It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

We have grown so accustomed to the idea of divine love...that we no longer sense the awe that God's coming should awaken in us.

We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to 'offer' something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening.

God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.

The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become.

Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life.

Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?