Quotes About Prayer

Prayer is the most direct expression of the religious consciousness.

Prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us.

God didn't come down and kill us. I don't see God shooting children and priests. None of us met God beating up Jews and shoving them into railroad cars. This is men doing the murdering. Talk to men about their evil, kill the evil men, but pray to God. You can't expect God to come down and do our living for us. We have to do that ourselves.

But he also knew praying was more to steady the person than inform the deity.

I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country," Clara said. "I will pray you find a way to be useful," Gamache completed the quote. Reine-Marie dropped her eyes to her hands and saw the paper napkin twisted and shredded there. Clara nodded slowly. "I think you might be right. Peter went to Paris not to find a new artistic voice. It was simpler than that. He wanted to find a way to be useful.

Myrna...prayed God wasn't one of of the men or women she'd betrayed by signing their release. Myrna's weight wasn't all carried around her middle.

I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country," Clara said. "I will pray you find a way to be useful," Gamache completed the quote.

Everyday for Lucy's entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy's prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen. But no more. Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn't the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.

Then she said a little prayer of thanks to the gods that give grace. The grace to cry and the grace to watch.

Were you praying?' Lemieux was embarrassed to ask. Prayer, in his generation, was worse than rape, worse than sodomy, worse than failure. He felt he'd just deeply insulted the chief.

B'ezrat hashem,

I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country," he whispered. "I will pray you find a way to be useful.

Greek for 'breath.' The monks who first wrote down the chants believed that the deeper we breathe the more we draw God into ourselves. And there's no deeper breath than when we're singing. Have you ever noticed that the deeper you breathe, the calmer you get?" the monk asked.

Dear gods, Pa is a very devout Buddhist. Please help my Pa return home. He is not mean and does not like to hurt other people. Help him return and I will do anything you say. I will devote my entire life to you. I will believe you always. If you cannot bring Pa home to us, please make sure they don't hurt him, or please make sure Pa dies a quick death.

Lord, to the degree I don't want to do this, bless me.

Anytime you think you hate somebody, what you do is pray for them. Try it, you'll see.

and this is not the time I think to ask who is allowed to be american america all of us gathered under one flag praying together safely warmed by the single love of the many tongued God

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

From heresy, frenzy and jealousy, good Lord deliver me.

Faith in the power of prayer … is … faith in miraculous power; and faith in miracles is … the essence of faith in general. … [F]aith is nothing else than confidence in the reality of the subjective in opposition to the limitations or laws of Nature and reason, … The specific object of faith, therefore, is miracle; … To faith nothing is impossible, and miracle only gives actuality to this omnipotence of faith[.]

The notion that the fulfilment of prayer has been determined from eternity, that it was originally included in the plan of creation, is the empty, absurd fiction of a mechanical mode of thought, which is in absolute contradiction with the nature of religion. Whether God decides on the fulfilment of my prayer now, on the immediate occasion of my offering it, or whether he did decide on it long ago, is the same thing.

T]he religious man … believes in a real sympathy of a divine being in his sufferings and wants, believes that the will of God can be determined by … prayer, … The … religious man unhesitatingly assigns his own feelings to God; God is to him a heart susceptible to all that is human.

P]rayer is the … certainty that the power of the heart is greater than the power of Nature, … Prayer is the absolute relation of the human heart to itself, to its own nature; in prayer, man forgets that there exists a limit to his wishes, and is happy in this forgetfulness.

There was a time when I prayed to saints. What I liked about them were their humble beginnings: they were human, once, and so you knew that they just got it in a way Jesus never would. They understood what it meant to have your hopes dashed or your promises broken or you feelings hurt.