c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Where did you get the idea you aren't allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You're a constituent--you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known. So, put your opinion out there. Make your case. Believe me--it will at least be taken into consideration.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
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, Sing You Home
Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!
— Andrew Murray
Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can.
— Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Answered prayer is the interchange of love between the Father and His child.
— Andrew Murray
Lord, to the degree I don't want to do this, bless me.
— Luci Swindoll
When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.
— Philip Yancey
Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
— Thomas Aquinas
The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.
— Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion
A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual.
— Paulo Coelho, Brida
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire. Your desire is your prayer. It comes out of your deepest needs and it reveals the things you want in life.
— Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
How many of us have conflicts with someone else- and how many of us pray for that person? We have individuals with whom we are competitive, or whom we dislike or have a quarrel with; but very few of us have true enemies in the martial sense. And yet if Lincoln could pray fervently- and contemporary reports indicate he did- for the people who were opposing him, how much more can we do for someone we just find a little irritating?
— John Wooden, A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring
Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
— Martin Luther
This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same.
— Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion
Sometimes the best answers to prayer are the ones God doesn't answer.
— Robin Jones Gunn, Surprise Endings
We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find that He injects into our bodies energy, power and strength.
— Charles F. Stanley
Not being changed by prayer is sort of life standing in the middle of a spring rain without getting wet. It's hard to stand in the center of God's acceptance and love without getting it all over you.
— Steve   Brown, Approaching God: Accepting the Invitation to Stand in the Presence of God
No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.
— Martin Luther
So you make this deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.' Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction. A rain dance even mo
— Barbara Kingsolver
For most of us the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Removing mountains can wait.
— C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
Our devotions are not measured by the clock, but time is of the essence. The ability to wait, and stay, and press belongs essentially to our intercourse with God.
— E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer
We knew our Father. There was no need for persuasion. Would not His Fatherliness be longing to give us our hearts' desire (if I may put it so)? How could we press Him as though He were not our own most loving Father?
— Amy Carmichael
Love people who hate you. Pray for people who have wronged you. It won’t just change their life…it’ll change yours.
— Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
Lady of the silver moonEnchantress of the nightProtect me and mine within this circle fairly cast.Earth Mother, mother of the sleeping earth,Keep safe all who gather hereWithin the protective shelter of your arms.By the earth that is Her body,By the air that is Her breath,By the fire that is Her bright spirit,And by the living waters of Her womb,Our circle is cast,None shall come to harm here,From any forces,On any level.As we will,So shall it be done.As we will,So mote it be.
— Madelyn Alt, A Charmed Death
Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.
— J.C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer
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
Prayer is like water - something you can't imagine has the strength or power to do any good, and yet give it time and it can change the lay of the land.
— Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time.
— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
— Janis Joplin
If I ask God to punish my enemy with vengeful prayers,then He is fair to allow the enemy to do the same for me.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.
— Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn-Dixie
Lord Jesus,' Christy whispered, 'I want You to hold the key. I want You to decide what should happen in my heart's garden. I want You to let in or send out anything or anybody You want. Especially with guys. I don't want to ever unlock that gate again. I want you to open it only when the right man comes along. Take the key, Lord. Take all my keys. I'll wait for you.
— Robin Jones Gunn, A Promise Is Forever
Prayer can solve more problems, alleviate more suffering, prevent more transgression, and bring about greater peace and contentment in the human soul than can be obtained in any other way.
— Thomas S. Monson
[Praying] demands that you take to the road again and again, leaving your house and looking forward to a new land for yourself and your [fellow human]. This is why praying demands poverty, that is, the readiness to live a life in which you have nothing to lose so that you always begin afresh.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.
— Phillips Brooks
The most important thing we can pray about for others is that they will know God better and that He will help them understand His will, grow in spiritual wisdom, and live lives that honor Him. We can pray that they will become more like Him and bear the fruit of His Spirit.
— Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying® Woman Bible: Prayer and Study Helps by Stormie Omartian
I don't mean to be ungrateful but if someone's out there answering prayers, mine's not at the top of the list
— Franny Billingsley, Chime
We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!
