Quotes about prayer
page 7

“I think that the court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how 'official religion' is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of the nation.”

Potter Stewart (1915–1985) American judge

Dissenting, Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).

Children, School, Religion, Thinking

“The hour of emancipation is advancing... this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Edward Coles (25 August 1814)
1810s

“This was not long desired before it was realized. The Lord, who is rich in mercy, and ever willing to answer the consistent prayer of the humble, after we had called upon Him in a fervent manner, aside from the abodes of men, condescended to manifest to us His will. On a sudden, as from the midst of eternity, the voice of the Redeemer spake peace to us, while the veil was parted and the angel of God came down clothed with glory, and delivered the anxiously looked for message, and the keys of the Gospel of repentance. What joy! what wonder! what amazement! While the world was racked and distracted—while millions were groping as the blind for the wall, and while all men were resting upon uncertainty, as a general mass, our eyes beheld, our ears heard, as in the ‘blaze of day’; yes, more—above the glitter of the May sunbeam, which then shed its brilliancy over the face of nature! Then his voice, though mild, pierced to the center, and his words, ‘I am thy fellow-servant,’ dispelled every fear. We listened, we gazed, we admired! ’Twas the voice of an angel from glory, ’twas a message from the Most High! And as we heard we rejoiced, while His love enkindled upon our souls, and we were wrapped in the vision of the Almighty! Where was room for doubt? Nowhere; uncertainty had fled, doubt had sunk no more to rise, while fiction and deception had fled forever!”

Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) American Mormon leader

Love, Men, God, World

“If your life is rushing in many directions at once, you are incapable of the kind of deep, unhurried prayer that is vital to the Christian walk.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Life

“Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still dont know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night.”

Jason Aldean (1977) American country music singer

Instagram post https://www.instagram.com/p/BZvRZnogBrI/ (2 October 2017)

Heart, Hurt, Night

“Prayer is a bridge from despair to hope.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Hope, Despair

“Prayer helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer and with a child who had fallen on tough times. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor and to be a man, it always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith. In a way (my life) all leads back to a little boy in Navan, my home town on the banks of the Boyne. Sometimes, it has been painted in melodramatic tones but it was a fantastic way to be brought up. The Catholicism and the Christian brothers, those are deep-rooted images and the foundation for a person of some acting skill, God has been good to me. My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer… I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith. But there is one thing that the people of Ireland know how to do and that is to survive. You have to keep your faith and stay optimistic.”

Pierce Brosnan (1953) Irish-American actor, film producer, and environmentalist

Pierce Brosnan talks about his deep Catholic faith http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/pierce-brosnan-talks-about-his-deep-catholic-faith-118983269-237736371 (March 31, 2011)

Life, God, People, Fear

“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

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, p. 302

Life, Books, Soul, Sense

“Whether you voted for him or not, whether you supported the new leaders of Congress or not, they're our president, they're our Congress, they need our prayers, they need our support.”

Bobby Jindal (1971) American politician; two-term Governor of Louisiana

"In Iowa stop, Jindal says GOP must offer solutions" http://web.archive.org/web/20111102015628/http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-jindal-iowa,0,532358.story, Chicago Tribune, November 22, 2008

Support

“A man came to Allah's Apostle and said, "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." He replied, "I do not find such a deed." Then he added, "Can you, while the Muslim fighter is in the battle-field, enter your mosque to perform prayers without cease and fast and never break your fast?" The man said, "But who can do that?" Abu- Huraira added, "The Mujahid (i. e. Muslim fighter) is rewarded even for the footsteps of his horse while it wanders about (for grazing) tied in a long rope."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated Abu Huraira, in Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44
Sunni Hadith

Horse

“Here is a list of some of the questions and their short answers (…) The interesting thing is to recognize how totally unavoidable they are, provided you place your confidence in science to provide the answers
Is there a God? No.
What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
Why am I here? Just dumb luck.
Does prayer work? Of course not.
Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?
Is there free will? Not a chance!
What happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.
What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them.
Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.
Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don't like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.
What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don't look for it; it will find you when you need it.
Does history have any meaning or purpose? It's full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

Love, Life, God, Feeling

“Before that kafir [Guru Arjun Deva] was executed this recluse [meaning himself] had seen in a dream that the reigning king had smashed the skull of idolatry. Indeed, he was a great idolater, and the leader of the idolaters, and the chief of unbelievers. May Allah blast him! The Holy Prophet who is the ruler of religion as well as the world, has cursed the idolaters as follows in some of his prayers – “O Allah, demean their society, create divisions in their ranks, destroy their homes, and get at them like the mighty one.”
It is required by religion [Islam] that jihad should be waged against the unbelievers, and that they should be dealt with harshly… It is obligatory on Muslims to acquaint the king of Islam with the evil customs of false religions… Maybe the king has no knowledge of these evil customs… Some Ulama of Islam should come forward, and proclaim the evils present in their (unbelievers’) ways… It will be no excuse on the Day of Judgment that they did not proclaim the tenets of the Shariat because they were not called upon (to do so)…”

Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624) Indian philosopher

Maktubat-i-Imam Rabbani translated into Urdu by Maulana Muhammad Sa’id Ahmad Naqshbandi, Deoband, 1988, Volume I, pp.435-36. This letter was written to Shaikh Farid.
From his letters

World, Religion, Dreams, Way

““Pray for those you send, shield them by prayer.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Six: Assault on the Nine. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1988, 294).

