c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
These two things are almost all I want, but unfortunately, neither one is my strong suit. I am very strong on blame, and wish this were one of God's values, but trust, surrender? Letting go, forgiveness? Maybe just after a period of prayer, but then when the mood passes and real life rears its ugly head again? Not so much. I hate this, the fact that life is usually Chutes and Ladders, with no guaranteed gains.I cannot will myself into having these qualities, so I have to pray for them more often, if I want to be happy. I have to create the habit, just as I had to do with daily writing, and flossing.
— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
To say that 'prayer changes things' is not as close to the truth as saying, 'prayer changes me and then I change things.' God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things.
— Oswald Chambers
your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit.
— Oswald Chambers
El Shaddai. My all-sufficient God who is able to handle all my needs. Everything I will ever need I can find in Him. Think about that for a moment. Do you sense the power He offers us in those words? There is nothing, absolutely nothing in your life that He cannot handle.
— Diane Moody, Confessions of a Prayer Slacker
God loves his creatures, and he loves each one the more, the more it shares his own goodness, which is the first and primary object of his love. Therefore he wants the desires of his rational creatures to be fulfilled because they share most perfectly of all creatures the goodness of god.And his will is an accomplisher of things because he is the cause of things by his will. So it belongs to the divine goodness to fulfill the desires of rational creatures which are put to him in prayer.
— Thomas Aquinas
Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Don’t ever discount the cry of your heart. God may be working in your heart to bring about his sovereign plan.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life
—  it offersus aless busy heart.
Ann prayed because of a gut-wrenching, throbbing pain in her soul. She urgently begged the Lord for her life.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
Where a people prays, there is the hurch; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
For a few moments, raising his arms desperately, the Reverend Mouret implored Heaven. His shoulder-blades cracked, with such fantastic force did he pray. But soon enough his arms fell to his sides, his hopes abashed. From heaven came one of those silences utterly void of hope known to the devout.
— Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret
DeeDee had to have a firm grasp on reality. Yet she knew God was bigger than a pathology report. So she prayed.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
...all my life I prayed to a star – Later discovered it was Venus – I was praying to Aphrodite and wondering why she was sending me you -sad...
— John Geddes, A Familiar Rain
I have no guarantee that God will choose to heal Ann, but I know he wants me to pray to that end.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
I'm sure the holy refrigerator is packed solid with cartons of Blue Bell ice cream - times a million. All those amazing flavor combinations minus the calories and fat grams, of course. After all, we are talking about heaven here, amen?
— Diane Moody, Confessions of a Prayer Slacker
My pastor, Pete Wilson, gave a message on prayer, specifically citing this idea many of us have that prayer is a kind of transaction. beside him on the platform, an object the size of a refrigerator stood cloaked beneath a black cover. He said, 'most of us have reduced prayer down to a transaction. A way to manipulate what we want. A vending machine.' At that point, he yanked off the cover revealing a large vending machine, loaded with all kinds of snacks. He inserted some coins and pushed the button for peanut M&Ms (smart man, my pastor). Nothing happened. He hit the machine a couple of times, tried to rock it. Nothing.He continued. 'Most of the time when we go to God, it's because we want something. If we get what we want, we turn and walk off, satisfied. If we don't get what we want, we get frustrated; we kick the machine and blame God for not answering our request.'This 'transaction' view of prayer will always disappoint us because at the root of it, we think it's all about us. but prayer is so much more than giving God a list of our wants and needs or, in some cases, our demands. Prayer is communication. It's talking and listening.
— Diane Moody, Confessions of a Prayer Slacker
We don’t know the final outcome, or even know how long the battle will last, but we do know the referee.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
Death is God when love is mine.Prayer preys when we’re divine
— Munia Khan
Their prayers impacted the outcome of the fight.
— K. Howard Joslin, Honest Wrestling: Questions of Faith When Attacked by Life
For you and me, just knowing His presence is all around us can help lift us from the darkest night, embrace us in the loneliest hour, give us strength when we are tempted, and enable us to live confident and secure in His promises.
— Diane Moody, Confessions of a Prayer Slacker
The good news is we don't have to suffer alone. We don't have to carry the burdens of our messy lives alone. God is there for us. He wants to be the Comforter in Chief for the worst that life on this earth may hand us. but we need to know Him - genuinely know Him - not just when tragedy strikes. We need to know Him every moment of every day we live. We need to quit leaving it to the professionals and make know Him the most important mission of our lives.
