Popular quotes about Prayer! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit.
Joan D. ChittisterBe faithful to the time spent in prayer and make sure that at least half of your prayer is spent in silence. This will bring you closer to Jesus. If you deepen your prayer life you will grow in holiness and obtain many graces for the souls entrusted to your care. Deepen your love for one another by praying for each other and by sharing thoughts and graces you have received in prayer and reading.
Mother TeresaWe will only advance in our evangelistic work as fast and as far as we advance on our knees. Prayer opens the channel between a soul and God; prayerlessness closes it. Prayer releases the grip of Satan's power; prayerlessness increases it. That is why prayer is so exhausting and so vital. If we believed it, the prayer meeting would be as full as the church.
Alan RedpathThe highest level of prayer is not a prayer for anything. It is a deep and profound silence, in which we allow ourselves to be still and know Him. In that silence, we are changed. We are calmed. We are illumined. Prayer is meant to dissolve the worldly focus, to dissolve our sense of a separate self, to help us detach from an insane world order. We pray that He might flood our minds. Prayer is like pouring hot water on an ice cube, melting the cold and encrusted thought forms that still surround our hearts.
Marianne WilliamsonWhen a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible's idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
Oswald ChambersThe primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.
Abraham Joshua HeschelOne of the values of centering prayer is that you are not thinking about God during the time of centering prayer so you are giving God a chance to manifest. In centering prayer there are moments of peace that give the psyche a chance to realize that God may not be so bad after all. God has a chance to be himself for a change.
Thomas KeatingPrayer brings a good spirit in our homes. For God hears prayer. Heaven itself would come down to our homes. And even though we who constitute the home all have our imperfections and our failings, our home would, through God's answer to prayer, become a little paradise.
Ole HallesbyChrist choosing solitude for private prayer, doth not only hint to us the danger of distraction and deviation of thoughts in prayer, but how necessary it is for us to choose the most convenient places we can for private prayer. Our own fickleness and Satan's restlessness call upon us to get into such places where we may freely pour out our soul into the bosom of God [Mark 1.35].
Thomas BrooksIf you surrender yourself, and do not rush, but meditate on the Word of God, you will find prayer forming in your heart. It is a prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit, a prayer that God will be pleased to hear.
John R. RiceMen lose their birthrights for a mess of pottage only if they stop using the gifts given them by God for their betterment. By prayer. That is the first and greatest gift. Use the gift of prayer. Ask for strength of mind, and a clear vision. Then sense. Use your sense. โฆ Think long and well. By prayer and good thought you will conquer all enemies.
Richard LlewellynPrayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God's perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying!
Pope John Paul IIAmerica was founded on prayer. Therefore, the removal of prayer from its public life was a central part of its fall from God. A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it.
Jonathan CahnWe prepare the ground for our prayer when we shed something which is not Christ's, which is unworthy of him, and only the prayer of one who can, like St. Paul say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me,' is real Christian prayer.
Anthony of SourozhI went to a mosque in Philadelphia with [my wife] in December 24, 1999. And we we went to this mosque in Philly, and I just had such a strong reaction to the prayer. And I was really emotionally - I felt really grounded at that time. And so to be in this prayer and the imam is doing the prayer in Arabic and I don't understand a word of Arabic but I just remember these tears just coming down my face and it just really connecting to my spirit in a way that felt like I needed to pay attention to that.
Mahershala AliResolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.
Jonathan EdwardsPrayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.
Alexis CarrelPrayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation.
Henri NouwenPrayer, the basic exercise of the spirit, must be actively practiced in our private lives. The neglected soul of the human being must be made strong enough to assert itself once more. For if the power of prayer is again released and used in the lives of common men and women; if the spirit declares its aims clearly and boldly, there is yet hope that our prayers for a better world will be answered.
Alexis CarrelI used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.
