Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Prayer

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

Bible

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

Seneca

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.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

Franklin, Benjamin

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

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

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

Proverb, Indian

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

Baudelaire, Charles

Do not make prayer a monologue -- make it a conversation.

10.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

Shaw, George Bernard

11.

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

Wolpe, David J.

12.

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

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

13.

Pray to God but continue to row to the shore.

Proverb, Russian

14.

Spiritual favors are not always to be looked for, and not always to be relied on.

Barr, Amelia E.

15.

It is from prayer that the spirit's victory springs.

Schillerbuch

16.

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, but I will instruct you in the good and right way. [I Samuel 12:23]

Bible

17.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

Twain, Mark

18.

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

19.

Ask God for what man can give, and you may get it.

Proverb, English

20.

Whatsoever we beg of God, let us also work for it.

Taylor, Jeremy

21.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

Gandhi, Mahatma

22.

Indeed many things which we shall not be able to discover either by the experiment of works or by the investigations of reason we shall deserve to be taught by importunate prayer, by the revelation of divine inspiration.

Richard of Saint Victor

23.

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. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.

Phillips Brooks

24.

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

Augustine, St.

25.

If this obstacle is from Thee, Lord, I accept it; but if it is from Satan, I refuse him and all his works in the name of Calvary.

Kuhn, Isobel

26.

If I regard wickedness in my heart the Lord will not hear. [Psalms 66:18]

Bible

27.

Prayer is a passport to heaven. Your communication with God.

28.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

Hillesum, Etty

29.

Short prayers reach heaven.

Proverb

30.

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

Meister Eckhart

31.

All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

Lincoln, Abraham

32.

To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention -- on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God -- that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.

Auden, W. H.

33.

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

Hugo, Victor

34.

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

Oscar Wilde

35.

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.

Lessing, Gotthold

36.

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

Proverb

37.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

38.

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

39.

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

Seneca

40.

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Socrates

41.

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.

42.

Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.

Gandhi, Mahatma

43.

Pray. To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Bierce, Ambrose

44.

If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high you'd laugh and say nothing that simple, but you've been told many times before messiah's point you to the door though no one's got the guts to leave the temple.

Townsend, Peter

45.

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

46.

When you lie down with a short prayer, commit yourself into the hands of your Creator; and when you have done so, trust Him with yourself, as you must do when you are dying.

Taylor, Jeremy

47.

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

Eckhart, Meister

48.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

49.

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

Voltaire

50.

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