— Diane Moody, Confessions of a Prayer Slacker
If we truly believe He is who He says He is, then we must acknowledge His sovereignty and know within our heart of hearts that what He allows to happen to us always has a purpose. Even on the darkest night. Even when our souls cry out in unspeakable pain. Even when we can't face another day. Even when we can't sense His presence. We hold on because we know He's holding on to us as well - whether it feels like it or not.
— Diane Moody, Confessions of a Prayer Slacker
...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.
— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
Dear God,I hurt. Please hold me.Amen
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Now you are walking in Paris all alone in the crowdAs herds of bellowing buses drive byLove's anguish tightens your throatAs if you were never to be loved againIf you lived in the old days you would enter a monasteryYou are ashamed when you discover yourself reciting a prayerYou make fun of yourself and like the fire of Hell your laughter cracklesThe sparks of your laugh gild the depths of your lifeIt's a painting hanging in a dark museumAnd sometimes you go and look at it close up
— Guillaume Apollinaire, Zone
Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me.
— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
Forgiveness is a mystical act, not a reasonable one.
— Caroline Myss, Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason
If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, that's death.
— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
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, Small Gods
Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection: you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by word, then by example.Yet if this sublime fire of infused love burns in your soul, it will inevitably send forth throughout the Church and the world an influence more tremendous than could be estimated by the radius reached by words or by example.
— Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Only one in a thousand sits down in the midst of it all and says—I will watch my Father mend this. God must not be treated as a hospital for our broken “toys,” but as our Father.
— Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where
Do you not pray, Miss Smallwood?'She avoided his gaze. 'No.''God is speaking to you every day,' he said softly. 'You might return the favor.'She raised her chin. 'I don't hear Him.''Do you listen?'She looked at him, clearly offended, then turned away again. 'I used to pray, until I found God was not listening, at least not to my pra
— Julie Klassen, The Tutor's Daughter
When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people.
— Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Little did the old man know how much God liked to talk to His children, how He longed to listen to them.
— Debbie Macomber, Angels at Christmas: Those Christmas Angels / Where Angels Go
Every morning I was renewed, though. Air and light healed me, over and over. I got to where I depended on it. When I was feeling my worst, I would step out into the yard and put my hands on the branches of the little redbud. It made me feel like I was saying a prayer, to do this. I know that sounds like foolishness, but that little tree was like an altar for me. I stood there in the cold of early winter, wishing for the redbud to bear leaves so that I might put my face against them.
— Silas House, A Parchment of Leaves
This I would like to be- braver and bolder, Just a bit wiser because I am older, Just a bit kinder to those I may meet, Just a bit manlier taking defeat; This for the New Year my wish and my plea- Lord, make a regular man out of me. This I would like to be- just a bit finer, More of a smiler and less of a whiner, Just a bit quicker to stretch out my hand Helping another who's struggling to stand, This is my prayer for the New Year to be, Lord, make a regular man out of me. This I would like to be- just a bit fairer, Just a bit better, and just a bit squarer, Not quite so ready to censure and blame, Quicker to help every man in the game, Not quite so eager men's failings to see, Lord, make a regular man out of me. This I would like to be- just a bit truer, Less of the wisher and more of the doer, Broader and bigger, more willing to give, Living and helping my neighbor to live! This for the New Year my prayer and my plea- Lord, make a regular man out of me.
— Edgar A. Guest
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.'" Moira smiled as she quoted the ancient sage, then shrugged. "It made sense to me. After that, I started laying my problems and needs before God and asking for grace and guidance and whatever other virtues he thought I needed.
— Irene Hannon, Vanished
When Jesus said ast and you’ll get it, He meant things of the spirit, not the flesh. Grandpa said Jesus meant us to ast for hope, forgiveness, and all like that. Ast ‘Hep us not be scared, hep us not be greedy, give us courage to try…Ast any such and God will give it to you. But don’t ast Him not to let fire burn, or say spare me from death.
— Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree
There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is. ~William Shakespeare
— William Shakespeare
Jesus doesn’t lead you out of your day, He leads you into it.