— Thomas Merton
if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing
— Kahlil Gibran, النبي
A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.
— Jean Vanier, Community And Growth
But the very fact that this world is so challenging is exactly why you sometimes must reach out of its jurisdiction for help, appealing to a higher authority in order to find your comfort.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
The 3 most powerful resources you have available to you : love, prayer and forgiveness.
— H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Prayer is the most powerful resource we have in this life; yet, many only turn to it as a last resort. When unbelievers pray for repentance of sin and ask for God’s forgiveness, prayer is the spiritual dynamite that obliterates the darkness and despair of a sin-soaked soul.
— Franklin Graham
Love is the only prayer I know.
— Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.
— Leonard Ravenhill
The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He may be glorified, the richer will be the blessing that prayer will bring to myself. No one ever loses by what he sacrifices to the Father.
— Andrew Murray
What's prayer? It's shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It's reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard.
— Frederick Buechner, Godric
The great thing in prayer is to feel that we are putting our supplications into the bosom of omnipotent love.
— Andrew Murray
Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven. The lock is on your side of the veil. And I have learned to conclude all my prayers with ‘Thy will be done’ (Matthew 6:10; see also Luke 11:2; 3 Nephi 13:10).
— Boyd K. Packer
I want to tell you a growing conviction with me, and that is that as we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people. I mean that our lives, my life, is the answer to someone’s prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago.It is more and more impossible to me to have programmes and plans because God alone has the plan, and our plans are only apt to hinder Him, and make it necessary for Him to break them up. I have the unspeakable knowledge that my life is the answer to prayers, and that God is blessing me and making me a blessing entirely of His sovereign grace and nothing to do with my merits, saving as I am bold enough to trust His leading and not the dictates of my own wisdom and common sense.
— Oswald Chambers
You can curse the dead or pray for them, but don't expect them to do a thing for you. They're far too interested in watching us, to see what in heaven's name we will do next.
— Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
[Prayer] is the link between God's inexhaustible resources and people’s needs...God is the source of power, but we are the instrument He uses to link the two together.
— Charles F. Stanley
Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.
— Satchel Paige
...if God teaches us victory in Christ Jesus day by day, we live in the constant awareness of His greatness and His sufficiency. Hard lessons are often long-lasting lessons. Never forget that God is far more interested in our getting to know the Deliverer than simply being delivered.
— Beth Moore, Praying God's Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds
The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire; it hath bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt.
— John Chrysostom
He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. "We do not pray to him at all," said the reverend sage. "We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually.
— Voltaire, Candide
Oh, will you pray? Stop now and pray, lest desire turn to feeling and feeling evaporate.
— Amy Carmichael
Our struggle is--isn't it?--to achieve and retain faith on a lower level. To believe that there is a Listener at all. For as the situation grows more and more desperate, the grisly fears intrude. Are we only talking to ourselves in an empty universe? The silence is often so emphatic. And we have prayed so much already
— C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
God hears your every thought, whether you dress it up with 'Thee' and 'Thou' or not.
— Catherine Richmond, Spring for Susannah
The value of consistent prayer is not that [God] will hear us, but that we will hear Him.
— William McGill
After much prayer, careful study and reliance on the Holy Spirit, I have concluded this about Christ’s intercession for us. Jesus died on the cross to purchase peace with God for me – and He is in heaven now to maintain that peace, for me and in me.
— David Wilkerson
For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.
— C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
Prayer's a very tricky business.
— Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
Why do you pray?" he asked me, after a moment. Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?"I don't know why," I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. "I don't know why."After that day I saw him often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!" "And why do you pray, Moshe?" I asked him. "I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.
— Elie Wiesel, Night
Don’t pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with Himself and that He would love in and through you. Don’t pray that He would teach you to have joy; pray that the living God full of joy would enter into you. Don’t pray that He would teach you how to be peaceful; ask for the God of peace, the Prince of peace to infill you. Because if you try to imitate in your own strength, you will be a miserable replica. But if you allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake you, suddenly it all works because it is Him imitating Himself, and He is very good at being God.
— Eric Ludy
If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near to Him, we may be sure we will get none by keeping away from Him.
