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God is seen by many as a being who we can pray to and make requests of…

• Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. John Bunyan
• God will do nothing but in answer to prayer. John Wesley
• The prayer is up to us; the answer is up to God. Woodrow M. Kroll
• God won’t answer 100% of the prayers we don’t pray. Mark Batterson
• Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. William Carey
• A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward. Phillips Brooks
• The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, buy unoffered prayer. F.B. Meyer
• Prayer is God’s answer to our poverty, not a power we exercise to obtain an answer. Oswald Chambers
• Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer. Edward McKendree Bounds
• We honor God by asking for great things when they are a part of His promise. We dishonor Him and cheat ourselves when we ask for molehills where He has offered mountains. Vance Havner
• To know God as the sovereign disposer of all good, inviting us to present our requests, and yet not to approach or ask of him, were so far from availing us, that it were just as if one told of a treasure were to allow it to remain buried in the ground. John Calvin
• Prayer brings to us blessings which we need, and which only God can give, and which prayer can alone convey to us … This service of prayer is not a mere rite, a ceremony through which we go, a sort of performance. Prayer is going to God for something needed and desired. Prayer is simply asking God to do for us what he has promised us he will do if we ask him … Asking is man’s part. Giving is God’s part. The praying belongs to us. The answer belongs to God. Gerhard Tersteegen

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…to request what we desire…

• Prayer is the language of a man burdened with a sense of need. M. Bounds
• A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward. Phillips Brooks
• Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks. Thomas Goodwin
• Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered. Joseph Murphy
• God does not delay to hear our prayers because He has no mind to give; but that, by enlarging our desires, He may give us the more largely. Anselm of Canterbury
• Where did you get the idea you aren’t allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You’re a constituent–you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known. So, put your opinion out there. Make your case. Believe me–it will at least be taken into consideration. Elizabeth Gilbert
• You must pray for yourself constantly. How could it be otherwise? We worship God by believing in Him, trusting Him, and loving Him wholeheartedly — and we can attain to that only through prayer.  The sole object of our being here is that we may grow like Him — and we can do that only through prayer.  The more we pray for ourselves the more power will our prayers have for any other purpose whatever; so praying for ourselves is the reverse of selfishness — it is truly glorifying God. Emmet Fox
• I tried to sweat my life into beauty, and then one day I thought I would sit me down in the furrows. I would stop the wheels long enough to enlist God. I would stop the mad rush that hour, that moment, and sit me down and pray. I would come with tranquility, with repose of the flesh, with the institution of easement and peace…. I would lift with my yearning that which I could not lift with my arms. The potency of my prayer would be mightier than brawn and swifter than feet. Muriel Strode Lieberman

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…to pray to for divine intervention in our lives

• Prayer gives you opportunity to praise God and to request His divine intervention in your life and/or the lives of others. Prayer allows you to glorify His Name and also provides an avenue for you to be filled with joy. John C. Broger

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God is seen as a kind of magician…

• I believe, or sense, that the universe has not been constructed from a purely mechanical, logical, rational point of view, but there is a magic afoot in the universe, that God can be looked at as a kind of a magician in which we get to perform tricks ourselves, without knowing that we’re doing so. Fred Alan Wolf
• God is not a demigod or a magician, but the Creator who gives being to all entities. Pope Francis
• Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: “Great God, grant that twice two be not four.” Ivan Turgenev

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…or a kind of dream-granter…

• Dream Granter tirelessly works the night shift. When all have bidden the day a long goodbye, along with its spent promise, what might’ve been, and lost hope, he sets about making things right. Robin Zaruba
• God, I still have big dreams! Some of them I have given up on, and I wonder if my best years are past. But I know you have big dreams for me, too. Whisper deep into my soul today that you are still in the business of fulfilling destiny. I know my hopes and dreams are precious to you, and I trust you with them. Amen. Robin Zaruba

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…or as the ultimate provider of all we need

