c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
They've got us surrounded again  the poor bastards.
— General Creighton W. Abrams
My center is giving way  my right is in retreat: situation excellent. I am attacking.
— Marshal Ferdinand Foch
If you act like you're rich  you'll get rich.
— Adnan Koashoggi
I'll just hit the dry side of the ball.
— Stan Musial
My disease is one of the best things that has happened to me  it has pulled me out of a quietly desperate life toward one full of love and hope.
— Tom O'Connor
Retreat? We're coming out of here as a Marine division. We're bring ... our dead. Retreat  hell! We're just advancing in another direction.
— General Oliver Prince Smith
I'm in a wonderful position: I'm unknown  I'm underrated  and there's nowhere to go but up.
— Pierre S. DuPont IV
I am dying  but otherwise I am quite well.
— Edith Sitwell
I can't say I was ever lost  but I was bewildered once for three days.
— Daniel Boone
If they do kill me  I shall never die another death.
— Abraham Lincoln
We are so outnumbered there's only one thing to do. We must attack.
— Sir Andrew Cunningham
Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
Focus is important. Focus on those parts of yourself that are working. Look at yourself as someone whose body is in the process of healing. Concentrate on the positive parts.
— Will Garcia
I'm not overweight  I'm just nine inches too short.
— Shelley Winters
Anyone can have an off decade.
— Larry Cole
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
— Chinese proverb
Knock the "t" off the "can't."
— George Reeves
Being an optimist after you've got everything you want doesn't count.
— Kin Hubbard
There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Clear your mind of "can't."
— Samuel Johnson
Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world.
— Grace Paley
I will say this about being an optimist: even when things don't turn out well  you are certain they will get better.
— Frank Hughes
We have a problem. "Congratulations." But it's a tough problem. "Then double congratulations."
— W Clement Stone
Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive- it's such an interesting world.
— L. M. Montgomery
I learned really to practice mustard seed faith  and positive thinking  and remarkable things happened.
— Sir John Walton
The only prison we need to escape from is the prison of our own minds.
— Anonymous
Whatever the ups and downs of detail within our limited experience  the larger whole is primarily beautiful.
— Gregory Bateson
He was a "how" thinker  not an "if" thinker.
— Anonymous
No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.
— George Jean Nathan
We think in generalities  but we live in detail.
— Alfred North Whitehead
Some folks think they are thinking when they are only rearranging their prejudices.
— Anonymous
How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us.
— Park Cousins
This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
— Lin Yutang
Think like a man of action  act like a man of thought.
— Henri Bergson
As is our confidence  so is our capacity.
— William Hazlitt
What we love  we shall grow to resemble.
— Bernard of Clairvaux
How much shall I be changed  before I am changed!
— John Donnell
It is by sitting down to write every morning that he becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.
— Gerald Brenan
There is no miraculous change that takes place in a boy that makes him a man. He becomes a man by being a man.
— Louis L'Amour
Skill to do comes of doing.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
The quality of our expectations determines the quality of our actions.
— Andre Godin
Success produces success  just as money produces money.
— Nicolas de Chamfort
Once you begin to believe there is help "out there " you will know it to be true.
— Saint Bartholomew
When we have not what we love  we must love what we have.
— Roger de Rabutin
Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly  he said  "That man does hot possess his estate  but his estate possesses him."
— Diogenes
Property has its duties as well as its rights.
— William Drummond
Wouldst thou both eat they cake and have it?
— George Edward Herbert
Unto every one that hath shall be given  and he shall have abundance  but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
— Matthew
Possession  they say  is eleven points of the law.
— Jonathan Swift
Dogs have more love than integrity. They've been true to us  yes  but they haven't been true to themselves.
— Clarence Day
Love me  love my dog.
— John Heywood
It's just the most amazing thing to love a dog  isn't it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal.
— John Grogan
The better I get to know men  the more I find myself loving dogs.
— Charles de Gaulle
Love for a dog during childhood is one of the deepest and purest emotions we are ever likely to have  and it remains with us for the rest of our lives. For some people  their first experience with love is with a dog. The fact that the dog returns the love so fiercely  so openly  so unambivalently  is for many children a unique and lasting experience.
— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies  quite unlike people  who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate in their . . . relations.
— Sigmund Freud
I really love pets. They're like children. They know if you really love them or not. You can't fool them.
— Donna Douglas
There is no reciprocity. Men love women  women love children  children love hamsters.
— Alice Thomas Ellis
Love conquers all things except poverty and a toothache.