— John Newton
Revival begins by Christians getting right first and then spills over into the world.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit...A praying life is just the opposite. It engaged evil. It doesn't take no for an answer. The psalmist was in God's face, hoping, dreaming, asking. Prayer is feisty. Cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. It is without hope.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
The Lord gave the wonderful promise of the free use of His Name with the Father in conjunction with doing His works. The disciple who lives only for Jesus' work and Kingdom, for His will and honor, will be given the power to appropriate the promise. Anyone grasping the promise only when he wants something very special for himself will be disappointed, because he is making Jesus the servant of his own comfort. But whoever wants to pray the effective prayer of faith because he needs it for the work of the Master will learn it, because he has made himself the servant of his Lord's interests.
— Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer
God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.
— Blaise Pascal
..when someone says "please pray for me," they are not just saying "let's have lunch sometime." They are issuing an invitation into the depths of their lives and their humanity- and often with some urgency. And worry is not a substitute for prayer. Worry is a starting place, but not a staying place. Worry invites me into prayer. As a staying place, worry can be self-indulgent, paralyzing, draining, and controlling. When I take worry into prayer, it doesn't disappear, but it becomes smaller.
— Sybil MacBeth, Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God
What a blessed habit I have found my prayer list, morning by morning, it takes me via the Throne of all Grace straight to the intimate personal heart of each one mentioned here, and I know that He Who is not prescribed by time and geography answers immediately.
— Oswald Chambers
If the Devil says you cannot pray when you are angry, tell him it is none of his business, and pray until that species of insanity is dispelled and serenity is restored to the mind. (p. 175)
— Brigham Young, Journal of Discurses, Volume 10
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o’er our fears, are all with thee – are all with thee!
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I don't pray because it makes sense to pray. I pray because my life doesn't make sense without prayer.
— Noah Benshea, Jacob the Baker: Gentle Wisdom For a Complicated World
The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally beginning to be men. We do not have a high enough opinion of our own nature. We think we are at the gates of heaven and we are only just beginning to come into our own realm as free and intelligent beings.
— Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth
There is nothing that we are enduring that Jesus does not understand, and He waits for us to go to our Heavenly Father in prayer. If we will be obedient and if we are diligent, our prayers will be answered, our problems will diminish, our fears will dissipate, light will come upon us, the darkness of despair will be dispersed, and we will be close to the Lord.
— Robert D. Hales
...pray for the grace to realize that no matter where you are, you are in the presence of the Lord.
— Ann  Spangler, Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith
Perhaps all the good that ever has come here has come because people prayed it into the world.
— Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
We have one crystal clear reason apart from the blessed happiness of this way of life. It is this: prayer is the core of our day. Take prayer out, and the day would collapse, would be pithless, a straw blown in the wind. But how can you pray--really pray, I mean--with one against who you have a grudge or whom you have been discussing critically with another? Try it. You will find it cannot be done.
— Amy Carmichael
It has been said by many great Christians that prayer is our secret weapon. If we desire to be free from every enemy stronghold over our lives and fully fortified to live the superhuman existences God intended us to live, then we must learn how to pray.
— Leslie Ludy, Set-Apart Femininity: God's Sacred Intent for Every Young Woman
She knew that oftentimes hurtful people were hurting people, so she determined to pray for them all the more.
— J.E.B. Spredemann, An Unforgivable Secret
I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend,that together we may succeed in building a better worldthrough human understanding and love,and that in doing so we may reducethe pain and suffering of all sentient beings.
— Dalai Lama XIV
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, Daniel Deronda
Wish' is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God.
— G.I. Gurdjieff
The greatest thing anyone can do for God and man is pray. It is not the only thing
—  but it is the chief thing. The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer
One moment of prayer, of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world.
— Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners
If we are a people who pray, darkness is apt to be a lot of what our prayers are about. If we are people who do not pray, it is apt to be darkness in one form or another that has stopped our mouths.
— Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner
If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.
— Philip Yancey
In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.
— C.S. Lewis, The World's Last Night: And Other Essays
If outer events bring him to a position where he can bear them no longer and force him to cry out to the higher power in helplessness for relief, or if inner feelings bring humiliation and recognition of his dependence on that power, this crushing of the ego may open the door to grace.
— Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton
All the trials we endure cannot be compared to these interior battles.
— Teresa of Ávila
As long as we have unsolved problems, unfulfilled desires, and a mustard seed of faith, we have all we need for a vibrant prayer life.
— John Ortberg
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.' Then he added, 'Blessed Virgin, pray for the death of this fish wonderful though he is.
— Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Only when we can accept God as he is can we give up the desire for spiritual experiences that we can feel.
— Thomas Keating
To my surprise, I had not just doodled, I had prayed (I drew new shapes and names of each friend and focused on the person whose name stared at me from the paper). I had though OF each person as I drew but not ABOUT each person. I could just sit with them in a variation on stillness. I could hold them in prayer.
— Sybil MacBeth, Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God
If you've ever tried meditation and didn't stay with it, I recommend you try it again. Some time has passed. In the interim, you may have developed the discipline of mind or the patience you were short on before. Let these qualities aid your practice. (173)
— Victoria Moran, Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit
Tal was looking at Hank when he said, "Just a moment. I want to hear it one more time."As they watched, Bernice found her way to Hank and Mary. She began to week openly, and spoke some quiet but impassioned words to them. Hank and Mary listened, as did the others nearby, and as they listened, they began to smile. They put their arms around her, they told her about Jesus, and then they began to weep as well. Finally, as the saints were gathered and Bernice was surrounded with loving arms, Hank said the words, "Let's pray...
— Frank E. Peretti
The ministry of prayer, if it be anything worthy of the name, is a ministry of ardor, a ministry of unwearied and intense longing after God and after his holiness.
— E.M.Bounds
Grace is not a little prayer you say before you eat. It is a way of life. Eph 2:8,9
— John Paul Warren
You might not be able to change your situation but prayer can.
— Jerry Kinard
I never cut my neighbor's throat
— My neighbor's gold I never stole
Trying to describe what I do in prayer would be like telling the world how I make love to my wife. 
— J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer.
— Charles Grandison Finney
Praying, we usually ask too much. I know I do. Sometimes we even demand. I think I am learning to ask enough for the moment--not for the whole year, utterly veiled in mystery; not even for the week, the month ahead; but just for today.Jesus said it all when He told us to pray: 'Give us this day our daily bread.'That bread is not only material, it is spiritual; in asking for it, we ask for a sufficiency of strength, courage, hope and light. Enough courage for the step ahead--not for the further miles. Enough strength for the immediate task or ordeal. Enough material gain to enable us to meet our daily obligations. Enough light to see the path--right before our feet.
— Faith Baldwin, Many Windows, Seasons of the Heart
He had been (Thinking? Praying?) It was all the same thing.
— Stephen King, The Stand
Prayer is a path where there is none.
— Noah Benshea, Jacob the Baker: Gentle Wisdom For a Complicated World
I have questioned God sometimes whether prayers have gone unanswered. But answered prayer is still harder to believe.
— David Wilkerson, The Cross and the Switchblade
Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid—necessarily goes to the roots of action? Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections?
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
You know, if you ain't poor, you might think it's the folks in them big ole fine brick churches that's doin all the carin and the prayin. I wish you coulda seen all them little circles a'homeless folks with their heads bowed and their eyes closed, whisperin what was on their hearts. Seemed like they didn't have nothin to give, but they was givin what they had, taken the time to knock on God's front door and ask Him to heal this woman that loved them.
— Ron Hall, Same Kind of Different as Me
My prayer for you today is that you experience the Love that God has for you in such a profound, childlike way that your perspective is completely transformed. As you encounter circumstances in your life, from the trivial to the catastrophic, may you be more acutely aware of the magnitude of His love for you than the magnitude of the troubles you face.
— Riisa Renee, Breaking the Silence
Perhaps thought really is prayer.
— Ellis Peters, One Corpse Too Many
Prayer is thinking deeply about something in the presence of God.
— Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion
Intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvelous deeds. Believer, thou hast a mighty engine in thy hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The Church is looking for better methods
—  God is looking for better men.
