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.
But though I repeated my plea, and waited on my knees for nearly an hour, there was no answer.
A prayerful heart is the vehicle and service makes the heart prayerful.
It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
The prayers of those whose tongues are nectared but whose hearts are full of poison are never heard.
He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
The saints will aid if men will call:
For the blue sky bends over all.
Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish,
And serve the ends of wisdom.
Who goes to bed, and doth not pray,
Maketh two nights to every day!
In prayerful sympathy and love. Hold to the old truth -- double distilled.