— Mae West
Be unselfish in your love. Remember  you are not the cat.
— Bill Zimmerman
When a man is small  he loves and hates food with a ferocity which soon dims. At six years old his very bowels will heave when such a dish as creamed carrots or cold tapioca appear before him.
— M. F. K. Fisher
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.
— George Washington Carver
I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known.
— Walt Disney
I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.
— A. Whitney Brown
Man has bought brains  but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies  but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations  but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit  but he has been utterly helpless before love. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king.
— Emma Goldman
If it's true that men are such beasts  this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers.
— Doris Day
If we love our country  we should also love our countrymen.
— Ronald Reagan
A strange volume of real life in the daily packet of the postman. Eternal love and instant payment!
— Douglas Jerrold
Neither snow  nor rain  nor heat  nor night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
— Herodotus
A woman seldom writes her Mind  but in her Postscript.
— Richard Steele
Go  little letter  apace  apace  Fly  Fly to the light in the valley below -  Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.
— Lord Alfred Tennyson
Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity!
— John Quincy Adams
As to posterity  I may ask what has it ever done to oblige me?
— Thomas Gray
Hath not the potter power over the clay  of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour  and another unto dishonour?
— Romans
All this of Pot and Potter - Tell me then  Who is the Potter  pray  and who the Pot?
— Omar Khayyam
Bed is the poor man's opera.
— Italian proverb
Hunger is insolent  and will be fed.
— Alexander Pope
If you've ever really been poor  you remain poor at heart all your life.
— Arnold Bennett
Poor men's reasons are not heard.
— Thomas Fuller
Poverty - one thing money can't buy.
— Lynwood L. Giacomini
The rich would have to eat money  but luckily the poor provide food.
— Russian proverb
There were times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.
— Spencer Tracy
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.
— Bertolt Brecht
The child was diseased at birth - stricken with an hereditary ill that only the most vital men are able to shake off. I mean poverty - the most deadly and prevalent of all diseases.
— Eugene O'Neill
There is no scandal like rags  nor any crime so shameful as poverty.
— George Farquhar
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.
— Eric Hoffer
It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No  if it were  men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It's a blunder  though  and is punished as such.
— Jerome K. Jerome
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor  it cannot save the few who are rich.
— John F. Kennedy
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people: it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
— Walter Bagehot
Short of genius  a rich man cannot imagine poverty.
— Charles Peguy
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-building value of privation for the poor.
— J. K. Galbraith
Modern poverty is not the poverty that was blest in the Sermon on the Mount.
— George Bernard Shaw
The poor will always be with you.
— Bible
This is one of the bitter curses of poverty: it leaves no right to be generous.
— George Gissing
Poverty is less a matter of income than of prospects. While the incomes of the poor have steadily risen through Great Society largesse  their prospects have plummeted as families have broken into dependent fragments.
— George Gilder
Over the hill to the poor-house I'm trudgin' my weary way.
— Will Carleton
He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.
— S. L. Clemens
The greatest man in history was the poorest.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
As poor as a church mouse.
— English Phrase
That amid our highest civilization men faint and die with want is not due to the niggardliness of nature  but to the injustice of man.
— Henry George
Poverty is no sin.
— George Edward Herbert
O God! that bread should be so dear  And flesh and blood so cheap!
— Thomas Hood
The poor always ye have with you.
— Bible
He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.
— Bible
Blessed is he that considereth the poor.
— Bible
It is life near the bone  where it is sweetest.
— Henry David Thoreau
He who despises his own life is soon master of another's.
— English proverb
Horsepower was a wonderful thing when only horses had it.
— Anonymous
It is not power that corrupts but fear. The fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it  and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.
— Aung San Suu Kyi
Man's responsibility increases as that of the gods decreases.
— Andre Gide
Many a man's strength is in opposition  and when he faileth  he groweth out of use.
— Francis Bacon
Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed  it is the only thing that ever has.
— Margaret Mead
Not hammer strokes  but dance of the water sings the pebbles into perfection.
— Rabindranath Tagore
People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced.
— T. S. Eliot
Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
— Theodore White
Responsibility n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God  Fate  Fortune  Luck or one's neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
— Ambrose Bierce
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
The fault  dear Brutus  is not in our stars  But in ourselves  that we are underlings.
— William Shakespeare
The tyrant dies and his rule is over  the martyr dies and his rule begins.
— Soren Kierkegaard
Unused power slips imperceptibly into the hands of another.
— Konrad Heiden
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
— George Orwell
Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power.
— Malcolm X
Power is always right  weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent and despotic.
— Noah Webster
Power only tires those who don't exercise it.
— Pierre Elliott Trudeau
The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used.
— Alfred North Whitehead
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.
— Leon Trotsky
The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contract.
— Walter Lippmann
He was one of those men who possess almost every gift  except the gift of the power to use them.
— Charles Kingsley
The main task of a free society is to civilize the struggle for power. Slavery of the acquiescent majority to the ruthless few is the hereditary state of mankind  freedom  a rarely acquired characteristic.
— R. H. S. Crossman
Power corrupts the few  while weakness corrupts the many.
— Eric Hoffer
His countenance was like lightning  and his raiment white as snow.
— Bible
Power is the recognition of necessity.
— Abraham Rotstein
If absolute power corrupts absolutely  where does that leave God?
— George Daacon
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
— Henry Kissinger
Liberal - a power worshipper without power.
— George Orwell
Power is like a woman you want to stay in bed with forever.
— Patrick Anderson
The illegal we do immediately  the unconstitutional takes a little longer.
— Henry Kissinger
Power tends to connect  absolute power connects absolutely.
— Peter Newman
Give me a lever long enough And a prop strong enough  I can single-handed move the world.
— Archimedes
Iron hand in a velvet glove.
— Charles V
Patience and gentleness is power.
— Leigh Hunt
Power will intoxicate the best hearts  as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
— Walter Colton
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
— Thomas Jefferson
Wherever I found a living creature  there I found the will to power.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Power is ever stealing from the many to the few.
— Wendell Phillips
Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.
— William Pitt
The powers that be are ordained of God.
— Romans
He who has great power should use it lightly.
— Seneca
Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions.
— Tacitus
A rich man's joke is always funny.
— Thomas Edward Brown
Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
— Jean de la Fontaine
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
— Samuel Johnson
Let us now praise famous men  and our fathers that begat us.
— Bible
Nobody roots for Goliath.
— Wilt Chamberlain
Self-praise is no recommendation.
— Old saying
Among the smaller duties in life  I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising when praise is not due.
— Sydney Smith
Praise to the undeserving is severe satire.
— Benjamin Franklin
It's pleasant to hear these nice words while I'm still alive. I'd rather have the taffy than the epitaphy.
— Chauncey Depew
Commendation  n: the tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble  but do not equal  our own.
— Ambrose Bierce
The meanest  most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man  and then qualifies it with a 'but'.
— Henry Ward Beecher
He who gladly does without the praise of the crowd will not miss the opportunity of becoming his own fan.
— Karl Kraus
Flattery is all right - if you don't inhale.
— Adlai Stevenson
The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
— Samuel Butler
Some praise at morning what they blame at night.
— Alexander Pope
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattery.
— George Bernard Shaw
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves  we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
— Eric Hoffer
Some fellows pay a compliment like they expected a receipt.
— Kin Hubbard
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
— Mark Twain
A compliment is a gift  not to be thrown away carelessly unless you want to hurt the giver.
— Eleanor Hamilton
Tis an old maxim in the schools  That flattery's the food of fools - Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.
— Jonathan Swift
The true test of independent judgement is being able to dislike someone who admires us.
— Sydney J. Harris
Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once a minute something generous dies for want of it.
— John Masefield
Few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.
— Jack Woodford
Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof.
— Walter Savage Landor
It is simpler and easier to flatter men than to praise them.
— Jean Paul Richter
A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
— La Rochefoucauld
I would have praised you more had you praised me less.
— Louis XIV
Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed.
— Thomas Morton
Praise the wise man behind his back  but a woman to her face.
— Welch Proverb
As the Greek said  "Many men know how to flatter  few men know how to praise."
— Wendell Phillips
With faint praises one another damn.
— William Wycherley
There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.
— Michel de Montaigne
To Mercy  Pity  Peace and Love All pray in their distress.
— William Blake
God be kind to all good Samaritans and also bad ones. For such is the kingdom of heaven.
— John Gardner
It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk.
— Henry Ward Beecher
Pray  v: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
— Ambrose Bierce
'Mr. President  I am praying for you. 'Which way  Senator?'
— Anonymous
We offer up prayers to God only because we have made Him after our own image. We treat Him like a Pasha  or a Sultan  who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.
— Voltaire
The fewer the words  the better the prayer.
— Martin Luther
In prayer we call ourselves 'worms of the dust'  but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par.
— Mark Twain
Give us grace and strength to preserve. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter 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.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.
— Jean Ingelow
God punishes us mildly by ignoring our prayers and severely by answering them.