When you find yourself in one of those mystical/devotional frames of mind or in am emergency and you feel you want to pray, then pray. Don’t ever be ashamed to pray or feel prevented by thinking yourself unworthy in any way. Fact is whatever terrible thing you may have done, praying will always turn your energy around for the better.Pray to whomever, whatever, and whenever you choose. Pray to the mountain, pray to the ancestors, pray to the Earth, pray to the Tao (but it won’t listen!), pray to the Great Mother, pray to Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Lakshmi, Siva, pray to the Great Spirit, it makes no difference. Praying is merely a device for realigning the mind, energy, and passion of your local self with the mind, energy and passion of your universal self. When you pray, you are praying to the god or goddess within you. This has an effect on your energy field, which in turn translates into a positive charge that makes something good happen.
— Stephen Russell, Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior
Do you often feel like parched ground, unable to produce anything worthwhile? I do. When I am in need of refreshment, it isn't easy to think of the needs of others. But I have found that if, instead of praying for my own comfort and satisfaction, I ask the Lord to enable me to give to others, an amazing thing often happens - I find my own needs wonderfully met. Refreshment comes in ways I would never have thought of, both for others, and then, incidentally, for myself.
— Elisabeth Elliot
Cynicism creates a numbness toward life.Cynicism begins with a wry assurance that everyone has an angle. Behind every silver lining is a cloud. The cynic is always observing, critiquing, but never engaging, loving, and hoping....To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit....Cynicism begins, oddly enough, with too much of the wrong kind of faith, with naive optimism or foolish confidence. At first glance, genuine faith and naive optimism appear identical since both foster confidence and hope.But the similarity is only surface deep.Genuine faith comes from knowing my heavenly Father loves, enjoys, and cares for me. Naive optimism is groundless. It is childlike trust without the loving Father....Optimism in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the dark side of life....Shattered optimism sets us up for the fall into defeated weariness and, eventually, cynicism. You'd think it would just leave us less optimistic, but we humans don't do neutral well. We go from seeing the bright side of everything to seeing the dark side of everything. We feel betrayed by life....The movement from naive optimism to cynicism is the new American journey. In naive optimism we don't need to pray because everything is under control. In cynicism we can't pray because everything out of control, little is possible.With the Good Shepherd no longer leading us through the valley of the shadow of death, we need something to maintain our sanity. Cynicism's ironic stance is a weak attempt to maintain a lighthearted equilibrium in a world gone mad....Without the Good Shepherd, we are alone in a meaningless story. Weariness and fear leave us feeling overwhelmed, unable to move. Cynicism leaves us doubting, unable to dream. The combination shuts down our hearts, and we just show up for life, going through the motions.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
A concentrated mind and a sitting body make for better prayer than a kneeling body and a mind half asleep.
— C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
Prayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.
— Alexis Carrel
May our effort, confidence and concern for others be the altar from which we pray for personal abundance.
— Laura Teresa Marquez
Cause that's the way prayer do. It's like electricity, it keeps things going.
— Kathryn Stockett, The Help
Love is the story and the prayer that matters the most.
— Brian  Doyle, The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of Heart
never say amen in church if they'recapping off a prayer about you.
— Exene Cervenka, Adulterers Anonymous
Ask , and it shall be given until you. That is no vain or untried promise, Ruth!
— Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth
Dear Lynda Carter, Please be with me in my hour of need. Especially if I don't have to twirl around to get my powers.
— Michael R. Underwood, Geekomancy
Keep your prayer simple. Whatever confuses or complicates prayer is probably best forgotten.
— Mark Link, Challenge: A Daily Meditation Program Based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius
Prayer is a moment of incarnation - God with us. God involved in the details of my life.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
Yank some of the groans out of your prayers and shove in some shouts.
— Billy Sunday
I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God, or such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that He was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in Him. This was in no sense a vision: I believe it is called mystical theology. The soul is suspended in such a way that it seems to be completely outside itself. The will loves; the memory, I think, is almost lost; while the understanding, I believe, thought it is not lost, does not reason—I mean that it does not work, but is amazed at the extent of all it can understand; for God wills it to realize that it understands nothing of what His Majesty represents to it.