“Build it and they will come” is not a strategy; it’s a prayer.”

Steve Blank (1953) American businessman

Forbes "How To Test The Assumption That People Actually Want Your Product" https://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2016/06/14/how-to-test-the-assumption-that-people-actually-want-your-product/#420ab8f74217. June 14, 2016.

“I am an old man!… I’m given to meditation and prayer. I would enjoy sitting in a rocker, swallowing prescriptions, listening to soft music, and contemplating the things of the universe. But such activity offers no challenge and makes no contribution. I wish to be up and doing. I wish to face each day with resolution and purpose. I wish to use every waking hour to give encouragement, to bless those whose burdens are heavy, to build faith and strength of testimony.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Testimony, Ensign, May 1998, 69.

Faith, Music, Universe

“The priest confirmed it not, and my prayer was lost.”
Non ratus ore sacerdos, damnataeque preces.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book VI, Line 200 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

“While darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people, long after the authority to administer in holy things had been taken away, the Lord opened the heavens and sent forth his word for the salvation of Israel. In fulfillment of the sacred scripture, the everlasting gospel was proclaimed by the mighty angel (Moroni), who, clothed with the authority of his mission, gave glory to God in the highest. This gospel is the ‘stone taken from the mountain without hands.’ John the Baptist, holding the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood; Peter, James and John, holding the keys of the Melchizedek Priesthood, have also ministered for those who shall be heirs of salvation, and with these ministrations ordained men to the same priesthoods. These priesthoods, with their authority, are now, and must continue to be, in the body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Blessed is the elder who has received the same, and thrice blessed and holy is he who shall endure to the end. Accept assurances, dear brother, of the unfeigned prayer of him who, in connection with Joseph the Seer, was blessed with the above ministrations and who earnestly and devoutly hopes to meet you in the celestial glory.”

Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) American Mormon leader

Statement from Cowdery to Elder Samuel W. Richards, Oliver Cowdery’s Last Letter, Deseret News, (March 22, 1884).

Men, God, People, Hope

“Our prayers can be more than empty wishes, vain hopes or feeble aspirations – but only when they are prayed from faith-filled hearts.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Faith, Hope, Heart

“It is so very important to remember that, while all healing is of God, we must find the answer to the question, "Which is the most relevant way of cooperating with God in the case of this particular patient? It may be surgery, or medicine, or psychiatry, or prayer. Prayer is not relevant in many cases, save as an aid to the patient’s mental condition, and God is not going to make of prayer an easy magic, just because we have not used our human resources of money and men in wiser ways.””

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.224

Men, Money, God, Way

“Women of America! You can give and serve and pray. You can give self-denyingly. You can serve lovingly. You can pray conqueringly. The best example of self-denying liberality in the Bible is recorded of woman. The best example of loving service in the Bible is recorded of woman. The best example of conquering prayer in the Bible is recorded of woman. It was no great gift, no great service, no great prayer. The gift was a widow's mite. The service was the anointing of Jesus with a box of ointment. The prayer was a mother's prayer for a daughter possessed with a devil. But the gift and service and prayer were in self-denial and love and faith. And so in the sight of God they were of great price.”

Herrick Johnson (1832–1913) American clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 617.

Love, Women, God, Faith

“"The door is locked, Captain." "Then I'll break it down." "It is a shrine." "Then I'll say a prayer of forgiveness after I've knocked it down."”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Pedro Ferreira and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 13
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

Forgiveness

“Our lives are the only meaningful expression of what we believe and in Whom we believe. And the only real wealth, for any of us, lies in our faith. Why do I say this? Faith in a Divine Being, in the Almighty, is the great moving power that can change our lives. With it comes the only lasting comfort and peace of mind. God is our Eternal Father, and He lives. I don't understand the wonder of His majesty; I can't comprehend His glory. But I know that He is intensely interested in our welfare and involved in our lives, that I can speak with Him in prayer, and that He will hear and listen.”

Gordon B. Hinckley book Standing for Something

Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.

