What is Prayer?

"Give us this day our daily bread" is probably the most perfectly constructed and useful sentence ever set down in the English language.  ~P.J. Wingate

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.  ~Søren Kierkegaard

No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil; not that he practices it, but he suffers from it.  ~Guy H. King

Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.  ~Philip Melanchthen

Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.  ~Satchel Paige, 1974

The value of consistent prayer is not that He will hear us, but that we will hear Him.  ~William McGill

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.  ~Oswald Chambers

When at night you cannot sleep, talk to the Shepherd and stop counting sheep.  ~Author Unknown

When a man is at his wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get in touch with Reality.  ~Oswald Chambers

Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill; they come only when they hurt.  ~B. Graham Dienert

Some have been to the mountain.  I have been to my knees by the side of my bed.  ~Robert Brault

Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God.  ~Author Unknown

Prayer is not merely an occasional impulse to which we respond when we are in trouble:  prayer is a life attitude.  ~Walter A. Mueller

The Lord's Prayer may be committed to memory quickly, but it is slowly learnt by heart.  ~Frederick Denison Maurice

Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it.  You can't pray a lie - I found that out.  ~Mark Twain

It is good for us to keep some account of our prayers, that we may not unsay them in our practice.  ~Matthew Henry

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets.  I do not mean his maker, but himself.  ~William Inge

Grow flowers of gratitude in the soil of prayer.  ~Terri Guillemets

If we could all hear one another's prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burdens.  ~Ashleigh Brilliant

Prayers not felt by us are seldom heard by God.  ~Philip Henry

And help us, this and every day, to live more nearly as we pray.  ~John Keble

I believe in prayer.  It's the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.  ~Josephine Baker

Prayer is communication with the Divine.  It can be whispered or chanted or written or expressed in the work you do.  However it is expressed, it is never in vain.  ~Donna Wilk Cardillo

God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.  ~Richard Sibbes

I often pray, though I'm not really sure Anyone's listening; and I phrase it carefully, just in case He's literary.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Prayer requires more of the heart than of the tongue.  ~Adam Clarke

God speaks in the silence of the heart.  Listening is the beginning of prayer.  ~Mother Teresa

When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; when you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you.  ~Morihei Ueshiba

Most people do not pray; they only beg.  ~George Bernard Shaw

Prayer draws us near to our own souls.  ~Herman Melville, Mardi and A Voyage Thither, 1849

What we usually pray to God is not that His will be done, but that He approve ours.  ~Helga Bergold Gross

We must move from asking God to take care of the things that are breaking our hearts, to praying about the things that are breaking His heart.  ~Margaret Gibb

We cannot ask in behalf of Christ what Christ would not ask Himself if He were praying.  ~A.B. Simpson

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.  ~Socrates

Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart.  ~Ruth Graham

God tells us to burden him with whatever burdens us.  ~Author Unknown

Before we can pray, "Lord, Thy Kingdom come," we must be willing to pray, "My Kingdom go."  ~Alan Redpath

Some people think that prayer just means asking for things, and if they fail to receive exactly what they asked for, they think the whole thing is a fraud.  ~Gerald Vann

Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.  ~George Meredith

God has editing rights over our prayers.  He will... edit them, correct them, bring them in line with His will and then hand them back to us to be resubmitted.  ~Stephen Crotts

Be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your answers.  ~William Culbertson

Prayer is the language of a man burdened with a sense of need.  ~E.M. Bounds

Prayer is exhaling the spirit of man and inhaling the spirit of God.  ~Edwin Keith

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.  ~Corrie ten Boom