— Todd Stocker, Refined: Turning Pain Into Purpose
Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy name…and open the eyes of our hearts, that wemay know Thee.”“We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succour. Save those among us who are intribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself to those in need; heal the sick; turnagain the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; ransom our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfortthe faint-hearted. Let all nations know that Thou art God alone, and that Jesus Christ is Thy Son, andthat we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture.”“We praise Thee who art able to do these and better things than these, through Jesus Christ the HighPriest and Guardian of our souls, through whom be glory and majesty to Thee, both now andthroughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
— Clement of Rome
Even when she was speaking, her soul was in prayer reposing on an unseen support.
— George Eliot, Adam Bede
Prayer:  The act of falling to your knees in pleading fashion, seeking help from a greater power than all else to have failed you previously.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane - only - only of late - I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Beloved, we join hands here to pray for gin. An aridity defiles us. Our innards thirst for the juice of juniper. Something must be done. The drought threatens to destroy us. Surely, God who let manna fall from the heavens so that the holy children of Israel might eat, will not let the equally holy children of Niggeratti Manor die from the want of a little gin. Children, let us pray.
— Wallace Thurman, Infants of the Spring
It is possible to induce incorrect notions of cause and effect in most people in just a few minutes. All that is necessary is to expose them to rewards which they believe they are generating based on their actions when in fact the rewards are randomly awarded. People will latch onto any seeming success and repeat it, even when they have to explain repeated failures as well. It appears practically impossible, or at least very rare, for humans not to be influenced by immediate experiences of concrete results. This is true even if the experiences turn out to have limited theoretical validity. The moment of surprise is not when people repeat alchemical failures but when they begin to do something else.
— Naomi Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians
Even then his thoughts did not turn to prayer but to Abbie and to what she would think about his lack of prayerfulness and that surely she would have immediately broken out in prayer. “Doesn’t matter now,” he whispered and felt that he could not cry out to God.~William Drexler the Third
— Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal
Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors; if it may not, give us strength to endure that which is to come that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another. We beseech of you this help and mercy for Christ's sake.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.
— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
The angel said, "I like black-and-white films more than color because they're more artificial. You have to work harder to overcome your disbelief. It's sort of like prayer.
— Jonathan Carroll, The Ghost in Love
As the books of Job, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk clearly show, God has a high threshold of tolerance for what appropriate to say in a prayer. God can "handle" my unsuppressed rage. I may well find that my vindictive feelings need God's correction - but only by taking those feelings to God will I have the opportunity for correction and healing.
— Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read
The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God's will and his grace.
— Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer
God thank you for everything you've given us. For the time we have together. And for the miracle of Christmas. Thank you for the Atonement, the chance to start all over again. Help us to always remember who we are and to trust that we are worthy to make it through our storms. Amen>
— Glenn Beck, The Christmas Sweater
Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables of Jesus deal with money. One out of ten verses in the New Testament deals with that subject. Scripture offers about five hundred verses on prayer, fewer than five hundred on faith, and over two thousand on money. The believer's attitude toward money and possessions is determinative.
— John F. MacArthur Jr.
The Lord is my shepherdI shall not want him for longHe maketh me to lie down in green pasturesand there are no green pasturesHe leadeth me beside still watersand still waters run deep
— Ernest Hemingway, 88 Poems
Prayer in private results in boldness in public.
— Edwin Louis Cole
Prayer, faith, and vision, plus real effort too.Blend them together for one potent brew.The magical spell to your dreams coming true.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
One foggy night I was walking the dogs down the lane and heard the geese, very close overhead, calling, calling, their marvellous strange cry, as they flew by. I think that is what our own best prayer must sound like when we send it up to heaven.
— Madeleine L'Engle, Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings
Since both the departed saints and we ourselves are in Christ, we share with them in the 'communion of saints.' They are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we celebrate the Eucharist they are there with us, along with the angels and archangels. Why then should we not pray for and with them? The reason the Reformers and their successors did their best to outlaw praying for the dead was because that had been so bound up with the notion of purgatory and the need to get people out of it as soon as possible. Once we rule out purgatory, I see no reason why we should not pray for and with the dead and every reason why we should - not that they will get out of purgatory but that they will be refreshed and filled with God's joy and peace. Love passes into prayer; we still love them; why not hold them, in that love, before God?