God, Peace, Faith, Understanding

“When I was a child, eight or ten years old, I made a solemn promise to God that, when I grew up, I would write him a hymn for the prayer-book. The vow has never been fulfilled. But I have painted a large number of pictures, and there must be more than thirty religious ones. I wonder if they will do instead.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

undated quotes

God, Books, Painting

“Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Building of the Ship

Source: The Building of the Ship (1849), Lines 396-399.

Fear, Faith, Hope, Tear

“Thank you all. I want you all to know; it can't go any louder. I want you all to know that America today, America today is on bended knee. In prayer for people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here. for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, I Can Hear You, the Rest of the World Hears You (September 2001)

People, Family, Loss

“The supreme task before the people of the United States today is the Americanizing and, above all, the Christianizing of the great cities of the country. …It calls for consecrated leadership and prayer of the intensest sort.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

"The Disciples of Christ and the City" World Call 1 (July, 1919)

People, Country

“I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness. I desire from the abyss of my own nothingness and vileness to cry unto God that He might cause me to do as I ought, and to be as I ought.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 331.

God, Lie, Feeling, Heart

“I reject unchecked subjectivism as the authority in religion. No one can suppose that the final authority in religion is what the individual happens to think is true, unless his decision is preceded by long meditation, the weighing of all the available evidence and prayer for guidance.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.58

Religion, Thinking, Decision

“Let us pray…Oh, uh, please don't feel like you can't participate if you're not Christian, because this is a prayer for all faiths…”

Bo Burnham (1990) American comedian, musician, and actor

Words, Words, Words (2010)

Faith, Feeling

“Furthermore, it must be mentioned that there are not petitional or intercessory prayers in Buddhism. However much we may pray to the Buddha we cannot be saved. The Buddha does not grant favors to those who pray to Him. Instead of petitional prayers there is meditation that leads to self-control, purification and enlightenment. Meditation is neither a silent reverie nor keeping the mind blank. It is an active striving. It serves as a tonic both to the heart and the mind. The Buddha not only speaks of the futility of offering prayers but also disparages a slave mentality. A Buddhist should not pray to be saved, but should rely on himself and win his freedom.”

Narada Maha Thera (1898–1983) Sri Lankan monk and missionary

Buddhism in a Nutshell

Freedom, Heart

“The Prophet said: Prayer in congregation is twenty-five levels better than a prayer offered on one’s own.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

Nasai hadith 840

“Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time — calling upon God.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

On responses to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as quoted in AANEWS #958 (14 September 2001)

God, People, Way, Nature

“We seek, and have, the support of the Church in what we do. At the head of the pilgrimage we carry La virgen de la Guadalupe because she is ours, all ours, Patroness of the Mexican people. We also carry the Sacred Cross and the Star of David because we are not sectarians, and because we ask the help and prayers of all religions.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

The Plan of Delano (1965)

People, Religion, Star, Support

“No longer dream that human prayer
The will of Fate can overbear.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 202

Fate, Dreams

“They [nine women in Hindu mythology] are Ahalya, Draupadi, Tara, Kunti, Mandodari, Sita, Savitri, Parvati, Damayanti, Maitreyi and Shakuntala. All of them were not held in the same degree of esteem and reverence. The first five women, known as pancakanya, may well be remembered in daily prayers but none of them is regarded as an ideal woman, at least not recommended by anyone for emulation by others.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Prabhati Mukherjee in: Hindu Women: Normative Models http://books.google.com/books?id=6ovdvq7mjpUC&pg=PA39, Orient Blackswan, 1 January 1994, p. 48

Women

“In 1195 when Raja Bhim was attacked by Aibak 20,000 slaves were captured, and 50,000 at Kalinjar in 1202. “The temples were converted into mosques,” writes Hasan Nizami, “and the voices of the summoners to prayer ascended to the highest heavens, and the very name of idolatry was annihilated.”… Farishtah specifically mentions that during the capture of Kalinjar “fifty thousand kaniz va ghulam, having suffered slavery, were rewarded with the honour of Islam.””

Qutb al-Din Aibak (1150–1210) Turkic peoples king of Northwest India

Thus enslavement resulted in conversion and conversion in accelerated growth of Muslim population.
Hasan Nizami, Taj-u-Maasir, E.D., II, 231. Farishtah, I, 62. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5

Suffering

“As a Jew who does not believe in God, but very strongly believes in Jewish peoplehood, the idea of a prayer or blessing does not resonate in a traditional sense. For me, a blessing is a statement of intention of purpose and an expression of gratitude.”

Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (1929–2013) Canadian-American businessman

http://blogs.forward.com/avraham-burg/tags/edgar-m-bronfman/

God, Idea, Sense, Gratitude

“You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. A god is near you, with you, and in you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: there sits a holy spirit within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our a guardian.”
Facis rem optimam et tibi salutarem, si, ut scribis, perseveras ire ad bonam mentem, quam stultum est optare, cum possis a te impetrare. Non sunt ad caelum elevandae inarms nee exorandus aedituus, ut nos ad aurem simulacri, quasi magis exaudiri possimus, admittat; Prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est. Ita dico, Lucili: sacer intra nos spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos...

