

45.

There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

46.

Answered prayers cause more tears than those that remain unanswered.

Teresa of Avila, St.

47.

To be sure, this requires effort and love, a careful cultivation of the spiritual life, and a watchful, honest, active oversight of all one's mental attitudes towards things and people. It is not to be learned by world-flight, running away from things, turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, one must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.

Eckhart, Meister

48.

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

49.

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

Pusey, Edward Bouverie

50.

Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God.

Pilgrim, Peace