— N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
Jesus designed the Lord's prayer to reveal His desire to give us more fully, graciously, and suitably the very things we most want but seek elsewhere. He does not want to deny us our desires but helps remove the false objects of our affections so that we will have the greater blessings he longs to lavish on us.
— Bryan Chapell, Praying Backwards: Transform Your Prayer Life by Beginning in Jesus' Name
Father, in those moments of utter exasperation, help me to want You as much as I need You!
— Evinda Lepins
I beseech Christ for this one thing only, that He will enable me to endure all things courageously, and that He break me as a potter’s vessel or make me strong, as it pleases Him.
— Huldrych Zwingli
What was more needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime, and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
God’s side is determined not by geography, but by those who do His will. If Germans, English, Japanese, and Americans prayed right, they would all be praying for the same intention: Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. And what is that Will? The reign of Justice and Charity in the hearts of men. Through a prayerful contemplation of war we will see not soldiers of different nations in combat, but one great family, quarreling, fighting, wounding, and all in need of the peace and charity of Christ which we hope to obtain by our supplications.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Fulton Sheen's Wartime Prayer Book
Has someone or something pushed your anxiety button? Answer it with prayer!
— Evinda Lepins
May your GodExtend to youThe same LoveAnd CompassionYou have ProvidedTo Others.
— Kent Forrest
Again, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17), and here the word to pray does not mean to beg or to plead as if God were unwilling to give--but simply to expose by faith every situation as it arises, to the all-sufficiency of the One who indwells you by His life.
— W. Ian Thomas
God's forgot that ever I lived... He's forgot...and He never cared, nohow...."He smoothed her brown, rough-palmed hand; he held her hands to keep her from jerking herself away from his admonishing: "Oh, 'tis not true, the words yere a-sayin', Cean Smith; and well ye know it. Never does He forget a child o' His'n. 'Tis His children that forget that He is rememberin'. Get on yere knees and climb on them up to the shelter o' His arms. Knock on His ears with yere prayers. Creep into His arms, Cean Smith, and lay yere head on His bosom, and He'll hold ye closer than inny man ye ever love can ever hold ye. He'll lay His hand on yere head and ye'll stop yere restless fightin' against His will. He'll shut yere pitiful little mouth from complainin' against Him. Ye'll hush and be comforted...."She dared him to prove his saying: "Then pray fer Him to do them things fer me!"He prayed; and when he had finished, Cean's will was as water to God's will, and Cean's tears were softening and healing to her heart.
— Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom
...goals not bathed in prayer or brought in humility before the Lord turn out to be downright useless. They don't go anywhere. They don't accomplish anything.
— Charles R. Swindoll, Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication
Praying because you're afraid is not like praying because you have faith. Faith and fear never meet. If you are faithful and still feel scared, it's whether you're not praying right or not praying at all.
— Sandra Chami Kassis
Man in his usual perversity turns the footstool into a throne from whence he would feign direct the Almighty as to what He ought to do, giving the onlooker the impression that if God had half the compassion that those who pray (?) have, all would quickly be right
— Arthur W. Pink
Merciful Father.... I have squandered my days with plans of many things.This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only, to live the next few minutes well.For all we ought to have thought and have not thought... All we ought to have said and have not said. All we ought to have done and have not done. I pray thee, God for forgiveness.
— Ahmed Ibn Fadlan
And we pray, and we pray and we pray and we pray.Everyday, everyday, everyday, everyday…
— Bone Thugs and Harmony
I was Baptist and had always prayed, in a damp squint, for things not to happen. Sils was a Catholic, and so she prayed for things to happen, for things to come true. She prayed for love here and now. I prayed for no guns.
— Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
If there is one thought with regard to the Church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the Church of Christ has not accepted it and not grasped it; if there is one thought which makes me pray to God: “Oh, teach us by Thy grace, new things”—it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have in the kingdom. [. . .] And that is the law of the kingdom—the King upon the throne, the servants upon the footstool.
— Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender
Start your day with and in prayer. Communicate with the Lord and listen for instructions. Hooking up, plugging into, and connecting to the POWER SOURCE each day will keep power outages and disconnections away!
— Anita R. Sneed-Carter
Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.
— Anne Lamott
This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours!
— William Wilberforce
Preaching never edifies a prayerless soul.
— E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer
Public prayers of are of little value unless they are founded on or followed up by private praying.
— E.M. Bounds
Obedience is the opener of eyes.