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLI: On the god within us

God, Way, Understanding, Effort

“To love another is something
like prayer and it can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"Admonitions to a Special Person" (1974) from Last Poems frameless QOTD 2007·11·09 Sound file
Poems 1971-1973 (1981)

Love

“If a person is unwilling to make a decisive resolution, if he wants to cheat God of the heart’s daring venture in which a person ventures way out and loses sight of all shrewdness and probability, indeed, takes leave of his senses or at least all his worldly mode of thinking, if instead of beginning with one step he almost craftily seeks to find out something, to have the infinite certainty changed into a finite certainty, then this discourse will not be able to benefit him. There is an upside-downness that wants to reap before it sows; there is a cowardliness that wants to have certainty before it begins. There is a hypersensitivity so copious in words that it continually shrinks from acting; but what would it avail a person if, double-minded and fork-tongued he wanted to dupe God, trap him in probability, but refused to understand the improbable, that one must lose everything in order to gain everything, and understand it so honestly that, in the most crucial moment, when his soul is already shuddering at the risk, he does not again leap to his own aid with the explanation that he has not yet fully made a resolution but merely wanted to feel his way. Therefore, all discussion of struggling with God in prayer, of the actual loss (since if pain of annihilation is not actually suffered, then the sufferer is not yet out upon the deep, and his scream is not the scream of danger but in the face of danger) and the figurative victory cannot have the purpose of persuading anyone or of converting the situation into a task for secular appraisal and changing God’s gift of grace to the venture into temporal small change for the timorous. It really would not help a person if the speaker, by his oratorical artistry, led him to jump into a half hour’s resolution, by the ardor of conviction started a fire in him so that he would blaze in a momentary good intention without being able to sustain a resolution or to nourish an intention as soon as the speaker stopped talking.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong, One Who Prays Aright Struggles In Prayer and is Victorious-In That God is Victorious p. 380-381
1840s, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

God, Pain, Way, Feeling

“Speak straight and clear! I only hear that manly prayer
which like a huge fist breaks my head against the stones.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Odysseus, Book VIII, line 530
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)

“Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna

“(On the Day of Judgment, a group would be seen in the most excellent and honourable of states. They would be asked if they were of the Angels or of the Prophets. In reply they would state): "We are‑neither Angels nor Prophets but of the indigent ones from the ummah of Muhammad (S. A. W.)". They would then be asked: "How then did you achieve this lofty and honourable status?" They would reply: "We did not perform very many good deeds nor did we pass all the days in a state of fasting or all the nights in a state of worship but yes, we used to offer our (daily) prayers (regularly) and whenever we used to hear the mention of Muhammad (S. A. W.), tears would roll down our cheeks".”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Mustadrak al‑Wasail, vol 10, pg. 318
Shi'ite Hadith

Angels, Tear, Night

“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

Sense

“Developing prayer fitness is similar to developing physical fitness: we must follow a pattern in order to stay balanced.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

“After a considerable walk through the forest, where I became acquainted with several of the little lakes I am so fond of, I came to Hestehaven and Lake Carl. Here is one of the most beautiful regions I have ever seen. The countryside is somewhat isolated and slopes steeply down to the lake, but with the beech forests growing on either side, it is not barren. A growth of rushes forms the background and the lake itself the foreground; a fairly large part of the lake is clear, but a still larger part is overgrown with the large green leaves of the waterlily, under which the fish seemingly try to hide but now and then peek out and flounder about on the surface in order to bathe in sunshine. The land rises on the opposite side, a great beech forest, and in the morning light the lighted areas make a marvelous contrast to the shadowed areas. The church bells call to prayer, but not in a temple made by human hands. If the birds do not need to be reminded to praise God, then ought men not be moved to prayer outside of the church, in the true house of God, where heaven's arch forms the ceiling of the church, where the roar of the storm and the light breezes take the place of the organ's bass and treble, where the singing of the birds make up the congregational hymns of praise, where echo does not repeat the pastor's voice as in the arch of the stone church, but where everything resolves itself in an endless antiphony — Hillerød, July 25, 1835”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Men, God, Beauty, Bird

“Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Whoever believes in Allah and His Apostle, offer prayer perfectly and fasts the month of Ramadan, will rightfully be granted Paradise by Allah, no matter whether he fights in Allah's Cause or remains in the land where he is born." The people said, "O Allah's Apostle! Shall we acquaint the people with the is good news?" He said, "Paradise has one-hundred grades which Allah has reserved for the Mujahidin who fight in His Cause, and the distance between each of two grades is like the distance between the Heaven and the Earth. So, when you ask Allah (for something), ask for Al-firdaus which is the best and highest part of Paradise." (i. e. The sub-narrator added, "I think the Prophet also said, 'Above it (i. e. Al-Firdaus) is the Throne of Beneficent (i. e. Allah), and from it originate the rivers of Paradise."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunni Hadith

People, Thinking, Fight, Parting

“To his complete astonishment, he later found himself offering up a stumbling prayer that the dog would be protected. It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. But, even praying, he felt a twinge of self-reproach, and knew he might start mocking his own prayer at any second.
Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog.”