• Where God guides, God provides. Chuck Smith
• Take the good the gods provide thee. John Dryden
• God provides for him that trusteth. George Herbert
• I truly believe that God provides. Katharine McPhee
• Trust in God – she will provide. Emmeline Pankhurst
• God often guides by what He doesn’t provide. Craig Groeschel
• Where God gives vision He always provides provision. Joel Osteen
• God will provide the food, but he will not cook the dinner. Thomas Troward
• The women are never at a loss, God provides for them, let us run. Voltaire
• Dear God, thank You for providing for all of my earthly needs. Doreen Virtue
• The best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you. Anthony Trollope
• Sometimes God guides by what He withholds, rather than what He provides. Craig Groeschel
• And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches. Philippians 4:19
• Since God alone provides the means for the successful accomplishment of any task. Basil Moreau
• Prosperity is a by-product of an effective management of whatever God provides. Matthew Ashimolowo
• Take the goods the gods provide, and don’t stand and sulk when they are snatched away. Mary McMullen
• Faith, prayer, and the Word of God are the weapons God provides you with to fight spiritual battles. Jim George
• Peace has in it trust in the Lord, that He governs all things, provides all things, and leads to a good end. Emanuel Swedenborg
• But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
• Waiting means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. Eugene H. Peterson
• God, provide me with enough sustenance that my family is taken care of, that neither I remain hungry, nor does my guest go unfed. Kabir
• Never ask God to provide for you what you can provide for yourself. Get up and go get it because God will only provide what you can’t. John Hagee
• God is able to accomplish, provide, help, save, keep, subdue… He is able to do what you can’t. He already has a plan. God’s not bewildered. Go to Him. Max Lucado
• God’s people are not to accumulate stuff for tomorrow but to share indiscriminately with the scandalous and holy confidence that God will provide for tomorrow. Shane Claiborne
• If you rely on God as He ought to be relied upon, He will provide you as He provides the birds; they go out empty and hungry in the morning and come back big bellied at eventide. Muhammad
• God has given us prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie so that we can call headquarters for everything we need… Prayer gives us the significance of front-line forces, and gives God the glory of a limitless Provider. John Piper
• Devotion gradually progresses to higher levels. . . . One type goes to God and asks Him to remove his suffering. Another one will ask for money or material things. A third will request liberation or release from his bondage. And the fourth will not ask for anything. He will just enjoy praying and praising his Lord. That is the highest form of prayer. Swami Satchidananda
• The hope that God has provided for you is not merely a wish. Neither is it dependent on other people, possessions, or circumstances for its validity. Instead, biblical hope is an application of your faith that supplies a confident expectation in God’s fulfillment of His promises. Coupled with faith and love, hope is part of the abiding characteristics in a believer’s life. John C. Broger

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Through prayer, obedience and worship, we feel we can get God working on our behalf…

• Ours has been a tradition focused on spiritual technologies designed to get God working for us. Our metaphor approach to God is often a thinly veiled attempt to direct or control God. We try to work the system so God will protect us from life’s dangers and be our ally. We work hard so God will keep us safe and make us prosper. Through our prayers, behaviors, and rituals, we are in fact working to keep the Person-God working on our behalf. Doug Hammack
• You don’t have to beg God; you just have to act upon His Word. F. F. Bosworth

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…and even manipulate God to do what we want

• To imagine that God wants prayers and hymns of praise is to make him out to a sort of oriental potentate; while praying for favours is an attempt to get him to change his allegedly all-wise mind. Barbara Smoker

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Sometimes we feel the impulse to beg and bargain with God

• Most people do not pray; they only beg. George Bernard Shaw
• A man of faith does not bargain or stipulate with God. Mahatma Gandhi
• True love knows no bargains. It is one-way traffic: giving, giving, giving. Swami Satchidananda
• The will of God is always a bigger thing than we bargain for, but we must believe that whatever it involves, it is good, acceptable and perfect. Jim Elliot
• Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won’t quite despair of me in the end. Evelyn Waugh
• We try to bargain with God…I will follow you but don’t touch my children, or my husband, don’t give me cancer…We are afraid our surrender to God will unleash evil. But evil will come, because evil will come. We live in a broken world. Kay Warren
• No one need worry about our getting the best of God in some bargain with him, or that we might somehow succeed in using him for our purposes. Anyone who thinks this is a problem has seriously underestimated the intelligence and agility of our Father in the heavens. He will not be tricked or cheated. Dallas Willard
• And when pain bites, men bargain. Boys too. We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentors what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can’t escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos. Mark Lawrence
• And when pain bites, men bargain. Boys too. We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentors what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can’t escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos. Mark Lawrence
• They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour’s work as for a day’s. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb. Frederick Buechner
• There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The metaphor of God as request granter encourages our supplication

• Supplication: The action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly. Oxford Dictionary
• When God is about to do a great work, He pours out a spirit of supplication. Jonathan Edwards
• My fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe. George Washington
• God ordains that beggars should beg for greatness, as for all else, when greatness shines out of them, and they don’t know it. Georges Bernanos
• Being come together in the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. Ignatius of Antioch
• We pray not to inform God or instruct Him but to beseech Him closely, to be made intimate with Him, by continuance in supplication; to be humbled; to be reminded of our sins. Saint John Chrysostom
• Relationships can’t blossom unless there is meaningful communication. That’s why ‘supplication is the key to worship.’ It is a sign of meaningful communication between God and a person. Suhaib Webb
• The Spirit of prayer makes us so intimate with God that we scarcely pass through an experience before we speak to Him about it, either in supplication, in sighing, in pouring out our woes before Him, in fervent requests, or in thanksgiving and adoration. Ole Hallesby
• The Spirit of prayer makes us so intimate with God that we scarcely pass through an experience before we speak to Him about it, either in supplication, in sighing, in pouring out our woes before Him, in fervent requests, or in thanksgiving and adoration. Ole Hallesby
• Believers keep up and maintain their walk with God by secret prayer. The spirit of grace is always accompanied with the spirit of supplication. It is the very breath of the new creature, the fan of the divine life, whereby the spark of holy fire, kindled in the soul by God, is not only kept in, but raised into a flame. George Whitefield

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We are told God answers every prayer…

• God answers prayer in His own way, not ours. Mahatma Gandhi
• God answers first the prayers we should have prayed. Robert Breault
• God answers all prayers, but sometimes his answer is ‘no’. Dan Brown
• For all prayer is answered. Don’t tell God how to answer it. Edgar Cayce
• God answers prayers, but he doesn’t always answer it your way. Lou Holtz
• God doesn’t answer prayer, He answers desperate prayer! Leonard Ravenhill
• God answers all true prayer, either in kind or in kindness. Adoniram Judson
• God answers prayer in three ways: yes, no, and wait awhile. Norman Vincent Peale
• The chief purpose of prayer is that God may be glorified in the answer. R. A. Torrey
• Prayer is as mighty as God, because He has committed Himself to answer it. Leonard Ravenhill
• God answers our prayers not because we are good, but because He is good. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• God answers the prayer we ought to have made rather than the prayer we did make. J. I. Packer
• There is no promise God cannot keep, no prayer God will not answer, and no problem too hard for Him to solve. Adrian Rogers
• God always answers prayer, sometimes with a yes, sometimes with a no and sometimes with a ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ Jimmy Carter
• The answer of our prayers is secured by the fact that in rejecting them God would in a certain sense deny His own nature. John Calvin
• God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in it. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Pray with a pure heart and pray from where you are. God will answer your prayers. There is no need to abandon the world or retreat to a jungle. Shri Radhe Maa
• …to see that God does answer, in great things as well as small, the prayers of those who put their trust in Him will strengthen the faith of multitudes. Philip Yancey
• The shower of answers to your prayers will continue to your dying hour. Nor will it cease then. When you pass out from beneath the shower, your dear ones will step into it. Every prayer and every sigh which you have uttered for them and their future welfare will, in God’s time, descend upon them as a gentle rain of answers to prayer. Ole Hallesby
• Drawing prayer circles isn’t about proving yourself to God; it’s about giving God an opportunity to prove Himself to you. Just in case you have forgotten — and to ensure that you always remember — God is for you. I can’t promise that God will always give you the answer you want. I can’t promise that He’ll answer on your timeline. But I can promise this: He answers every prayer, and He keeps every promise. That is who He is. That is what He does. Mark Batterson

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…not always in the way we expect…

• We may surprised at whom God sends to answer our prayers. Janette Oke
• Our prayers run along one road and God’s answers by another, and by and by they meet. Adoniram Judson
• Never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer. Oswald Chambers
• Asking for anything is allowed with the understanding that God’s answers come from God’s perspective. They are not always in harmony with our expectations, for only He knows the whole story.
• I do know this: God does answer your prayers, but it’s not always in the way you expect. God knows what’s best for us, though, so there’s no need to worry when things don’t go how we originally wanted them to go. Lou Holtz
• If you’re not seeing God move in your life right now, one of two possibilities must be considered. Either your requests are not God’s best and will probably not be answered the way you’d like or it must not be the right time. If God were to answer that prayer the way you are hoping, it could interfere with his ideal plan for you. Joel Osteen
• If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God’s grace. Oswald Chambers
• Answers to prayer often come in unexpected ways. We pray, for instance, for a certain virtue; but God seldom delivers Christian virtues all wrapped in a package and ready for use. Rather He puts us in situations where by His help we can develop those virtues.  Henry Ward Beecher told of a woman who prayed for patience, and God sent her a poor cook. The best answers to prayer may be the vision and strength to meet a circumstance or to assume a responsibility.  Fidley

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…but always exactly as we need…