— George MacDonald
To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
I sometimes pray not for self-knowledge in general but for just so much self knowledge at the moment as I can bear and use at the moment
—  the little daily dose.
The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying must be in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty, put into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time which have been snatched from business and other engagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the heart of our time and strength must be given.
— E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer
God withholds blessing only in wisdom, never in spite or aloofness.
— Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor
Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims.
— Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot
Let his sword break and his shield shatter, Sansa thought coldly as she shoved out through the doors, let his courage fail him and every man desert him.
— George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
(On surviving on the raft for 47 days) We had truly made it on a wing and prayer.
— Louis Zamperini, Devil at My Heels
Some of the most challenging work a suicide survivor can do is to pray. To pray fully, survivors must bring all of themselves to the prayer: their anger, disappointment, fears, insecurities, and why's. I bring all of me into an encounter with God, aware that nothing in the human experience, or the human response to the ambushes of life, is alien to God.
— Harold Ivan Smith
Pray when you feel like praying," somebody has said. "Pray when you don't feel like praying. Pray until you do feel like praying.
— Chip Ingram, The Invisible War: What Every Believer Needs to Know about Satan, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare
But the Esquire passage I found most poignant and revealing was this one: Mister Rogers' visit to a teenage boy severely afflicted with cerebral palsy and terrible anger. One of the boys' few consolations in life, Junod wrote, was watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood. 'At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. He was so nervous, in fact, that when Mister Rogers did visit, he got mad at himself and began hating himself and hitting himself, and his mother had to take him to another room and talk to him. Mister Rogers didn't leave, though. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He just waited patiently, and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. He said, 'I would like you to do something for me. Would you do something for me?' On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said: I would like you to pray for me. Will you pray for me?' And now the boy didn't know how to respond. He was thunderstruck... because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn't know how to do it, he said he would, he said he'd try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn't talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean that God likes him, too.As for Mister Rogers himself... he doesn't look at the story the same way the boy did or I did. In fact, when Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him on being smart - for knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himself - and Mister Rogers responded by looking at me first with puzzlement and then with surprise. 'Oh heavens no, Tom! I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.
— Tim Madigan, I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers
Contemporaries relate that hearing Martin Luther pray was "an experience in theology". They said the reformer began praying with such humility that he could be pitied, only to proceed with such boldness before God that the human hearer would fear for him.
— A.W. Tozer, The Attributes of God: A Journey Into the Father's Heart
Long, discursive, dry, and inane are the prayers in many pulpits. Without unction or heart, they fall like a killing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The deader they are the longer they grow.
— E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer
A prayerless age will have but scant models of divine power. The age may be a better age than the past, but there is an infinite distance between the betterment of an age by the force of an advancing civilization and its betterment by the increase of holiness and Christlikeness by the energy of prayer.
— E.M. Bounds, The Power of Prayer
I’m convinced that one of the most powerful forces on earth is the prayer of a child.
— Wess Stafford
The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William looked up... through his tears... past the catwalk and lights... past the sky... through the dark and clouds and stars and into the void where he once knew God existed, then turned himself outside-in, alone, and asked, 'Why?
— Jake Vander-Ark, The Brandywine Prophet
Leaders in touch with heaven can move earth
— Reggie McNeal, A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders
When I listen to you, Godwhen I do what you ask me to,I am like a treeplanted by a river,a tree full of fruitwith leaves that are always green. Ps 1(paraphrased)
— Marie-Hélène Delval
Mrs. Mudkin closed her eyes. "We should pray.""I ain't praying," Crazy Cora said. Mrs. Mudkin said, "Lord, please bless---""I ain't praying.""--this land and the people who--""I ain't praying.""--have toiled on this earth--""Stop that praying.""I can pray if I want to.""Then be quiet about it.
— Sharon Creech, The Great Unexpected
There is a value in repetition. When we repeat certain phrases and even actions, like fingering prayer beads, we create a quiet rhythm within our spirits. The beating of our heart is a repetition as is the rhythm of our breathing. All of life has its rhythms, and the repetition of familiar prayers can bring our interior spirits into harmony with the Divine Heartbeat and the breathing of the Divine Christ.
— Stephen J. Binz
God is the only one who listens to her... she is the prototype of the devout woman who perseveres in prayer, convinced that it will be heard... How many favours each of us could tell of if we recalled with gratitude the gifts we have received in order to praise God for them!