Richard Matheson book I Am Legend

Source: I Am Legend (1954), Ch. 12

God, Dogs

“Men in their prayers beg the gods for health, not knowing that this is a thing they have in their own power. Through their incontinence undermining it, they themselves become, because of their passions, the betrayers of their own health.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Men, God, Health, Passion

“…When the Sultãn saw that the infidels had gone to that island, he ordered boats from the ports and proceeded to the island with his well-armed soldiers… The infidels did not stint in fighting with swords and guns. In the end the army of Islãm achieved victory. A majority of the infidels were slaughtered. The Musalmãns started giving calls to prayers after mounting on top of the temples. They started destroying the temples and desecrating the idols. The Sultãn offered namãz out of gratefulness of Allãh… He got a Jãmi‘ Masjid raised in that place…”

Mahmud Begada (1458–1511) Sultan of Gujarat

Sultãn Mahmûd BegDhã of Gujarat (AD 1458-1511) Sankhodhar (Gujarat) Mir‘ãt-i-Sikandarî in S.A.A. Rizvi in Uttara Taimûr Kãlîna Bhãrata, Aligarh, 1959, Vol. II, p. 319

Victory, Fight

“True there has been more talk of peace since 1945 than, I should think, at any other time in history. At least we hear more and read more about it because man's words, for good or ill, can now so easily reach the millions.
Very often the words are good and even inspiring, the embodiment of our hopes and our prayers for peace. But while we all pray for peace, we do not always, as free citizens, support the policies that make for peace or reject those which do not. We want our own kind of peace, brought about in our own way.
The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction. The life of states cannot, any more than the life of individuals, be conditioned by the force and the will of a unit, however powerful, but by the consensus of a group, which must one day include all states. Today the predatory state, or the predatory group of states, with power of total destruction, is no more to be tolerated than the predatory individual.”

Lester B. Pearson (1897–1972) 14th Prime Minister of Canada

The Four Faces of Peace (1957)

Life, Peace, Hope, Way

“It was a weakness of Voltaire's
To forget to say his prayers,
And one which to his shame
He never overcame.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875–1956) British writer

Clerihews: Biography for Beginners (1905)

Forgetting

“[The right] may never bring prayer back to schools, but it has rescued all manner of rightwing economic nostrums from history’s dustbins. Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson’s estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt’s anti-trust measures). With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century.”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

Ibid. (p. 8).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

War, School, Law, History

“The first thing that Allah made obligatory upon my Ummah was the five prayers; and the first thing from their acts of worship that shall be taken up will be the five prayers; and the first thing that they will be questioned about will be the five prayers.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Kanzul `Ummal, Volume 7, Tradition 18859
Shi'ite Hadith

Question

“I remember really vividly kneeling by my bed as a nine-year-old, saying my prayers and asking God to give me boobs that were so big that if I laid on my back I wouldn’t be able to see my feet.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

As quoted in "Perry prayed for bust results" in The Sun (17 August 2009) http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/usa/2590921/Katy-Perry-used-to-pray-as-a-child-to-have-big-boobs.html

God

“It is true, and cannot be denied, that man must at last die, however careful with himself he may have been; but yet, I maintain, without sickness and great pain, for in my case I expect to pass away quietly and peacefully, and my present condition ensures this to me, for, though at this great age, I am hearty and content, eating with a good appetite, and sleeping soundly. Moreover, all my senses are as good as ever, and in the highest perfection; my understanding clear and bright, my judgment sound, my memory tenacious, my spirits good, and my voice (one of the first things which is apt to fail us) has grown so strong and sonorous, that I cannot help chanting aloud my prayers, morning and night.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Pain, Age, Understanding, Sense

“Are you there? Say a prayer for the pretender
who started out so young and strong only to surrender”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

The Pretender (1976)

Strong

“Regardless of its purpose, the humpback-whale song is the most complex piece of nonhuman composition on earth. Whether it's art, prayer, or booty call, the humpback song is an amazing thing to experience firsthand, and I suspect that even once the science of it is put to bed, it will remain, as long as they sing, magic.”

