Quotes about Prayer

I've noticed that two prayers in particular are among the riskiest a person can pray. [...] "God, open my eyes to who you really are, and then I'll open my life to you." [...] "God, here I am, fully submitted to you; use me as you have never used me before.

Believe me, you have too many practices already. What is needed is rather a progressive inner simplification. Too many people identify spiritual prowess with being perpetually busy heaping meditation upon meditation, prayer upon prayer, reading upon reading instead of learning from the simple souls the great secret of knowing how, from time to time, to hold yourself back a little in peace and silence, attentive before God.5

Jewish males prayed a daily prayer of thanksgiving, which ended: Praise be to God who has not made me a non-Jew. Praise be to God who has not made me an ignorant person. Praise be to God who has not made me a woman.68

If we do not fill our mind with prayer, it will fill itself with anxieties, worries, temptations, resentments, and unwelcome memories.

Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.

Remember God more often than you breathe.

Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.

I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this, the measure of the intensity of your prayer.

Spiritual joy arises from purity of the heart and perseverance in prayer.

When prayer fades out, power fades out. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful; no more, no less.

I've often thought, I'm nobody. Why would God answer my prayer? But God's not impressed by eloquence; he's impressed by our longing for him.

We do not drift into spiritual life or disciplined prayer. We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray.