Prayer Religion Quotes & Sayings

The 'Lord's Prayer' is totally of life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

God hears and answers every prayer in His sacred time. — Lailah Gifty Akita

For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into half halves - to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a weekday. Do you think he cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only tones of prayer - and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the 'dim religious light' of some solemn cathedral? — Lewis Carroll

Praying is talking to God. Meditating is listening. — Christopher Moore

The spirit of God is mighty upon us. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Prayer isn't about repeating rituals; it's about spending time with Dad. — Jared Brock

An atheist believes that a hospital
should be built instead of a church.
An atheist believes that deed must
be done instead of prayer said.
An atheist strives for involvement in life
and not escape into death.
He wants disease conquered,
poverty vanished, war eliminated. — Madalyn Murray O'Hair

I don't pray because it doesn't work. Prayer doesn't fix anything. Bad things happen anyway. — Nicholas Sparks

If any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say that it is in one word - prayer. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough when you get to hell. — Charles Spurgeon

A person's faith goes at its own pace. The trouble with church is the service. A service is conducted for a mass audience. Just when I start to like the hymn, everyone plops down to pray. Just when I start to hear the prayer, everyone pops up to sing. And what does the stupid sermon have to do with God? Who knows what God thinks of current events? Who cares? — John Irving

Prayer may be a placebo for the disease of helplessness, but placebos can make you feel better. — David Mitchell

Self talk and self prayer: When you audible the first and correctly interpret, the white coats correct you in a nuthouse. When you audible the second and misinterpret, the dinner coats swear you to an oath in the White House. Does this make you nuts too? Then outfit your sanity seeking political asylum at my house. — Brian Spellman

Right now religion has the romantic aura of the forbidden - Christ is cool. We need to bring it into the schools, which kids already hate, and associate it firmly with boredom, regulation, condescension, makework and de facto segregation ... Prayer in the schools will rid us of the bland no-offense ecumenism that is so infuriating to us anticlericals: Oh, so now you say Jews didn't kill Christ - a little on the late side, isn't it? — Katha Pollitt

I'm anticlerical, not antireligion. If somebody believes there is God, I'm not interested in trying to persuade that person there is no intelligent design to the universe. Where I become interested and wake up is about the temporal power of religion, things like prayer in schools, or Catholic-secular hospital mergers. — Katha Pollitt

Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him. — Evelyn Underhill

I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I'm supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I'm praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things. — Mother Teresa

Close your eyes, and with Jesus, journey back through your day. As you do, confess sin as you see it ... — Kyle Idleman

If there is any god, then love is his religion and love is his prayer. — Debasish Mridha

My fellow Americans: Last night when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that the troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization ... — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I pray every single moment of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me. — Susan B. Anthony

HANNAH: You had a vision.
PRIOR: A vision. Thank you, Maria Ouspenskaya. I'm not so far gone I can be assuaged by pity and lies.
HANNAH: I don't have pity. It's just not something I have.
(Little pause)
One hundred and seventy years ago, which is recent, an angel of God appeared to Joseph Smith in upstate
New York, not far from here. People have visions.
PRIOR: But that's preposterous, that's ...
HANNAH: It's not polite to call other people's beliefs preposterous.
He had great need of understanding. Our Prophet. His desire made prayer. His prayer made an angel. The angel was real. I believe that.
PRIOR: I don't. And I'm sorry but it's repellent to me. So much of what you believe.
HANNAH: What do I believe?
PRIOR: I'm a homosexual. With AIDS. I can just imagine what you ...
HANNAH: No you can't. Imagine. The things in my head.
You don't make assumptions about me, mister; I won't make them about you. — Tony Kushner

Everyone takes part in the mosque for one reason; to have a prayer answered. — Shujoy Chowdhury

God will fulfil His promise. Wait patiently for God to act. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Prayer is not a means of removing the unknown and predictable elements in life, but rather a way of including the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of the grace of God in our lives. — Philip Yancey

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. — William James

Prayer is an act of praise and worship to God — Lailah Gifty Akita

Praying because you're afraid is not like praying because you have faith. Faith and fear never meet. If you are faithful and still feel scared, it's whether you're not praying right or not praying at all. — Sandra Chami Kassis

Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's resolve. — Octavia E. Butler

All religion is founded on prayer, and in prayer it has its test and measure. — Peter Forsyth

Religion is only in the service of the people; it is not in the rosary and the prayer-carpet. — Saadi

Dear God, you created us in your likeness, our hearts are uneasy until they find you - From the film Sophie Scholl — Sophie Scholl

I have never looked to religion for comfort - belief is just not in my genes. But reading Mastering the Art of French Cooking - childishly simple and dauntingly complex, incantatory and comforting - I thought this was what prayer must feel like. Sustenance bound up with anticipation and want. Reading MtAoFC was like reading pornographic Bible verses. — Julie Powell

No statistical proofs exist that prayer reduces illness and mortality, except perhaps through a psychogenic enhancement of the immune system; if it were otherwise the whole world would pray continuously. — E. O. Wilson

Scientific evidence for God's existence is being claimed today by theists, many of whom carry respectable scientific or philosophical credentials. He who is neither a she nor an it supposedly answers prayers and otherwise dramatically affects the outcome of events. If these consequences are as significant as believers say, then the effects should be detectable in properly controlled experiments. — Victor J. Stenger

I'll pray for you."
"That's very kind of you."
"I can't spare you a whole rosary, you know. Just a decade. I've got such a long list of people. I take them in order and they get a decade about once a week. — Evelyn Waugh

Let us use our energy and our initiative to solve our problems without relying on prayers and wishful thinking. When we have faith in ourselves, we will find we do not have to have faith in gods. — Ruth Hurmence Green

From faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion referring to God, there arises a double act which bears on the spiritual communion exercised between God and us; the hearing of the word and prayer. — William Ames

Amen" means 'Yes', it is done, glory to God! — Lailah Gifty Akita

Did they know that he stood on the bow every morning, noon, and night for an hour ... this prayer of thanks to a God more a God than any to be found in book-bound, altar-bound Religion? — Jack Kerouac

May the Lord heal the broken hearted. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pray without misgiving to their heavenly father to give them their daily bread. Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They expect him to do it, they neither feel gratitude to him for doing so nor need to, and we have only blame for a man who brings children into the world that he can't or won't provide for. It seemed to me that if an omnipotent creator was not prepared to provide for his creatures with the necessities, material and spiritual, of existence he'd have done better not to create them. — W. Somerset Maugham

There comes a point where you need to lose your religion in order to restore your relationship. — Jared Brock

The United States Constitutional Convention, except for three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary. — Benjamin Franklin

The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the "sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew." I have seen this unity with my eyes, heard it with my ears, felt it with all my being. — David James Duncan

Little kids I don't mind. Every kid wants a pony. It's grown-ups that get my robe in a knot. Stop with the begging, okay? Adore me for a change. Or give thanks. I like gratitude. Or ask for guidance. But oh, no. It's always the pony. — Ron Koertge

What if religion was each other? If our practice was our life? If prayer was our words? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans? What if meditation was our relationships? If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was knowledge? If love was the center of our being. — Ganga White

Meditating on the nature and dignity of prayer can cause saying at least one thing to God: Lord, teach us to pray! — Karl Rahner

All this has been happening around them all the days of their lives though they couldn't see it, then one day, Prayer removes the veil and everything changes. Think of it this way: Picture a man whistling a tune, when out of nowhere, first a harmony joins, then another, and then suddenly he is taken up into a whirlwind of music, countless instruments playing soaring complexities that the man's whistling is, indeed, a part of, but now he begins to see how small a part; the longer he listens, he realizes that his is not the melody and where he had thought he was whistling alone, the truth had always been the music playing, though never before that moment heard, and now what had been noise becomes symphony. — Geoffrey Wood

Mediocre people often have a tinge of religion about them, but it is only a tinge. They take their religion as it comes. They may pray and worship more or less regularly, and they usually stay clear of publicly disgraceful crimes, but they are lukewarm, colorless. Seldom or never do they read a serious book about prayer or study to learn more about God and His plans, to discover how to be humble and chaste and patient. They are always too busy for the one thing necessary. — Thomas Dubay

Isn't atheism just another religion?' No, it isn't. Atheism has no creeds, rituals, holy book, absolute moral code, origin myth, sacred spaces or shrines. It has no sin, divine judgment, forbidden words, prayer, worship, prophecy, group privileges, or anointed 'holy' leaders. Atheists don't believe in a transcendent world or supernatural afterlife. Most important, there is no orthodoxy in atheism. — Dan Barker

the Temple was rebuilt, but by then the religion of Israel had been marked forever by the piety of the exile. Alongside the single Temple, where blood sacrifice was celebrated, arose numerous synagogues, places for meeting and for prayer, and the dominium of the priests yielded to the growing influence of the Pharisees and Scribes, men of the book and of study. In 70 A.D., the Roman legions again destroyed the Temple. But the learned rabbi Joahannah ben-Zakkaj, slipped covertly out of Jerusalem through the siege and obtained permission from Vespasian to continue the teaching of the Torah in the city of Jamnia. The temple has never been rebuilt since, and study, the Talmud, has become the real temple of Israel.24 This complex relationship to the Talmud is in fact a key to understanding the life and work of Mark Rothko. — Annie Cohen-Solal

The men who wrote the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that amendment ... the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress. It can hardly be thought that in the same week the members of the first Congress voted to appoint and pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment ... (that) they intended to forbid what they had just declared acceptable. — Warren E. Burger

In light of religious teachings on sex, unrestricted people often feel they are fundamentally flawed. They are sinful and rebellious against god for having strong urges that go against the church's teachings. If the religious belief is deep enough, a person will not be able to look at his behavior rationally. The result can be a destructive cycle beginning with some religiously prohibited sexual behavior followed by repentance and prayer for a few weeks. Soon biological urges surface again, and he goes back to the behavior, followed by repentance once more. The process keeps him focused on guilt, not on rational ways to enjoy and express sexuality. Every time he goes through the cycle, it makes him feel less worthwhile. At the same time, the only way he can get relief is by going back to his religion. — Darrel Ray

Prayer is that which enables the soul to realize its divinity. Through prayer human beings worship absolute truth, and seek an eternal reward. Prayer is the foundation-stone of religion; and religion is the means by which the soul is purified of all that pollutes it. Prayer is the worship of the first cause of all things, the supreme ruler of all the world, the source of all strength. Prayer is the adoration of the one whose being is necessary. — Avicenna

If you pray with your knees bow, you surrender to God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. — Friedrich Nietzsche

He first made inquiry as to the religion of each of us and found Episcopalians, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians. The suggestion that we should say the Lord's Prayer together met with instant approval, and our voices with one accord burst forth in repeating that great appeal to the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, and the only prayer that everyone of us knew and could unite in, thereby manifesting that we were all sons of God and brothers to each other whatever our sphere in life or creed might be. — Archibald Gracie

It does not matter how long it takes. God will fulfil the promises. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I believe in religion against the religious; in the pitifulness of orisons, and in the sublimity of prayer. — Victor Hugo

I love everyone and everything. I belong to everyone and everything. I am a citizen of this world. I created my own universe. I don't want to belong to an ideology or belief system. I don't want to be imprisoned by someone else's conforming thoughts. I only accept that which is beautiful, loving, and kind. I want to belong to this universe until I am gone. We are one; we are kin. So my religion is love and kindness is my prayer. Altruism is my path. Peace is my palace where I dwell with humility and happiness. — Debasish Mridha

Prayer is not only for answers but a spiritual act. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I admit at the beginning that 'popular religion,' 'demotic religion,' the pieties of the common folk, tends to sink to the lowest common denominator, be it in syncretizing saints with old, half-forgotten pagan godlings, or in preferring the nasal whine and the revivalist shoutin' to solid sense and learning, regarding intellect as positively inimical to the workings of the Holy Ghost. But it is in American religious life, especially Protestant American religious life, that things bottom out completely. — Markham Shaw Pyle

After saying our prayers, we ought to do something to make them come true. — William Feather

My mother is very religious. She's one of those old ladies that spends her life in the church. She just prays and prays, day and night. We have a very different idea of what religion is. She doesn't understand what my work is about, why I want to make changes in the way we live. She thinks we should be thankful for the little we have and leave well enough alone. I suppose she thinks that if she prays enough, God will come down from the sky with a plate of beans for her to eat.
But I don't think that God say, 'Go to church and pray all day and everything will be fine.' No. For me God says, 'Go out and make the changes that need to be made, and I'll be there to help you.' [p. 30] — Elvia Alvarado

What's to rationalize? You mean you shouldn't pray if you haven't got your s
t together? This is another fairly common misconception of faith, which is that people who go to church, or people who pray, or people who talk about their religion must be, somehow more pious or ethically rigorous or have more morally cleansed lifestyle. The high correlation is supposed to be between faith and your search, the depth of your search, your willingness to try, your willingness to admit error, your hope and belief in the ultimate meaning and value of that search.' - Timothy Shriver — J. Randy Taraborrelli

Every other consideration and plan and emphasis is secondary to that of wielding the forces of prayer. — John Mott

God formed an alliance based on the world as it is, full of flaws, whereas prayer calls God to account for the world as it should be. — Philip Yancey

There is nothing like being told to go fuck yourself by the same person who was, only days before, praying on your behalf. — Henry Rollins

I can see God in a daisy. I can see God at night in the wind and rain. I see Creation just about everywhere. The highest form of song is prayer. King David's, Solomon's, the wailing of a coyote, the rumble of the Earth. — Bob Dylan

Desire, Believe, Receive! — Lailah Gifty Akita

Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them. — Dag Hammarskjold

The Yoruba religion is the science of allowing God to flow through you, so that each breath becomes a prayer, and as God breathes, you breathe. — Tobe Melora Correal

Religion and science have nothing to do with each other, they're about different things, science is about the way the world works and religion is about miracles, I mean, if you ask most ordinary people in church or in a mosque why they believe, it's almost certainly got something to do with the belief that God does wonderful things, that God intervenes, that God heals the sick, that God answers prayers, God forgives sins. — Richard Dawkins

I love the freedom of my wings. I love the empty space above the ground. I rejoice in my freedom. Freedom is my religion. Peace is my God. Love is my worship. — Banani Ray

Prayer is not to be used as a confessional, to cancel sin. Such an error would impede true religion. Sin is forgiven only as it is destroyed by Christ - Truth and Light. — Mary Baker Eddy

It's so clear to me now: the memorizing of a fake prayer, the symbolization of objects, the struggle to relate to the invisible - I needed a religion. I was lost. — Sloane Crosley

When religion does not move people to the mystical or non-dual level of consciousness9 it is more a part of the problem than any solution whatsoever. It solidifies angers, creates enemies, and is almost always exclusionary of the most recent definition of "sinner." At this level, it is largely incapable of its supreme task of healing, reconciling, forgiving, and peacemaking. When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation. Let me sum up, then, the foundational ways that I believe Jesus and the Twelve Steps of A.A. are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied, and avoided, until it is forced upon us - by some reality over which we are powerless - and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality. — Richard Rohr

Cha-Cha favored short, earnest prayer, and he often wondered what took others so long., It had something to do with excess supplication, he suspected. He never presented a long list of specific requests to God, had always felt uncomfortable with the presumptuousness of "Ask and you shall receive." This might have been a result of pride, or his own middling ambition, but mostly Cha-Cha's prayers were a series of thank-yous and I'm sorrys. — Angela Flournoy

Prayer is not a monologue. It speaks to God and to the community. In the last analysis, religion is not what goes on inside a soul. It is what goes on in the world, between people, between us and God. To trap faith in a monologue, and pretend that it resides solely inside the self, undermines the true interchange of all belief. — David Wolpe

At such times, the heart of man turns instictively towards his Maker. In prosperity, and whenever there is nothing to injure or make him afraid, he remembers Him not, and is ready to defy Him; but place him in the midst of dangers, cut him off from human aid, let the grave open before him, then it is, in the time of his tribulation, that the scoffer and unbelieving man turns to God for help, feeling there is no other hope, or refuge, or safety, save in his protecting arm. — Solomon Northup

You are angry at the God you were taught to believe in as a child. The God who is supposed to watch over you and protect you, who answers your prayers and forgives your sins. This God is just a story. Religions try to capture God, but God is beyond religion. The true God lies beyond our comprehension. We can't understand His will; He can't be explained in a book. He didn't abandon us and He will not save us. He has nothing to do with our being here. God does not change. He simply is. I don't pray to God for forgiveness or favors, I only pray to be closer to Him, and when I pray, I fill my heart with love. When I pray this way, I know that God is love. When I feel that love, I remember that we don't need angels or a heaven, because we are a part of God already. — Nando Parrado

The missionary church is a praying church. The history of missions is a history of prayer. Everything vital to the success of the world's evangelization hinges on prayer. Are thousands of missionaries and tens of thousands of native workers needed? Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth laborers into His harvest. — John Mott

We can be deeply thankful that we live in a land where reason and religion are friends and allies in the cause of liberty, joined against the evils and dangers of the day. And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion - rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith. — Mitt Romney

I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns. I find myself loving more intensely those whom I must love with all my heart and mind and strength, and loving them more, I find it easier to abide their counsel. — Spencer W. Kimball

The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting - it has been found demanding, and not tried. — John Baillie

Sniffing glue is a homeless nonbeliever's prayer. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It is a curious thing that in whaling vessels the Church of England Prayer book is always employed, though there is never a member of that Church among officers or crew. Our men are all Roman Catholics or Presbyterians, the former predominating. Since a ritual is used which is foreign to both, neither can complain that the other is preferred to them, and they listen with all attention and devotion, so that the system has something to recommend it. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Love is my religion, kindness is my prayer, forgiveness is my temple, and peace is my abode. — Debasish Mridha

Where shall we get religion? Beneath the open sky, the sphere of crystal silence surcharged with deity.. The midnight earth sends incense up, sweet with the breath of prayer
Go out beneath the naked night and get religion there. — Sam Walter Foss

Properly understood, Imagination and Prayer are directly proportional - the more they pray beyond their bounds, they expand their vision beyond their resources, their experiences, their expectations. — Geoffrey Wood

My Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to prayer. He said the Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted coercion, a form of violence against the chosen god, telling the immortal what to do: Give me a miracle, God, or I won't believe in you! — Frank Herbert

You are already my lover so I cannot offer to make you that. You are already a man so I cannot offer that, either. You are already half of my soul, you are already my religion and my prayer. — Vee Hoffman

Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth. — Philip James Bailey

When some one mortal yet eternal human merely being relying on precisely nothing but the audacious love of his Maker, calls on Him to part the Heavens, well, we are undone. — Geoffrey Wood

It was fear that first made the gods25 - fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, winds, and sky. Religion became the propitiatory worship of these forces through offerings, sacrifice, incantation, and prayer. — Will Durant

being attached to any one philosophy or religion
dwelling on moot differences and wanting to fit in
despite the path all are led Home in time
following an alternative pathway is certainly no crime
Krishna, Buddha, Allah or Zohar Kabbalah
devoted nonviolently, one is led to Nirvana
Hindu Sages, Zen Masters or Christian Mystics
many tongues, but identical truth spoken from their lips
mentioning Self or no-self or God is Father or Mother
according to their culture emphasizing one method or another
allness vs. nothingness, meditation vs. prayer
devotion in practice is all you should care
when Truth reveals itself you're beyond all conception
then not a single man-made word will hold any traction — Jarett Sabirsh

To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give Him glory, too. God is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean that they should. — Gerard Manley Hopkins

A man actually has two Gods. The one, created him and the other, he created. Nature is not the first God but the first God exists in and as a part of the nature; a man with the help his reason creates a God against the forces of nature that are perceived to be as threat, hence the second God. The second God is the property of an individual mind that created it. A child has no reason and hence it has no second God; but it has the first God not yet known to it because the fear is not felt by the child! The first God is felt and known due to the fear ingrained in the instinct and the second God is the surrender and prayer brought out by the reason! — Thiruman Archunan

Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.
One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,
for the prices are absurdly cheap,
a prayer for a ticket to heaven,
a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushel
quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would
soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. — Okakura Kakuzo

I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the State over which you preside in His holy protection ... that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation. — George Washington