— Richard J. Needham
Only man  among living things  says prayers. Or needs to.
— Peter Bowman
What men usually ask of God when they pray is that two and two not make four.
— Anonymous
In certain trying circumstances  urgent circumstances  desperate circumstances  profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
— Mark Twain
I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation  and there must be a vent.
— Henry Ward Beecher
They who have steeped their soul in prayer can every anguish calmly bear.
— Richard M. Milnes
Unless I had the spirit of prayer  I could do nothing.
— Charles G. Finney
Prayer is an end to isolation. It is living our daily life with someone  with him who alone can deliver us from solitude.
— Georges Lefevre
Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.
— John Aikman Wallace
Prayer changes things.
— Anonymous
Prayer does not change God  but it changes him who prays.
— Soren Kierkegaard
There is no hope but in prayer.
— Andrew Bonar
We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be done by importunate prayer. It surmounts or removes all obstacles  overcomes every resisting force and gains its ends in the face of invincible hindrances.
— E. M. Bounds
By prayer we couple the powers of heaven to our helplessness  the powers which can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible.
— O. Hallesby
Faith  and hope  and patience and all the strong  beautiful  vital forces of piety are withered and dead in a prayerless life. The life of the individual believer  his personal salvation  and personal Christian graces have their being  bloom  and fruitage in prayer.
— E. M. Bounds
Every chain that spirits wear crumbles in the breadth of prayer.
— John Greenleaf Whittier
Though we cannot by our prayers give God any information  yet we must by our prayers give him honor.
— Matthew Henry
In the war upon the powers of darkness  prayer is the primary and mightiest weapon  both in aggressive war upon them and their works  in the deliverance of men from their power  and against them as a hierarchy of powers opposed to Christ and His Church.
— Jessie Penn-Lewis
God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. They outlive the lives of those who uttered them.
— E. M. Bounds
Men of God are always men of prayer.
— Henry T. Mahan
Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language or music without atmosphere.
— James Martineau
All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives.
— Delma Jackson
To have a curable illness and to leave it untreated except for prayer is like sticking your hand in a fire and asking God to remove the flame.
— Sandra L. Douglas
Oh  what a cause of thankfulness it is that we have a gracious God to go to on all occasions! Use and enjoy this privilege and you can never be miserable. Oh  what an unspeakable privilege is prayer!
— Lady Maxwell
What is the life of a Christian but a life of prayer!
— David Brown
Even if no command to pray had existed  our very weakness would have suggested it.
— Francois de Fenelon
He who ceases to pray ceases to prosper.
— Sir William Gurney Benham
By prayer  the ability is secured to feel the law of love  to speak according to the law of love  and to do everything in harmony with the law of love.
— E. M. Bounds
Time spent on the knees in prayer will do more to remedy heart strain and nerve worry than anything else.
— George David Stewart
The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies  prayerless work  and prayer-less religion. He laughs at our toil  mocks at our wisdom  but trembles when we pray.
— Samuel Chadwick
No heart thrives without much secret converse with God and nothing will make amends for the want of it.
— John Berridge
No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil  not that he practices it  but he suffers from it.
— Guy H. King
A man's state before God may always be measured by his prayers.
— J. C. Ryle
Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.
— Philipp Melanchthon
Prayer covers the whole of man's life. There is no thought  feeling  yearning  or desire  however low  trifling  or vulgar we may deem it  which  if it affects our real interest or happiness  we may not lay before God and be sure of sympathy. His nature is such that our often coming does not tire him. The whole burden of the whole life of every man may be rolled on to God and not weary him  though it has wearied the man.
— Henry Ward Beecher
The first purpose of prayer is to know God.
— Charles L. Allen
We  one and all of us  have an instinct to pray  and this fact constitutes an invitation from God to pray.
— Charles Sanders Peirce
Teach us to pray that we may cause The enemy to flee  That we his evil power may bind  His prisoners to free.
— Watchman Nee
No matter what may be the test  God will take care of you  Lean  weary one  upon His breast  God will take care of you.
— CD. Martin
He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and a happy life.
— William Law
Non-praying is lawlessness  discord  anarchy.
— E. M. Bounds
We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves  The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
— Oswald Chambers
Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies  the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.
— John Newton
Pray  always pray  when sickness wastes thy frame  Prayer brings the healing power of Jesus' name.
— A. B. Simpson
Prayer is of transcendent importance. Prayer is the mightiest agent to advance God's work. Praying hearts and hands only can do God's work. Prayer succeeds when all else fails.