Christopher Moore book Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

Author's notes : Science and Magic
Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings (2003)

Art, Science, Singing

“Prayer simply means a longing of the heart, it is the wish felt, - it may be expressed, or not expressed. It may take the form of human language or it may never be uttered at all; still it is a prayer, if God only hears it in the secret recess of the heart.”

Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884) Indian academic

Sermon at Hackney Unitarian Church, London, on 24th April 1870.

God, Secret, Heart

“Jesus’ ultimate prayer for His own people is that they would be in fellowship with Him in heaven forever… Jesus wants us to be with him—and with each other—in His Father’s house.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 46

People, Housing

“Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

What is Prayer?
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

God, Tear

“The development of relations between State and Church affords a very instructive example of how the carelessness of a single statesman can have after-effects which last for centuries. When Charlemagne was kneeling at prayer in St. Peter's, Rome, at Christmas in the year 800, the Pope, giving him no time to work out the possible effects of so symbolic an action, suddenly bent down and presto! popped a golden crown on his head! By permitting it, the Emperor delivered himself and his successors into the hands of a power which subjected the German Government and the German people to five hundred years of martyrdom.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

4 July 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

People, Time, Christmas

“The prayer is one of the (primary) dictates of religion, in it lies the pleasure of the Lord, the Mighty and the Glorious, and it is the conduct of the Prophets.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 82, Page 231
Shi'ite Hadith

Pleasure, Religion

“Keep on praying because the Father does listen. He loves our company, he wants us to endure in prayerfulness and he is eager to do whatever is best for us.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Love

“I lie
in the lean hours awake listening
to the swell born somewhere in
the Atlantic
rising and falling, rising and
falling
wave on wave on the long shore
by the village that is without
light
and companionless. And the
thought comes
of that other being who is
awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"The Other" in The Echoes Return Slow (1988)

Lie, Light

“Turn your confidence and your fears alike into prayer.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 600.

Fear, Confidence

“How would you feel if your prayer requests were made public, displayed on a billboard or marquee? "Dear Lord, make me famous. Make me rich."”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Feeling

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims. This isn't something that we take lightly. My comments were not meant to be ones that were taken lightly. What I was saying in a humorous vein is there are things happening that politicians need to pay attention to. It isn't everyday we have an earthquake in the United States.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Bachmann Plays Down Comments Linking Disasters and Deficits
The Caucus
The New York Times
2011-08-29
Sarah
Wheaton
Trip
Gabriel
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/bachmann-plays-down-comments-linking-disasters-and-deficits/
2011-09-03
asked about her "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians" remarks after her rally
2010s

Family, Heart

“As Simone Weil— perhaps the strangest and most unlikely Thoreauvian solitary, outcast, and transcendentalist of all— wrote, echoing Thoreau's sense of awareness: "The authentic and pure values— truth, beauty, and goodness— in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object." Or, more tersely yet: "Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer."
It is perhaps the saddest, most hopeless thing we can say about our culture that it is a culture of distraction. "Attention deficit" is a cultural disorder, a debasement of spirit, before it is an ailment in our children to be treated with Ritalin.”

Curtis White (1951) American academic

"The spirit of disobedience: an invitation to resistance"

Children, Truth, Beauty, Sense

“Jabir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The metaphor of the five prayers is that of an sizeable flowing river at the door of one of you in which he washes five times every day."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 1043
Sunni Hadith
Variant: Jabir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The metaphor of the five prayers is that of an sizeable flowing river at the door of one of you in which he washes five times every day."

Peace, Time

“ACCORDING TO the numerous deductions and conclusions made by me during experimental elucidations concerning the productivity of the perception by contemporary people of new impressions from what is heard and read, and also according to the thought of one of the sayings of popular wisdom I have just remembered, handed down to our days from very ancient times, which declares: “Any prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained only if it is uttered thrice:
:Firstly—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one’s parents.
:Secondly—for the welfare of one’s neighbor.
:And only thirdly—for oneself personally.”

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

"Friendly Advice [Written impromptu by the author on delivering this book, already prepared for publication, to the printer" (1949)
All and Everything: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (1950)

Wisdom, People, Peace, Soul

“When we reach the silver sands and plunge into the great sea of God's silence, we begin to understand that he alone is God — Lover, Friend, the totality of gentleness, peace and rest. He calls us and we cannot resist that call. We have to be alone with him. It is a necessity, it is a hunger. It has been said that prayer is a hunger. But this Christ walks with loneliness and rejection, and so must we.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Molchanie (1982)

Hunger, God, Peace, Lovers

“He called out for the others, but they were nowhere near. He tried to run, without knowing which way to go, but his legs were sluggish and the earth stood on end; in the next instant he found himself lying horizontal, his cheek in the dirt, without having felt himself fall. Then the earth tilted away from him again. He tried to walk steadily, but the earth continued to surge. Finally he sat down beneath a house-gable, leaned his back against the wall, and waited until the earth settled back in its place. He drooped his head and mumbled about his forefathers... In the end all he could do was start to sing the sad passion-hymns and death-prayers his mother had taught him in his youth.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Death, Youth, Sadness, Way

“I will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healthy enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in our time and are no less in ours. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell again when touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."”

