"Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me."
— C.S. Lewis

"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Let us never forget to pray. God lives. He is near. He is real. He is not only aware of us but cares for us. He is our Father. He is accessible to all who will seek Him."
— Gordon B. Hinckley (Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes)

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."
— Søren Kierkegaard

"If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough."
— Oprah Winfrey

"Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine."
— Kathleen Norris

"Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden."
— Corrie Ten Boom

"I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer."
— Martin Luther

"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
— Francis Of Assisi

"Give me the Love that leads the way
The Faith that nothing can dismay
The Hope no disappointments tire
The Passion that'll burn like fire
Let me not sink to be a clod
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God"
— Amy Carmichael

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. "
— John Bunyan

"God will answer you prayers better than you think. Of course, one will not always get exactly what he has asked for....We all have sorrows and disappointments, but one must never forget that, if commended to God, they will issue in good....His own solution is far better than any we could conceive."
— Fanny J. Crosby

"If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I'd look up into the sky - up - up - up- into that lovely blue sky that looks like there's no end to it's blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer."
— L.M. Montgomery

"Get down on your knees and thank God you're still on your feet."
— Irish proverb

"You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him."
— Eric Clapton

"The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognise this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Your prayer for someone may or may not change them, but it always changes YOU."
— Craig Groeschel

"Go where your best prayers take you."
— Frederick Buechner

"Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him."
— Hudson Taylor

"May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow.
May the soft winds freshen your spirit.
May the sunshine brighten your heart.
May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you,
and may God enfold you in the mantle of His love."
— Irish Blessing

"Prayerlessness is an insult to God. Every prayerless day is a statement by a helpless individual, 'I do not need God today.'"
— Ben Jennings

"When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why."
— Bill Wilson

"When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal."
— Mahatma Gandhi (GANDHI: An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth)

"He who kneels the most, stands the best."
— D.L. Moody

"Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused."
— CH Spurgeon

"O heavenly Father,
protect and bless all things
that have breath: guard them
from all evil and let them sleep in peace."
— Albert Schweitzer

"Prayer's a very tricky business."
— Dodie Smith (I Capture the Castle)

"We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!"
— Thomas Merton

"'Astraeus,' Aven called out. 'God of the four winds and friend to sailors. Say a little prayer when you look at him, so he will give us what we need to keep our course.'

'A little prayer?' said Jack. 'To a constellation?'

'To what it represents,' said Aven.

'But I don't believe in what it represents,' said Jack.

'Prayers aren't for the deity,' said Aven. 'They're for you, to recommit yourself to what you believe.'

'Can't you do that without praying to a dead Greek god?'

'Sure,' said Aven. 'But how often would anyone do that, if not in prayer?'"
— James A. Owen (Here, There Be Dragons)

"If I am right, Thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O, teach my heart
To find that better way!"
— Alexander Pope

"God help us to live slowly:
To move simply:
To look softly:
To allow emptiness:
To let the heart create for us.
Amen."
— Michael Leunig

"Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess:

Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.

Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends.

Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.

I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces.

Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so.

Amen"
— Margot Benary-Isbert

"Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit."
— Joan Chittister (In a High Spiritual Season)

"Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer."
— J.C. Ryle (Call to Prayer)

" Tester, spare us this day from your Tests.
Please, Tester, don't let any of the airlocks blow out. Let the environmental system, old as it is, shudder though another day of labor. Please, Tester, let the water recyclers make it through a few more days, even though Engineering says they're just about shot. Tester, please see fit to keep Fusion Four from terminally overloading and blowing us all into Your arms; we love you but we want to see our families again some day.
Please, Tester, if you could maybe see clear to keeping the compensator on-line? If we don't have the compensator, we can't make our acceleration back home, and we'll drift in space, a derelict, until the systems begin to fail and the power runs out and the air gets foul and we all start eating each other…"
— John Ringo and Victor Mitchell (The Service of the Sword)