— Teresa of Ávila, The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself
Prayer, desperate prayer, seems so simple, but it’s a step rarely taken by those in family conflict.
— Erwin W. Lutzer, When You've Been Wronged: Moving From Bitterness to Forgiveness
Devotion gradually progresses to higher levels. . . . One type goes to God and asks Him to remove his suffering. Another one will ask for money or material things. A third will request liberation or release from his bondage. And the fourth will not ask for anything. He will just enjoy praying and praising his Lord. That is the highest form of prayer. (Beyond Word, 119)
— Swami Satchidananda
Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.It is thy desire in us that desireth. It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also. We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.
— Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
For those who have already experienced the grace of Almighty God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, prayer becomes the catalyst for fellowship with the Lord of our souls, redeemed by his blood. By tapping into the channel by which we commune with the One who calls his children “friends,” we can receive his strength in our weakness; his guidance in our steps; and his mercy when we stumble along life’s path.
— Franklin Graham
Persephone is just a name for a spirit of beauty at a certain time in history. I'm sure we could argue a biblical place for her if it matters. Your wife has the name of that pagan goddess, but the fact remains that she's your mortal bride in the Year of Our Lord 1888- and she's Catholic, so pray for her, damn it, I don't care how confusing it is. And pray for us, to anyone. If the dead are about to flood Athens, divine goodwill couldn't hurt. Your prayers can be in Hindu, if you like. Now go home.
— Leanna Renee Hieber, The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker
As a prayer popper, I stay in touch with God. I send lots of spiritual postcards. Little bits and bytes of adoration, supplication, and information attached prayer darts speed in God's direction all day long.
— Sybil MacBeth, Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God
Prayer is not itself powerful
—  it is not magic. But its power is unlimited in that the child of God calls on a Father of unlimited goodness and ability.
Prayer, to the patriarchs and prophets, was more than the recital of well-known and well-worn phrases. It was the outpouring of the heart. Beset by perils, persecutions, pain and privations, they naturally turned to God in their need, believing that He was able to redeem them out of their troubles.
— Herbert Lockyer
I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person's theology was the effect it has on one's prayers.
— John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God
Forgive me,' the woman says. 'I think I've interrupted you in a private moment.''Well,' I reply, instead of yelling something to the effect of :'No kidding lady, I'm in the bathroom!''Were you praying?' she asks.'Sort of.''That's what I thought,' the woman says with a nod, 'which is why I spoke up. I like the idea of answering prayers,' she says. 'Plus, I figure I'm so old, I could have been God's babysitter.
— Robin Epstein, God Is in the Pancakes
Prayer without study would be empty. Study without prayer would be blind.
— Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction
And the Bastard grant us... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word.
— Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men.
— E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer
Prayer bends the omnipotence of heaven to your desire. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
God of the green pastures and the still waters, please don't help me. I want to do it by myself so that You'll know I've found something I can do for You ... I am David. Amen.
— Anne Holm, I Am David
You've been the rabbi here for thirty years and these guys who've never set foot here want to decide who should be rabbi or not. And to lead prayer in Hebrew for Jews who speak Arabic, they want you to write in French. So I say they're nuts.
— Joann Sfar, The Rabbi's Cat
Ask. Trust. Give thanks. Simple right?
— Dawn Gluskin
Every word you speak is a prayer, or meditation of reinforcement which creates permanence.
— Bryant McGill
I wanted my sons to know that, whatever kinds of prayers we utter, not matter how wretched, God hears them, even when we pray badly.
— Wendy Murray, Facing Forward
Prayer is my chief work
—  by it I carry on all else. Prayer is the nearest approach to God and the highest enjoyment of him that we are capable of in this life. It is the noblest exercise of the soul. It is the most exalted use of our best faculties. It is the highest imitation of the blessed beings of heaven.
I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.
— Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Lord, help us root our feet to the earthAnd our eyes to the roadAnd always remember the fallen angelsWho, attempting to soar,Were seared instead by the sun and, wings melting,Came crashing back to the sea.Lord, help root my eyes to the earthAnd stay my eyes to the roadSo I may never st
— Lauren Oliver, Delirium
Lord, teach me to be generous;Teach me to serve you as you deserve;To give and not to count the cost;To fight and not to heed the wounds;To toil, and not to seek for rest;To labor, and not to ask for reward - except to know that I am doing your will.
— Ignatius of Loyola
a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
Amen' is like the Send button on an email.
— Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
Joni discovered the best way to put the halter on her horse without being animal resisting and fleeing was to turn her back until he nuzzled up to her. At that point, she could slip the halter on. Just so, she surmises, sometimes God waits for us to turn our backs on what we desire most and to trust Him.
— Joni Eareckson Tada, The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus
We get too comfortable with this orphanage universe, though. We sit in our pews, or behind our pulpits, knowing that our children watch "Christian" cartoons instead of slash films. We vote for the right candidates and know all the right "worldview" talking points. And we're content with the world we know, just adjusted a little for our identity as Christians. That's precisely why so many of us are so atrophied in our prayers, why our prayers rarely reach the level of "groanings too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). We are too numbed to be as frustrated as the Spirit is with the way things are.
— Russell D. Moore, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches
What a study in importunity, in earnestness, in persistence, promoted and propelled under conditions which would have disheartened any but a heroic, constant soul. [Jesus] teaches that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this, He delays the answer. the superficial pray-er subsides into silence, when thteanswer is delayed. But eh man of prayer hangs on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honors his faith, and gives him a rich and abundant answer to His faith evidencing, importunate prayer.
— E.M. Bounds
In honesty you have to admit to a wise man that prayer is not for the wise, not for the prudent, not for the sophisticated. Instead it is for those who recognize that in face of their deepest needs, all their wisdom is quite helpless. It is for those who are willing to persist in doing something that is both childish and crucial.
— Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
All stories are, in some form, prayers.
— Brian  Doyle, The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of Heart
It came at last."'Dr. Graham, tell me,' she asked tremulously, 'do you believe that prayers - wicked unreasonable prayers - are granted?'He helped himself to another slice of bread-and-butter before answering. 'Well-' he said slowly, 'it seems hard to believe that every fool who has a voice to pray with and a brain to conceive idiotic requests should be permitted to interfere with the economy of the universe. As a rule, if people were long-sighted enough to foresee the result of their petitions, I fancy very few of us would venture to interfere.' ("The Story of A Ghost")
— Violet Hunt, Ghostly By Gaslight
I will not say, as the beggars at our door used to do, ‘I’ll never ask anything of Him again;’ but, on the contrary, ‘He shall hear oftener from me than ever,’ and I will love God the better, and love prayer the better, as long as I live.
— Philip  Henry
It was only at her prayers that she felt able to think calmly and clearly either of Prince Andrey or Anatole, with a sense that her feelings for them were as nothing compared with her feel of worship and awe of God.
— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Are we willing to shun vain repetition and keep our prayers out of an unchallenging rut by asking God to make us more sensitive to our own sin?
— John Pereira
Prayer is helplessness plus faith.
— Bill Thrasher
...to many of us prayer is more like talking to a chocolate pudding than participating in an amazing relationship with a living being.
— Peter Enseleit
Temples and churches have become social centers. They have lost their original purpose because the minds of the people are more attracted to worldly things than to prayer. The lips repeat the prayer mechanically like a phonograph record, but the mind wanders to other places. (23-24)
— Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras
Experience teaches us that we do not always receive the blessings we ask for in prayer. 
— Mary Baker Eddy
Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.
— Sarah Waters
Prayer before BirthI am not yet born; O hear me.Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me.I am not yet born, console me.I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.I am not yet born; provide meWith water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.I am not yet born; forgive meFor the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me.I am not yet born; rehearse meIn the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.I am not yet born; O hear me,Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.I am not yet born; O fill meWith strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me.Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.Otherwise kill me.
— Louis MacNeice
I delight to come to my bearings,—not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may,—not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator. I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most strongly and rightfully attracts me;—not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less,—not suppose a case, but take the case that is
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Prayer is not mere wishing. It is asking – with a will. . . . It is energy. We turn to an active Giver
—  therefore we go into action.