Prayer Quotes

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.

Charles C. West

Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a goodly Christian weapon.

Martin Luther King Jr.

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

Gotthold Lessing

A concentrated mind and a sitting body make for better prayer than a kneeling body and a mind half asleep.

C.S. Lewis

The heart overflows with gladness, and leaps and dances for the joy it has found in God. In this experience the Holy Spirit is active, and has taught us in the flash of a moment the deep secret of joy. You will have as much joy and laughter in life as you have faith in God.

Martin Luther King Jr.

When life knocks you to your knees, and it will, why, get up! If it knocks you to your knees again, as it will, well, isn't that the best position from which to pray?

Ethel Barrymore

When a man has done all he can do, still there is a mighty, mysterious agency over which he needs influence to secure success. The one way he can reach it is by prayer.

Russel H. Conwell

People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country.So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.

Terry Pratchett

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

Teresa of Avila

In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.

C.S. Lewis

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.

Saint John of the Cross

For most of us the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Removing mountains can wait.

C.S. Lewis

From Les Miserables:All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night; women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the pure accents of virgins and the innocent accent of children, -- voices which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that they must kneel.These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant in an uninhabited house. While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding.The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.

Victor Hugo

The only difference between a wish and a prayer is that you're at the mercy of the universe for the first, and you've got some help with the second.

Jodi Picoult

Do you wish to learn the secret of true Eucharistic prayer? Consider, then, all the mysteries in the light of the Blessed Sacrament. It is a divine prism through which they can all be studied. The Holy Eucharist is, indeed, 'Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today, and the same forever' (Heb 13:8). In this Sacrament He glorifies all the mysteries of His life and prolongs, as it were, the exercise of all His virtues. The Eucharist is, in a word, the great Mystery of our faith to which all Catholic truths lead.

Peter Julian Eymard

PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Ambrose Bierce

The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us.

George Eliot

He had been (Thinking? Praying?) It was all the same thing.

Stephen King

God bless us, every one!

Charles Dickens

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

Voltaire (FrançoisMarie Arouet)