— E. M. Bounds
The goal of prayer is the ear of God  a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him  pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us. Only by so doing can we expect to know Him  and as we come to know Him better we shall spend more time in His presence and find that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.
— E. M. Bounds
Prayer honors God  acknowledges His being  exalts His power  adores His providence  secures His aid.
— E. M. Bounds
The whole meaning of prayer is that we may know God.
— Oswald Chambers
Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His name  and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. The most praying souls are the most assured souls.
— Thomas B. Brooks
The purpose of prayer is to reveal the presence of God equally present  all the time  in every condition.
— Oswald Chambers
The value of consistent prayer is not that He will hear us  but that we will hear Him.
— William McGill
The influence of prayer on the human mind and body ... can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy  greater intellectual vigor  moral stamina  and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human 1 relationships.
— Dr. Alexis Carrel
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.
— Dr. Alexis Carrel
Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied  it is the most potent instrument of action.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Today any successful and competent businessman will employ the latest and best-tested methods in production  distribution  and administration  and many are discovering that one of the greatest of all efficiency methods is prayer power.
— Norman Vincent Peale
One night alone in prayer might make us new men  changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth  from trembling to triumphing.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Every time we pray our horizon is altered  our attitude to things is altered  not sometimes but every time  and the amazing thing is that we don't pray more.
— Oswald Chambers
It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally  but of working wonders in a man's disposition.
— Oswald Chambers
Prayer may not change things for you  but it for sure changes you for things.
— Samuel M. Shoemaker
The main lesson about prayer is just this: Do it! Do it! Do it! You want to be taught to pray? My answer is: pray.
— John Laidlaw
Praying is learned by praying.
— L. A. T. van Dooren
The only way to pray is to pray  and the way to pray well is to pray much.
— Anonymous
The less I pray  the harder it gets  the more I pray  the better it goes.
— Martin Luther
Prayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve our time at it. Painstaking care  much thought  practice and labour are required to be a skillful tradesman in praying. Practice in this  as well as in all other trades  makes perfect.
— E. M. Bounds
If we are willing to spend hours on end to learn to play the piano  operate a computer  or fly an airplane  it is sheer nonsense for us to imagine that we can learn the high art of getting guidance through communion with the Lord without being willing to set aside time for it.
— Paul Rees
All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God  not a multitude of words heaped together.
— Stephen Charnock
Scream at God if that's the only thing that will get results.
— Brendan Francis
You need not cry very loud  he is nearer to us than we think.
— Brother Lawrence
Rejoice always  pray constantly  and in all circumstances give thanks.
— The Desert Fathers
God tells us to burden him with whatever burdens us.
— Anonymous
Do I want to pray or only to think about my human problems? Do I want to pray or simply kneel there contemplating my sorrow? Do I want to direct my prayer toward God or let it direct itself towards me?
— Hubert Van Zeller
O thou  by whom we come to God  The Life  the Truth  the Way  The path of prayer Thyself hast trod- Lord teach us how to pray.
— James Montgomery
Dealing in generalities is the death of prayer.
— J. H. Evans
Don't try to reach God with your understanding  that is impossible. Reach him in love  that is possible.
— Carlo Carretto
The right way to pray  then  is any way that allows us to communicate with God.
— Colleen Townsend Evans
Grant us grace  Almighty Father  so to pray as to deserve to be heard.
— Jane Austen
He prayeth well  who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best  who loveth best All things both great and small  For the dear God who loveth us  He made and loveth all.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Confess your faults one to another  and pray one for another  that ye may be healed. The effectual  fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
— Bible
He that will learn to pray  let him to sea.
— George Herbert
Incense is prayer That drives no bargain. Child  learn from incense How best to pray.
— Alfred Barrett
When we go to our meeting with God  we should go like a patient to his doctor  first to be thoroughly examined and afterwards to be treated for our ailment. Then something will happen when you pray.
— O. Hallesby
Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter of prayer  but a capacity for faith  the power of a thorough consecration  the ability of self-littleness  an absolute losing of one's self in God's glory and an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fullness of God.
— E. M. Bounds
We have to pray with our eyes on God  not on the difficulties.
— Oswald Chambers
If our petitions are in accordance with His will  and if we seek His glory in the asking  the answers will come in ways that will astonish us and fill our hearts with songs of thanksgiving.
— J. K. Maclean
Pray if thou canst with hope  but ever pray  though hope be weak or sick with long delay  pray in the darkness if there be no light  and if for any wish thou dare not pray  then pray to God to cast that wish away.
