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Prayer Quotes

The top of this page is made of devotional writers: Bill Hybels, the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus, Shakespeare, the seventh-century bishop Isaac of Nineveh and Muhammad. The sourced counterweight is sceptical. Bertrand Russell, in 1952, says things go as we wish through knowing natural laws, not through prayer and humility, and Bierce, in 1911, defines to pray as asking that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

A weather prayer credited to General Patton is flagged misattributed. A line saying a Christian without prayer is as impossible as being alive without breathing is credited to Martin Luther King Jr. and disputed, and a “thank you” variant attributed to Meister Eckhart is disputed as well.

Random quote on Prayer

Most quoted on prayer:

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Morte d'Arthur (1842)

Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace—that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make.

Stephen Vincent Benét

As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
As still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.

Thomas Moore Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Consider how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng around, when cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne, that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven's dread Sovereign! O, what honor was ever conferred like this?

John Chrysostom

Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man's prayer. Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which are more precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea or the treasures of Indian hills.

Jeremy Taylor

Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recognize our personal immortality: men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator's hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer's Blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God.

Henry Liddon Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford: Second Series (1887)

There it is — in such patient silence — that we accumulate the inward power which we distribute and spend in action; that the soul acquires a greater and more vigorous being, and gathers up its collective forces to bear down upon the piecemeal difficulties of life and scatter them to dust; there alone can we enter into that spirit of self-abandonment by which we take up the cross of duty, however heavy, with feet however worn and bleeding.

Wayland Hoyt Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

In memorizing the prayer, it may be helpful to remind yourself that you are not addressing some extraterrestrial being outside you. The kingdom of heaven is within us, and the Lord is enshrined in the depths of our own consciousness. In this prayer we are calling deep into ourselves, appealing to the spark of the divine that is our real nature.

Eknath Easwaran God Makes the Rivers Flow (1982)

O Lord, my God,
I have trusted in Thee;
O Jesu, my dearest One,
Now set me free.
In prison's oppression,
In sorrow's obsession,
I weary for Thee.
With sighing and crying,
Bowed down in dying,
I adore Thee, I implore Thee, set me free.

Mary, Queen of Scots

Prayer, with our Lord, was a refuge from the storm; almost every word He uttered during that last tremendous scene was prayer; prayer the most earnest, the most urgent, repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the soul, private, solitary; prayer for deliverance, prayer for strength; above every thing prayer for resignation.

William Paley

Sometimes a fog will settle over a vessel's deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a lookout which the helmsman on deck cannot get. So prayer sends the soul aloft; lifts it above the clouds in which our selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to steer.

Charles Spurgeon

It is not well for a man to pray, cream; and live, skim milk.

Henry Ward Beecher Life Thoughts (1858)

I always pray before any of the operations.

Ben Carson Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990)

You pray for yourselves and just ask God to guide you and to give you strength.

Ben Carson Think Big (1996)

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

Austin O'Malley Keystones of Thought (1914)

From now on you must pray for your people and yourself three times a day.

Mother Teresa

Now the sun touched the horizon and the man reined in his horse tiredly, glad that the time for prayer had come.

James Clavell Whirlwind (1986)

My religious training told me that in times of personal uncertainty one should seek God's direction through personal prayer and study of the Christian scriptures.

Preston Manning The New Canada (1992)

He doubted that his petition would be heard, however, since he did not feel that the gods would devote much attention to anything emitted from this particular portion of the world.

Roger Zelazny Jack of Shadows (1971)

Toward the bright stars, from the dark ground, he hurled another petition, for whatever it was worth.

Roger Zelazny Jack of Shadows (1971)

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