This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Prayer is essentially about making the heart strong so that fear cannot penetrate there." - Matthew Fox
"The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is." - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
"A good deed is the best prayer." - Mexican Proverbs
"The word “prayer” is applied to at least four distinct procedures - petition, intercession, adoration, contemplation. Petition is the asking of something for ourselves. Intercession is the asking of something for other people. Adoration is the use of intellect, feeling, will and imagination in making acts of devotion directed towards God in his personal aspect or as incarnated in human form. Contemplation is that condition of alert passivity, in which the soul lays itself open to the divine ground within and without, the immanent and transcendent Godhead." - Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
"The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace." - Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
"At the time of prayer, clear all worldly matters out of your heart; prepare your heart before God, blessed be He, purify your senses, and consider your words before you allow them to leave your mouth." - Nahmanides, aka Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym RaMBaN NULL
"Prayer is always answered in one of three ways: no, yes, and wait awhile." - Norman Vincent Peale
"There are three principal ways to get what we need: by work, by thought, and by prayer." - Norman Vincent Peale
"Remember, the first road to God is prayer, the second is joy." - Paulo Coelho
"Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth." - Philip James Bailey
"If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple or that practiseth not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Is not prayer also a study of truth – a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought, shall at the same time kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When we preach unworthily it is not always in vain. There is poetic truth concealed in all the commonplaces of prayer and of sermons, and though foolishly spoken, they may be wisely heard." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
"When a man has done all he can do, still there is a might, mysterious agency over which he needs influence to secure success. The only way he can reach it is by prayer." - Russell H. Conwell, fully Russell Herman Conwell
"Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God." - Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
"The prayer of the monk is not perfect until he no longer recognizes himself or the fact that he is praying." - Saint Anthony, aka Anthony the Great or Antony the Great, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Anthony of Thebes, Abba Antonius and Father of All Monks
"For no reason whatever should one judge the actions of creatures or their ;motives. Even when we see that it is an actual sin, we ought not to pass judgment on it, but have holy and sincere compassion and offer it up to God with humble and devout prayer." - Saint Catherine of Siena NULL
"He who prays fervently knows not whether he prays or not, for he is not thinking of prayer which he makes, but of God, to whom he makes it." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL
"Prayer is called mystical, because of the hidden nature of the conversation: God and the individual speak heart to heart, and what passes between them can be shared with no one else." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL
"If the heart does not know what the lips utter, it is no prayer." - Sefer Hasidism
"We can prove the reality of prayer only by praying." - Sherwood Eddy, born George Sherwood Eddy
"Beethoven composed his Mass in De major while Napoleon was advancing on Vienna; when he came to the last chorus – “Dona nobis pacem” – he wrote above his score, “Prayer for inward and outward peace.” TI is seldom that the nature of man’s utmost need is presented to him in a manner so vivid; but at all times it is true that the need of man is for inward and outward peace." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
"He who recites his prayer aloud, in order that it might be heard, belongs to those of little faith." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"To cry over the past is a vain prayer." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"He who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"Prayer is the service of the heart." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"What is service of the heart? This is prayer." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"The voice is not prayer... It behooves us to pray silently." - Zohar or The Zohar, literally "Splendor or Radiance" NULL
"Prayer is and remains always a native and deepest impulse of the soul of man." - Thomas Carlyle
"Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night." - Thomas Fuller
"No matter how burning the thirst, we must always take the time to honor the gift of water, for it is sacred. It is a gift of life. It is in the times of dire thirst, when the body craves the water the most, we should especially take the time for prayer and thanksgiving... If you do not honor and cherish the waters, then how can you ever expect others to?" - Tom Brown, Jr.
"Prayer does not change God, it changes us. It deepens insight, increases intuitive perceptions, expands consciousness. It transforms personality. Prayer opens doors to let in God and let out self, to let in love and let out hate, to let in faith and let out fear. Prayer helps us to find ourselves. By praying not to get more, but to be more, we discover a way to serve, a purpose for which to live, a dream to make real... Prayer is thinking and thanking. It is thinking of our many blessings and accepting them with a thankful spirit." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"Prayer is a cup held high to be filled. It is an inward quest for inspiration. It is mentally reaching out of the great thoughts and illuminations of man in his continual search for meaning." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"The key to the art of prayer is thought. As we think so we pray. The highest level of prayer is to think God’s thoughts after Him, to attune our lives to love, hope, faith, justice, kindness; to become open channels for the goodness of God. Prayer is quiet meditation about eternal values. It is the mind adventuring in the universe. Prayer moves with the instantaneous speed of thought, through infinite space, to the four corners of the earth, to the depth of the human heart, to the mountaintop of inspiration." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"You become spiritually rich when you discover the riches of the kingdom within: when you have a consciousness of the oneness of all life; when you experience kinship with nature; when you are open to the buoyant spiritual life of being in tune with the Infinite; when you know the power of meditation and prayer." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"Worship, or prayer, is the especial sphere of the will in religion." - William Ernest Hocking
"The actual technique of prayer - the kneeling, the hiding of the face in the hands, the uttering of words in an audible voice, the words being addressed into empty space - helps by its mere dissimilarity from ordinary actions of everyday life to put one into a devout frame of mind." - Aldous Leonard Huxley
"Let your prayer be a window to heaven." - Baal Shem Tov, given name Yisroel ben Eliezer
"A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer." - Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
"When prayer removes distrust and doubt and enters the field of mental certainty, it becomes faith; and the universe is built on faith." - Ernest Shurtleff Holmes
"In the conservative view human communication and interaction is limited to our sensory channels ... [but] we are linked by more subtle and encompassing connections as well...The connections that bind 'my' consciousness to the consciousness of others... are rediscovered today in controlled experiments with thought and image transference, and the effect of the mind of one individual on the body of another... Native tribes seem able to communicate beyond the range of eye and ear... In the laboratory also, modern people display a capacity for spontaneous transference of impressions and images, especially when they are emotionally close to each other... transpersonal contact includes the ability to transmit thoughts and images, and ... it is given to many if not all people... this is the finding of recent experiments... Reliable evidence is becoming available that the conscious mind of one person can produce repeatable and measurable effects on the body of another... [also] Intercessory prayer and spiritual healing, together with other mind- and intention-based experiments and practices, yield impressive evidence regarding the effectiveness of telepathic and telesomatic information- and energy-transmission. The pertinent practices produce real and measurable effects on people, and they are more and more widespread. But mainstream science has no explanation for them. Could it be that our consciousness is linked with other consciousnesses through an interconnecting Akashic Field, much as galaxies are linked in the cosmos, quanta in the microworld, and organisms in the world of the living?" - Ervin László
"All through my life the counsel to depend on prayer has been prized above almost any other advice I have ever received. It has become an integral part of me, an anchor, a constant source of strength and the basis of my knowledge of things divine." - Ezra Taft Benson
"Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man, and this immediately, though, of course, only in the case of complete and permanent humility. It can do this because it is the true language of prayer, at once adoration and the firmest of unions. The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving." - Franz Kafka
"Be not forgetful of prayer. 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 Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
"This is the spirit of prayer--sincere, humble, believing, submissive. Other prayer than this the Bible does not require--God will not accept." - Gardiner Spring