— University of Navarra, The Navarre Bible: Joshua to Kings
I liked this God very much because you hardly had to talk to it and it never talked back. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
— Donald Miller
The things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us the grace to labour for’, as Sir Thomas More expressed it. The inner voice of prayer expresses itself naturally in action, just as the inner voice of my brain guides all my bodily actions.
— Philip Yancey
He splashed into the water, his whole body, not with the reverent attitude of prayer, but with a desperate thirst; he buried his head under the water and drank deep, with his cheek against the cold stone of the riverbed, the water tumbling over his back, his calves. He drank and drank, lifted his head and shoulders above the water to gasp in the evening air, and then collapsed into the water again, to drink as greedily as before.It was a kind of prayer, though, he realized as he emerged, freezing cold as the water evaporated from his skin in the breeze of the dark morning.I am with you, he said to the Oversoul. I'll do whatever you ask, because I long for you to accomplish your purpose here.
— Orson Scott Card, The Memory of Earth: Homecoming, Vol. 1
God stays awake all the time. In case we need to talk to Him about something.
— Karen Kingsbury, Like Dandelion Dust
Our failure to hear His voice when we want to is due to the fact that we do not in general want to hear it, that we want it only when we think we need it.
— Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
True prayer is done in secret, but this does not rule out the fellowship of prayer altogether, however clearly we may be aware of its dangers. In the last resort it is immaterial whether we pray in the open street or in the secrecy of our chambers, whether briefly or lenghtily, in the Litany of the Church, or with the sigh of one who knows not what he should pray for. True prayer does not depend either on the individual or the whole body of the faithful, but solely upon the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows our needs.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
It was a hollow victory they gave me. A crown...it was the girl I prayed them for. Your sister, safe... and mine again as she was meant to be. I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown?
— George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Is anything truly impossible? Or is it that the path to our goals appears too unclear to follow? It seems to me that if you seek hard enough, pray hard enough, you usually stumble across a scattering of breadcrumbs that marks the trail leading to the goal you once considered beyond your reach.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then is to desire -- but to desire what God would have us desire. He who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken in thinking that he prays.
— François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress
The child asks of the Father whom he knows. Thus, the essence of Christian prayer is not general adoration, but definite, concrete petition. The right way to approach God is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy
— John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
I'll pray for you.""That's very kind of you.""I can't spare you a whole rosary, you know. Just a decade. I've got such a long list of people. I take them in order and they get a decade about once a week.
— Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder
Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.
— Helen Shucman
There's a traditional Kenyan prayer: "From the cowardice that dares not deal with new truth, from the laziness that is content with half-truth, from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, Good Lord, deliver me.
— Joni Rodgers, Bald in the Land of Big Hair: A True Story
I had no tears to shed nor a prayer for the deceased... There is no hope for the hopeless.
— Nadège Richards, Burning Bridges
To neglect ones own ability to laugh is the greatest form of Blasphemy, for to laugh is to pray.
— Ilyas Kassam
We touch the last reality directly in prayer.
— P.T. Forsyth
Upon the lips of babes asleep I saw light embracing light and so allowed my syllables to rest there as a prayer they might sing in their dreams...
— Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black
Regarding 'Jabez's Prayer', I will say at once that I am a very poor Christian, and indeed a bad man. My besetting sins are many, and the least of them are the fleshlier ones: the really deadly ones are pride and intellectual arrogance. But I can honestly say I have never sunk to confusing prayer: the soul's colloquy with the Creator, mortal man's dialogue with the Deity: with magical incantation and the ritual of the 'spell.
— Markham Shaw Pyle
Prayer makes coffee shops of our souls, places that celebrate and savor the presence and lordship of God in our lives. It must be unceasing and constant. It must become who we are.
— Tyler Blanski, Mud & Poetry: Love, Sex, and the Sacred
Repeat to yourself every day and as often as you can: ‘O Lord, have mercy on all those who will appear before You today.’ For every hour, every second, thousands of men leave this world and their souls appear before the Lord, and no one knows how many of them leave this earth in isolation, sadness, and anguish, with no one to take pity on them or even care whether they live or die. And so your prayer for such a man will rise to the Lord from the other end of the earth, although he may never have heard of you or you of him. But his soul, as it stands trembling before the Lord, will be cheered and gladdened to learn that there is someone on earth who loves him. And the Lord’s mercy will be even greater to both of you, for, however great your pity for the man, God’s pity will be much greater, for He is infinitely more merciful and more loving than you are.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
I write, as far as I can tell, because writing is a black sheep sibling of prayer, an urgent struggle against a bad connection, intent, hopeful, innocent, never quite good enough.