— Anonymous
Prayer can assume very different forms  from quiet  blessed contemplation of God  in which eye meets eye in restful meditation  to deep sighs or sudden exclamations of wonder  joy  gratitude or adoration.
— O. Hallesby
To pray is nothing more involved than to open the door  giving Jesus access to our needs and permitting Him to exercise His own power in dealing with them.
— O. Hallesby
He prays best who does not know that he is praying.
— Saint Anthony of Padua
When you cannot pray as you would  pray as you can.
— Edward M. Goulburn
If you can't pray as you want to  pray as you can. God knows what you mean.
— Vance Havner
Pray till you pray.
— D. M. Mclntyre
A day without prayer is a boast against God.
— Owen Carr
Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night.
— Thomas Fuller
I care not what black spiritual crisis we may come through or what delightful spiritual Canaan we may enter  no blessing of the Christian life becomes continually possessed unless we are men and women of regular  daily  unhurried  secret lingerings in prayer.
— J. Sidlow Baxter
In the morning  prayer is the key that opens to us the treasures of God's mercies and blessings  in the evening  it is the key that shuts us up under His protection and safeguard.
— Anonymous
Prayer is a kind of calling home every day. And there can come to you a serenity  a feeling of at-homeness in God's universe  a peace that the world can neither give nor disturb  a fresh courage  a new insight  a holy boldness that you'll never  never get any other way.
— Earl G. Hunt
O God  if in the day of battle I forget Thee  do not Thou forget me.
— Anonymous
Seven days without prayer makes one weak.
— Allen E. Bartlett
Lord  you know how busy I must be this day. If I forget you  do not you forget me.
— Jacob Astley
We read of preaching the Word out of season  but we do not read of praying out of season  for that is never out of season.
— Matthew Henry
Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at night.
— Philip Henry
Evening  and morning  and at noon  will I pray.
— Bible
Prayer should be the means by which I  at all times  receive all that I need  and  for this reason  be my daily refuge  my daily consolation  my daily joy  my source of rich and inexhaustible joy in life.
— Saint John Chrysostom
As impossible as it is for us to take a breath in the morning large enough to last us until noon  so impossible is it to pray in the morning in such a way as to last us until noon. Let your prayers ascend to Him constantly  audibly or silently  as circumstances throughout the day permit.
— O. Hallesby
To God your every Want In instant Prayer display  Pray always  Pray  and never faint  Pray  without ceasing  Pray.
— Charles Wesley
Constant prayer quickly straightens out our thoughts.
— The Desert Fathers
Teach us to pray often  that we may pray oftener.
— Jeremy Taylor
Abiding fully means praying much.
— Andrew Murray
Pray  always pray  beneath sins heaviest load  Prayer claims the blood from Jesus' side that flowed. Pray  always pray  though weary  faint  and lone  Prayer nestles by the Father's sheltering throne.
— A. B. Simpson
When the knees are not often bent  the feet soon slide.
— Anonymous
The more praying there is in the world  the better the world will be  the mightier the forces against evil everywhere.
— E. M. Bounds
Those who always pray are necessary to those who never pray.
— Victor Hugo
Tomorrow I plan to work  work  from early until late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.
— Martin Luther
Begin to realize more and more that prayer is the most important thing you do. You can use your time to no better advantage than to pray whenever you have an opportunity to do so  either alone or with others  while at work  while at rest  or while walking down the street. Anywhere!
— O. Hallesby
It is impossible to conduct your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
— Oswald Chambers
Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That is a great mistake  for praying is a saving of time.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Prayer time must be kept up as duly as meal-time.
— Matthew Henry
The minds of people are so cluttered up with every-day living these days that they don't  or won't  take time out for a little prayer-for mental cleansing  just as they take a bath for physical  outer cleansing. Both are necessary.
— Jo Ann Carlson
The Christian will find his parentheses for prayer even in the busiest hours of life.
— Richard Cecil
Time spent in prayer is never wasted.
— Francois de Fenelon
No time is so well spent in every day as that which we spend upon our knees.
— J. C. Ryle
Other duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd our prayer. "Choked to death" would be the coroner's verdict in many cases of dead praying if an inquest could be secured on this dire  spiritual calamity.
— E. M. Bounds
When it becomes clear to us that prayer is a part of our daily program of work  it will also become clear to us that we must arrange our daily program in such a way that there is time also for this work  just as we set aside time for other necessary things  such as eating and dressing.
— O. Hallesby
I have to hurry all day to get time to pray.