Jeff Flake (1962) American politician

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
Speech in the U.S. Senate (2017)

Angels, Nature, Memory, Passion

“The Wahabis, followers of a fanatical Moslem heresy, had imposed their strict rules on easy and civilized Kasim. In Kasim there was but little coffee-hospitality, much prayer and fasting, no tobacco, no artistic dalliance with women, no silk clothes, no gold and silver head-ropes or ornaments. Everything was forcibly pious or forcibly puritanical.
It was a natural phenomenon, this periodic rise at intervals of little more than a century, of ascetic creeds in Central Arabia. Always the votaries found their neighbours' beliefs cluttered with inessential things, which became impious in the hot imagination of their preachers. Again and again they had arisen, had taken possession, soul and body, of the tribes, and had dashed themselves to pieces on the urban Semites, merchants and concupiscent men of the world. About their comfortable possessions the new creeds ebbed and flowed like the tides or the changing seasons, each movement with the seeds of early death in its excess of Tightness. Doubtless they must recur so long as the causes — sun, moon, wind, acting in the emptiness of open spaces, weigh without check on the unhurried and uncumbered minds of the desert-dwellers.”

T. E. Lawrence book Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Source: Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922), Ch. 24

Death, Women, Men, World

“I woke up in the middle of the night with the sound of heavy explosion. It was deep at night. I do not remember what time it was. I just remember the sound was so heavy and so very shocking. Everything in my room was shaking -- my heart, my windows, my bed, everything. I looked out the windows and I saw a full half-circle of explosion. I thought it was just like the movies, but the movies had not conveyed them in the powerful image that I was seeing full of bright red and orange and gray, and a full circle of explosion. And I kept on staring at it until it disappeared. I went back to my bed, and I prayed, and I secretly thanked God that that missile did not land on my family's home, that it did not kill my family that night. Thirty years have passed, and I still feel guilty about that prayer, for the next day, I learned that that missile landed on my brother's friend's home and killed him and his father, but did not kill his mother or his sister. His mother showed up the next week at my brother's classroom and begged seven-year-old kids to share with her any picture they may have of her son, for she had lost everything.”

Zainab Salbi (1969) Iraqi American author, women's rights activist

Speech at TEDGlobal 2010

God, Family, Feeling, Home

“We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book III Ch. 20 First Rule, para. 1 and 2.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God

“I cannot say where you are. Unreachable
by prayer, even if poems are prayers. Unseeable
in the air, even if souls are stars.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Death and the Moon, from Feminine Gospels (2002).

Soul, Star

“One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.”

Stanley Hauerwas (1940) American theologian

From The Truth About God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life (1999, with William H. Willimon). Page: 89

Way, Singing

“Narrated Anas: The Prophet offered the Fajr Prayer near Khaibar when it was still dark and then said, "Allahu-Akbar! Khaibar is destroyed, for whenever we approach a (hostile) nation (to fight), then evil will be the morning for those who have been warned." Then the inhabitants of Khaibar came out running on the roads. The Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives. Safiya was amongst the captives, She first came in the share of Dahya Alkali but later on she belonged to the Prophet. The Prophet made her manumission as her 'Mahr.'”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[5, 59, 512]
Sunni Hadith

Hostility, Evil, Fight

“Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words, and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 127

God, Idea, Chance

“All our blasphemies are only little prayers.”

Antoni Lange (1862–1929) Polish writer and philosopher

Vox Posthuma

“Oh! for this baptism of fire! when every spoken word for Jesus shall be a thunderbolt, and every prayer shall bring forth a mighty flood.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 22.

“The prayer of a person is (in reality) a light in his heart, so whoever desires, can illuminate his heart”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

by means of prayers
Kanzul `Ummal, Volume7, Tradition 18973
Shi'ite Hadith

Reality, Light, Heart, Personality

“Gay, guiltless pair,
What seek ye from the fields of heaven?
Ye have no need of prayer,
Ye have no sins to be forgiven.”

