It is in vain to expect our prayers to be heard, if we do not strive as well as pray.
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying ... The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.
The man who says his evening prayer is a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.
I have had prayers answered - most strangely so sometimes - but I think our heavenly Father's loving-kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me.
I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.
I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.
Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
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.
There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
Who cared if there was really any Being to pray to? What mattered was the sense of giving thanks and praise, the feeling of a humble and grateful heart.
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