— Martin Luther
While others still slept  He went away to pray and to renew His strength in communion with His Father. He had need of this  otherwise He would not have been ready for the new day. The holy work of delivering souls demands constant renewal through fellowship with God.
— Andrew Murray
And in the morning  rising up a great while before day  he went out  and departed into a solitary place  and there prayed.
— Bible
Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in  you will work on a wrong level all day  but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret  and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.
— Oswald Chambers
It is by no haphazard chance that in every age men have risen early to pray. The first thing that marks decline in spiritual life is our relationship to the early morning.
— Oswald Chambers
The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The morning prayer determines the day.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning.
— Bible
In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee.
— Bible
If you have ever prayed in the dawn you will ask yourself why you were so foolish as not to do it always: it is difficult to get into communion with God in the midst of the hurly-burly of the day.
— Oswald Chambers
I feel it is far better to begin with God  to see His face first  to get my soul near Him before it is near another. In general it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else.
— E. M. Bounds
Lord  if any have to die this day  let it be me  for I am ready.
— Billy Bray
Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrough to God. Decisions  demanded by work  become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of men  but only in the sight of God. He wants to give us today the power which we need for our work.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The man who says his prayers in the evening is a captain posting his sentries. After that  he can sleep.
— Charles Baudelaire
I did this night promise my wife never to go to bed without calling upon God  upon my knees  in prayer.
— Samuel Pepys
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.
— Abraham Lincoln
There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.
— Erica Jong
Ordinarily when a man in difficulty turns to prayer  he has already tried every other means of escape.
— Austin O'Malley
When life knocks you to your knees  and it will  why  get up! If it knocks you to your knees again  as it will  well  isn't that the best position from which to pray?
— Ethel Barrymore
Now I am past all comforts here  but prayer.
— William Shakespeare
Prayer begins where human capacity ends.
— Marian Anderson
"Oh  God  if I were sure I were to die tonight I would repent at once." It is the commonest prayer in all languages.
— Sir James M. Barrie
If you are swept off your feet  it's time to get on your knees.
— Fred Beck
When I am weak  then am I strong.
— Bible
To pray is to open the door unto Jesus and admit Him into your distress. Your helplessness is the very thing which opens wide the door unto Him and gives Him access to all your needs.
— O. Hallesby
Listen  my friend! Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness  and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness.
— O. Hallesby
Helplessness is unquestionably the first and the surest indication of a praying heart. ... Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless can truly pray.
— O. Hallesby
When we pray for the Spirit's help ... we will simply fall down at the Lord's feet in our weakness. There we will find the victory and power that comes from His love.
— Andrew Murray
The more helpless you are  the better you are fitted to pray  and the more answers to prayer you will experience.
— O. Hallesby
Being in an agony  he prayed more earnestly.
— Bible
When a man is at his wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray  it is the only way he can get in touch with Reality.
— Oswald Chambers
When my soul fainted within me ... my prayer came in unto thee.
— Bible
He will regard the prayer of the destitute.
— Bible
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
— Bible
God listens to our weeping when the occasion itself is beyond our knowledge  but still within His love and power.
— Daniel A. Poling
Trouble and prayer are closely related. . . . Trouble often drives men to God in prayer  while prayer is but the voice of men in trouble.
— E. M. Bounds
An agnostic found himself in trouble  and a friend suggested he pray. "How can I pray when I do not know whether or not there is a God?" he asked. "If you are lost in the forest " his friend replied  "you do not wait until you find someone before shouting for help."
— Dan Plies
Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill  they come only when they hurt.
— B. Graham Dienert
You pray in your distress and in your need  would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
— Kahlil Gibran
Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.
— Satchel Paige
He who cannot pray when the sun is shining will not know how to pray when the clouds come.
— Anonymous
All those football coaches who hold dressing-room prayers before a game should be forced to attend church once a week.
— Duffy Daugherty
Prayer is not merely an occasional impulse to which we respond when we are in trouble: prayer is a life attitude.
— Walter A. Mueller
Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying  shut the door  and talk to God in secret.
— Oswald Chambers
Nowhere can we get to know the holiness of God  and come under His influence and power  except in the inner chamber. It has been well said: "No man can expect to make progress in holiness who is not often and long alone with God."
— Andrew Murray
Private place and plenty of time are the life of prayer.
— E. M. Bounds
But thou  when thou prayest  enter into thy room  and when thou hast shut thy door  pray to thy Father who is in secret  and thy Father who seeth in secret  shall reward thee openly.