— Kirk Wilson
I admit at the beginning that 'popular religion,' 'demotic religion,' the pieties of the common folk, tends to sink to the lowest common denominator, be it in syncretizing saints with old, half-forgotten pagan godlings, or in preferring the nasal whine and the revivalist shoutin' to solid sense and learning, regarding intellect as positively inimical to the workings of the Holy Ghost. But it is in American religious life, especially Protestant American religious life, that things bottom out completely.
— Markham Shaw Pyle
It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty...
— Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
...throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it.
— Carroll Bryant
These days, I've been trying to classify my thoughts into two categories: "Things I can change," and "Things I can't." It seems to help me sort through what to really stress about. But there I go again, over-planning and over-organizing my over-thinking! I write songs about my adventures and misadventures, most of which concern love. Love is a tricky business. But if it wasn't, I wouldn't be so enthralled with it. Lately I've come to a wonderful realization that makes me even more fascinated by it: I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to love. No one does! There's no pattern to it, except that it happens to all of us, of course. I can't plan for it. I can't predict how it'll end up. Because love is unpredictable and it's frustrating and it's tragic and it's beautiful. And even though there's no way to feel like I'm an expert at it, it's worth writing songs about -- more than anything else I've ever experienced in my life.
— Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift
Stories are a different kind of true.
— Emma Donoghue, Room
The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
Do you think it will always be this way?”“What?”“I mean, when do we start feeling like the world belongs to us?”I wanted to tell him that the world would never belong to us. “I don't know,” I said. “Tomorrow.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
To laugh often and much;to win the respect of intelligent peopleand the affection of children,to leave the world a better place,to know even one life has breathed easierbecause you have lived,this is to have succeeded.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
— Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
We can’t jump off bridges anymore because our iPhones will get ruined. We can’t take skinny dips in the ocean because there’s no service on the beach and adventures aren’t real unless they’re on Instagram. Technology has doomed the spontaneity of adventure and we’re helping destroy it every time we Google, check-in, and hashtag.
— Jeremy Glass
I may not be old but I’m too old to have this much nothing
— Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You
You can live your whole life not realising that what you're looking for is right in front of you.
— David Nicholls, One Day
When you live as I do, you cannot indulge in jealousy. If you do, it will rip you apart.
— David Levithan, Every Day
There are two types of people on planet Earth, Batman and Iron Man. Batman has a secret identity, right? So Bruce Wayne has to walk around every second of every day knowing that if somebody finds out his secret, his family is dead, his friends are dead, everyone he loves gets tortured to death by costumed supervillains. And he has to live with the weight of that secret every day. But not Tony Stark, he's open about who he is. He tells the world he's Iron Man, he doesn't give a shit. He doesn't have that shadow hanging over him, he doesn't have to spend energy building up those walls of lies around himself. You're one or the other - either you're one of those people who has to hide your real self because it would ruin you if it came out, because of your secret fetishes or addictions or crimes, or you're not one of those people. And the two groups aren't even living in the same universe.
— David Wong, This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It
If you had to relive your life exactly as it was – same successes and failures, same happiness, same miseries, same mixture of comedy and tragedy – would you want to? Was it worth it?
— Gavin Extence, The Universe Versus Alex Woods
It's your road, and yours alone.others may walk it with you,but no one can walk it for you.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
Life goes on is a redundancy. Life is defined by its going on.
— David Levithan, Love Is the Higher Law
What if she was supposed to be a painter, but no one ever gave her a brush?
— Adi Alsaid, Let's Get Lost
It's easy to win. Anybody can win.
— Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly
Many times, you are the single most significant and glorious thing that has ever happened in the lives of some people; they sit around and talk about you over and over again throughout the years while you are out there living your life, every step that you take and every kiss that you make having absolutely nothing to do with them, at all!
— C. JoyBell C.
Despite the forecast, live like it's spring.
— Lilly Pulitzer