Motivational Quotes

Prayer

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.

Best Quotes about Prayer

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

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.

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

Illich, Ivan

Your prayer must be for a sound mind in a sound body.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

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

Seneca

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

Brault, Robert

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.

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

Voltaire

Answered prayers cause more tears than those that remain unanswered.

Teresa of Avila, St.

10.

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

Wolpe, David J.

11.

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

12.

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

G. E. Lessing

13.

Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

14.

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

15.

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

Proverb

16.

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

Rader, Lyell

17.

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

18.

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

19.

Most men pray for power, the strength to do things. Few people pray for love, the quality to be someone.

Foster, Robert D.

20.

Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. [I Thessalonians]

Bible

21.

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

Hugo, Victor

22.

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

23.

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

Eckhart, Meister

24.

Short prayers reach heaven.

Proverb

25.

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.

Brooks, Phillips

26.

It is good to pray for the repair of mistakes, but praying earlier would keep us from making so many. When puzzled, go to prayer and listen.

Macaulay, J. C.

27.

So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Bible

28.

The wish to pray is a prayer in itself. God can ask no more than that of us.

Bernanos, Georges

29.

Ask God's blessing on your work, but don't ask him to do it for you.

Robson, Dame Flora

30.

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

31.

Pray that you will never have to bear all that you are able to endure.

Proverb, Jewish

32.

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

Constantine Peter Cavafy

33.

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

Baudelaire, Charles

34.

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

Cockburn, Alexander

35.

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

Proverb, Indian

36.

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

O'Malley, Austin

37.

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

Meister Eckhart

38.

Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.

Hemingway, Ernest

39.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

40.

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

41.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

42.

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

Peale, Norman Vincent

43.

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

44.

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.

45.

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

Proverb

46.

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

Lessing, Doris

47.

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

48.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

Shaw, George Bernard

49.

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

Oscar Wilde

50.

The time to pray is not when we are in a tight spot but just as soon as we get out of it.

Josh Billings