Mother TeresaPrayer is far-reaching in its influence and worldwide in its effects. It affects all men, affects them everywhere, and affects them in all things. It touches man's interest in time and eternity. It lays hold upon God and moves Him to interfere in the affairs of earth. It moves the angels to minister to men in this life. It restrains and defeats the devil in his schemes to ruin man. Prayer goes everywhere and lays its hand upon everything.
Edward McKendree BoundsPeople for the American Way says it has yet to find anyone who has made a stronger case against the proposed school prayer Constitutional amendment... What kind of prayer would we use?
Cal ThomasPrayer as it comes from the saint is weak and languid; but when the arrow of a saint's prayer is put into the bow of Christ's intercession it pierces the throne of grace.
Thomas WatsonI'm amazed, that how salam (peace) is always the first word to start a meeting. but in prayer it is the end word. Maybe it means the end of prayer is the start of a meeting.
Ali ShariatiGod loves to glorify himself by suspending his gifts and blessings on our asking him for them. We should never presume to receive from God apart from prayer what he's clearly told us in Scripture will be ours only through prayer.
Sam StormsPrayer is surrender--surr ender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.
E. Stanley JonesOur families need to ask for the gift of the Spirit! Through prayer, even in the busiest times, we give time back to God, we find the peace that comes from appreciating the important things, and we encounter the joy of Godโs unexpected gifts. Through daily prayer may our homes become, like the house of Martha and Mary, places where Jesus always finds a warm welcome.
Pope Francisprayer can be an easy substitute for real spirituality. It would be impossible to have spirituality without prayer, of course, but it is certainly possible to pray without having a spirituality at all. How do you know? 'Am I becoming kinder?' is a good place to start.
Joan D. ChittisterPrayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone.
Thomas MertonIf I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.
Martin LutherPrayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing it changes is us. As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly.
R. C. SproulOh, dear friend, if you love your children, I charge you, do not let the early impression of a habit of prayer slip by. If you train your children to do anything, train them, at least, to have a habit of prayer.
J. C. RyleBe creative in that sense and your creativity will become an offering to God. God has given you so many gifts, Garima; something HAS to be done just in deep thankfulness. But remember: with no motive, not as a means but as an end unto itself. Art for art's sake, and creation for creation's sake, and love for love's sake, and prayer for prayer's sake.
RajneeshNo problem is too small for His attention nor so large that He cannot answer the prayer of faith. Prayer surely is the passport to spiritual power.
Thomas S. MonsonEverything starts from prayer. Without asking God for love, we cannot possess love and still less are we able to give it to others. Just as people today are speaking so much about the poor but they do not know or talk to the poor, we too cannot talk so much about prayer and yet not know how to pray.
Mother TeresaNothing means so much to our daily prayer life as to pray in the name of Jesus. If we fail to do this, our prayer life will either die from discouragement and despair or become simply a duty which we feel we must perform.
Ole HallesbyAudacious faith is not passive. Neither is audacious prayer. Every aspiration you have in prayer needs an accompanying action. Otherwise you're not really praying. You're just pontificating. You do the natural. Trust God for the super.
Steven FurtickWill God or someone give me the power to breathe my sigh into my canvases, the sigh of prayer and sadness, the prayer of salvation, of rebirth?
Marc ChagallIf you need a transfusion of spiritual strength then just ask for it. We call that Prayer. Prayer is powerful spiritual medicine.
Boyd K. PackerThe desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.
Saint AugustineThe only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing.
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte GuyonDon't look at prayer as me asking God to give me something, like some type of cosmic bell captain, look at prayer as my communication with the quantum intelligence, the divine intelligence that we have out there and that is how things are manifested.
John AssarafWe pray because our life comes from God and we yield it back in prayer. Prayer is a great antidote to the illusion that we are self-made.
Walter BrueggemannToo many people want the fruit of Paul's ministry without paying the price that Paul paid. He died. He died to everything. He died daily He was crucified with Christ ... I challenge you to pray this prayer: 'Lord, be ruthless with me in revealing my selfish ambition and my lack of willingness to die to myself.' I guarantee that He will answer your prayer - and quickly.
Floyd McClung