“But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.”

Lecture XIX, "Other Characteristics"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

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William James246

American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910

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“By prayer I mean not merely prayer from the mouth, but of the mind and heart, of all the powers of the soul and senses of the body. This is the prayer prayed by the soul who wills and desires to find this divine light, studying, meditating and reading without cease in the Book and the more-than-a-book of Life. This Book of Life is the entire life of Christ while he lived as a mortal on earth.”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

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“150. Just as sight is the most worthy of the sense, so also is prayer the most divine of the virtues.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Chapters on Prayer

“Above all practice the presence of God in prayer. Divine Mind has given us all potentialities, in prayer we recognize it as the source of these, and with a right understanding of our relation to it our soul grows great with infinite capacity, all potentiality. "With God all things are possible."”

Charles Fillmore (1854–1948) American mystic

"All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine."
Source: Teach Us to Pray with Cora Fillmore (1941)

“A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

“Most prayers have nothing in common with petitions.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

In Search of the Miraculous (1949)
Context: When we speak of prayer or of the results of prayer we always imply only one kind of prayer — petition, or we think that petition can be united with all other kinds of prayers.… Most prayers have nothing in common with petitions. I speak of ancient prayers; many of them are much older than Christianity. These prayers are, so to speak, recapitulations; by repeating them aloud or to himself a man endeavors to experience what is in them, their whole content, with his mind and his feeling.

“We hear from the saints who experienced prayer power that prayer gives wings to humans lifting them up so they can fly.”

Matta El Meskeen (1919–2006) Egyptian monk

Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way

“If all the prayers have been answered successfully, then a madman's prayer can easily destroy the entire universe in a flash of a second.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“They who have steeped their souls in prayer
Can every anguish calmly bear.”

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (1809–1885) British politician and poet

The Sayings of Rabia. iv.

“Yes. God makes the world using mathematics, and he has given us minds that can see it. We can discover the laws He used! It is a most beautiful thing to witness and understand! It's prayer. It's more than prayer, it's a sacrament, a kind of communion. An apprehension—an epiphany—it's seeing God, while still in this body and in this world! How blessed we are, to be able to experience God like that! Who would not devote their time to understanding more, to seeing deeper in God's manner of thinking about these things?”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Galileo's Dream

As quoted in John Clute, "Scores" http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100118/clute-c.shtml, in Strange Horizons (18 January 2010) <br class="br">Galileo's Dream (2009)

“To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain the sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time?”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Holy Dimension", p. 341
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

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