— Bible
When you enter your secret chamber  take plenty of time before you begin to speak. Let quietude wield its influence upon you. Let the fact that you are alone assert itself. Give your soul time to get released from the many outward things. Give God time to play the prelude to prayer for the benefit of your distracted soul.
— O. Hallesby
There is no need to get to a place of prayer  pray wherever you are.
— Oswald Chambers
Of all things  guard against neglecting God in the secret place of prayer.
— William Wilberforce
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.
— Herbert Lockyer
Without the incense of heartfelt prayer  even the greatest of cathedrals is dead.
— Anonymous
Follow your own way of speaking to our Lord sincerely  lovingly  confidently  and simply  as your heart dictates.
— Jane Frances de Chantal
Sincerity is the prime requisite in every approach to the God who ... hates all hypocrisy  falsehood  and deceit.
— Geoffrey B. Wilson
The Lord's Prayer may be committed to memory quickly  but it is slowly learnt by heart.
— Frederick Denison Maurice
God hears no more than the heart speaks  and if the heart be dumb  God will certainly be dumb.
— Thomas B. Brooks
Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie  and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.
— Mark Twain
Prayers not felt by us are seldom heard by God.
— Philip Henry
Many pray with their lips for that for which their hearts have no desire.
— Jonathan Edwards
God may turn his ears from prattling prayers  or preaching prayers  but never from penitent  believing prayers.
— William S. Plumer
Two went to pray? Better to say one went to brag  the other to pray.
— Richard Crashaw
I pray like a robber asking alms at the door of a farmhouse to which he is ready to set fire.
— Leon Bloy
God's ear lies close to the believer's lip.
— Anonymous
Heaven is never deaf but when man's heart is dumb.
— Francis Quarles
Do not pray by heart  but with the heart.
— Anonymous
Our prayers must mean something to us if they are to mean anything to God.
— Maltbie D. Babcock
Our prayers must spring from the indigenous soil of our own personal confrontation with the Spirit of God in our lives.
— Malcolm Boyd
God eagerly awaits the chance to bless the person whose heart is turned toward Him.
— Anonymous
We must lay before him what is in us  not what ought to be in us.
— C. S. Lewis
In prayer the lips ne'er act the winning part  without the sweet concurrence of the heart.
— Robert Herrick
The cry of a young raven is nothing but the natural cry of a creature  but your cry  if it be sincere  is the result of a work of grace in your heart.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Every time you pray  if your prayer is sincere  there will be new feeling and new meaning in it which will give you fresh courage  and you will understand that prayer is an education.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
When you pray  rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.
— John Bunyan
He offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.
— Herman Melville
Prayer is a serious thing. We may be taken at our words.
— Dwight L. Moody
Prayer at its best is the expression of the total life  for all things else being equal  our prayers are only as powerful as our lives
— A. W. Tozer
And help us  this and every day  to live more nearly as we pray.
— John Keble
My words fly up  my thoughts remain below  Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
— William Shakespeare
She heard the snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer. She had to cease to pray.
— George Meredith
None can pray well but he that lives well.
— Thomas Fuller
Straight praying is never born of crooked conduct.
— E. M. Bounds
A wicked man in prayer may lift up his hands  but he cannot lift up his face.
— Thomas Watson
He who prays as he ought  will endeavor to live as he prays.
— John Owen
We pray pious blether  our will is not in it  and then we say God does not answer  we never asked Him for anything. Asking means that our wills are in what we ask.
— Oswald Chambers
It is good for us to keep some account of our prayers  that we may not unsay them in our practice.
— Matthew Henry
Praying which does not result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the whole office and virtue of praying if it does not rectify conduct. It is in the very nature of things that we must quit praying  or quit bad conduct.
— E. M. Bounds
Our praying  to be strong  must be buttressed by holy living. The life of faith perfects the prayer of faith.
— E. M. Bounds
Search me  O God  and know my heart: try me  and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me.
— Bible
When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ  then we pray correctly.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
We cannot talk to God strongly when we have not lived for God strongly. The closet cannot be made holy to God when the life has not been holy to God.
— E. M. Bounds
If we would have God in the closet  God must have us out of the closet. There is no way of praying to God  but by living to God.
— E. M. Bounds
Men would pray better if they lived better. They would get more from God if they lived more obedient and well-pleasing to God.
— E. M. Bounds
Be not hot in prayer and cold in praise.
— Anonymous
Though smooth be the heartless prayer  no ear in heaven will mind it  And the finest phrase falls dead  if there is no feeling behind it.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire.
— James Montgomery