Charles Sprague (1791–1875) Boston businessman and poet

The Winged Worshippers

“Muhammad built at Nirun a mosque on the site of the temple of Budh, and ordered prayers to be proclaimed in the Muhammadan fashion and appointed an Imam.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Nirun (Sindh) . The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. I : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 158.
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Fashion

“119. Happy is the spirit that becomes free of all matter and is stripped of all at the time of prayer.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Chapters on Prayer

Happiness, Time

“Hindu writers have been entirely excluded from holding public offices, and all the worshipping places of the infidels and great temples of these infamous people have been thrown down and destroyed in a manner which excites astonishment at the successful completion of so difficult a task. His Majesty personally teaches the sacred kalima to many infidels with success. All the mosques in the empire are repaired at public expense. Imama, criers to the daily prayers, and readers of the khutba, have been appointed to each of them, so that a large sum of money has been and is still laid out in these disbursements.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Mir-at-i 'alam, Mir-at-i Jahan-numa, of Bakhtawar Khan, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. VII, p. 159.
Quotes from late medieval histories

Money, People, Success, Personality

“I feel it is through prayer, meditation, and dedicated service that world peace can take place. Each individual has to try to make others happy, for it is only through happiness that we can have peace.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

The Wings of Joy (1997)

Happiness, World, Peace, Feeling

“I shall tell you how my Guru’s Guru died. After announcing that his end was nearing, he stopped eating, without changing the routine of his daily life. On the eleventh day, at prayer time he was singing and clapping vigorously and suddenly died! Just like that, between two movements, like a blown out candle. Everybody dies as he lives. I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life. I live a happy life and shall die a happy death. Misery is to be born, not to die. All depends how you look at it.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Death
Source: I am That, P.181.

Life, Death, Happiness, Change

“Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul; and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life.”

Octavius Winslow (1808–1878) English theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 458.

Life, Soul

“Both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands, uttering a special blessing. On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God, by promoting the divine union of Son and Daughter; but on the other he is worshiping Satan, who likes Jewish prayers and ritual acts so much that when he is offered a few of them it keeps him busy for a while and he forgets to pester the divine daughter.”

Israel Shahak (1933–2001) Israeli academic

Jewish History, Jewish Religion (1994)

God, Business, Daughters, Forgetting

“When we are first born into God’s kingdom we generally get our prayers answered immediately, but as we grow God teaches us patience by letting us wait.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)

God, Waiting, Patience

“Give me a baptism of glowing love,
Thy power and presence wheresoe'er I rove;
And my last prayer, all other prayers above —
Oh, give to me
More of Thyself, Lord Jesus: more of Thee!”

Anna Shipton (1815–1901) British religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.

Love

“He is cunning, he is mighty, he never rests, he is ever plotting the downfall of the child of God; and if the child of God relaxes in prayer the Devil will succeed in ensnaring him.”

R. A. Torrey (1856–1928) American writer

Power and Peace in Prayer (1924)

God

“Water were your limbs
And the fire was your hair
And then the moon caught your eye,
and you rose through the air.
Well if you've seen true light,
then this is my prayer:
Will you call me
When you get there?”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Cosmia
Ys (2006)

Light, Water

“I raised my arms as if in prayer and heard the mutter of response behind me. Then I scattered the dried grains, red and brown and black, and studied the patterns they formed on the stone ledge before Sibbos. This is not such a mystic thing. You see what it is sensible to see, or else you interpret what you see so that the meaning comes out as you want it.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Two, Part I “Across the Ring”, Chapter 3 (p. 155)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Study

“For an instant a half-formed prayer struggled into Havor’s mouth. But he could not utter it. Not for himself. For him those words were already drowned by the noise the thong-whip had made, or the sounds of children crying out of hunger or the cold or sheer misery in that grey house of orphans in the far North, eight years ago.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, Companions on the Road (1975), Chapter 7, “The Snow-Waste” (p. 69)

Hunger, Children, Housing, Cry

“…and Britain was saved, because of a national day of prayer. Ladies and gentlemen, we desperately need our own Miracle of Dunkirk today.”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

"The Response" prayer rally, 2011-08-06, quoted in * Kyle
Mantyla
The Response: Dobsons Ask God To Give America A "Miracle At Dunkirk"
Right Wing Watch
2011-08-06
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/response-dobsons-ask-god-give-america-miracle-dunkirk
2011-08-06
2011

“Mr. Speaker, you have no idea how great this feels to be great back here at work in people’s House. As you can imagine, these last 3 1/2 months have been pretty challenging times for me and my family. But, if you look at the outpouring of love — my gosh Jennifer and I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring — It’s given us the strength to get through all of this. And get to this point today; it starts with God. When I was laying out on that ball field, the first thing I did once I was down and couldn’t move anymore, I started to pray. And tell you, it gave me an unbelievable sense of calm knowing at that point it’s in God’s hands. I prayed for specific things, and I’ll tell you, pretty much every one of those prayers was answered. They were some pretty challenging prayers I was putting in God’s hands, but he really did deliver for me and my family. And it just gives you that renewed faith and understanding that the power of prayer is something you cannot under estimate. So I’m a living example that miracles really do happen.”

Steve Scalise (1965) American politician

Love, God, People, Family

Quotes about prayer page 7

Quotes about prayer
page 7