• God answers first the prayers we should have prayed. Robert Brault
• Be thankful that God’s answers are wiser than your answers. William Culbertson
• Our prayers run by one road and God’s answers by another, and by and by they meet. Adoniram Judson
• God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what He knows. D. Greear
• Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask, but when we are challenged to be what we can be. Morris Adler
• Sometimes the dream we are granted is the one we never asked for, but the one we really wanted and needed all the time. Robin Zaruba
• What God gives in answer to our prayers will always be the thing we most urgently need, and it will always be sufficient. Elisabeth Elliot
• In the foothills of the Himalayas, one hears the prayer: “Oh Lord, we know not what is good for us. You know what it is.  For it we pray.”  Harry E. Fosdick
• 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
• In what ways are you reminded that God has great plans for you? Have you ever avoided something, only to find out later it is exactly what you needed? What did you want to be when you were young? Did that come to fruition? Robin Zaruba
• God will answer you prayers better than you think. Of course, one will not always get exactly what he has asked for….We all have sorrows and disappointments, but one must never forget that, if commended to God, they will issue in good….His own solution is far better than any we could conceive. Fanny J. Crosby

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…even though the answer is sometimes “no”

• If the request is wrong, God says, No. If the timing is wrong, God says, Slow. If you are wrong, God says, Grow. But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, Go! Bill Hybels
• If you’re not seeing God move in your life right now, one of two possibilities must be considered. Either your requests are not God’s best and will probably not be answered the way you’d like or it must not be the right time. If God were to answer that prayer the way you are hoping, it could interfere with his ideal plan for you. Joel Osteen
• God always answers our prayers, but sometimes the answer is no.

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We are told we need to be patient in awaiting an answer to our prayers…

• I’ll always say my prayers…and if God doesn’t answer them at once I shall know it’s because He’s planning something better for me. Johanna Spyri
• Hurry is the death of Prayer. Samuel Chadwick
• Plans and goals can be circumvented by the most disappointing of times, leaving you learning the art of patience and the acceptance of a denied request. D. Jakes
• I think Christians fail so often to get answers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on God. They just drop down and say a few words, and then jump up and forget it and expect God to answer them. Such praying always reminds me of the small boy ringing his neighbor’s door-bell, and then running away as fast as he can go. Edward McKendree Bounds

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…for God’s answers are always on God’s schedule

• Answers to prayer have to be on God’s schedule, not ours. He hears us pray, and He answers according to His will in His own time. David Jeremiah

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Sometimes God’s answers are in the realm of the unseen

• We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen. Oswald Chambers

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Sometimes God doesn’t seem to answer at all…

• Sometimes the best answers to prayer are the ones God doesn’t answer. Robin Jones Gunn
• God does say He will graciously entertain our prayers. He says that if we exercise faith, and if our request is in accordance with His will, He will hear us. Walter Martin
• Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me. Dan Barker
• If the request is wrong, God says, No. If the timing is wrong, God says, Slow. If you are wrong, God says, Grow. But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, Go! Bill Hybels
• Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers. Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs; that just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care. Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Garth Brooks
• Some prayers are followed by silence (from God) because they are wrong, others because they are bigger than one can understand. It will be a wonderful moment for some of us when we stand before God and find that the prayers we clamored for in early days and imagined were never answered, have been answered in the most amazing way, and that God’s silence has been the sign of the answer. Oswald Chambers
• As much as it pleases God to bless you, there will be moments when everything you try goes up in smoke. There will be moments when the one you counted on most walks away and leaves you groping through blinding tears and wailing questions of why. Plans and goals can be circumvented by the most disappointing of times, leaving you learning the art of patience and the acceptance of a denied request. T. D. Jakes

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…and this, we are assured, is often for the best for we don’t know what is truly best for us

• Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Garth Brooks
• When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. Oscar Wilde
• If God really wanted to punish, he’d answer all our prayers. Oscar Wilde
• God punishes us mildly by ignoring our prayers and severely by answering them. Richard J. Needham
• Did not God Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, We should be ruined at our own request. Hannah More
• Oscar Wilde said that the gods punish us in two ways: first, they don’t give us what we want, then, they do. He forgot the third way: we finally see the cost of getting it. Perry Brass
• As time passes, you will look back with twenty-twenty hindsight, and you will say, ‘Thank God He did not answer my prayers’ or ‘Thank God He answered my prayers,’ whichever the case may be. Greg Laurie
• If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour but the ministering genius of our destruction. George MacDonald

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We are told God answers prayers as God is good

• Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Haven fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it’s because God is good. From His goodness, His lovingkindness, His good-natured benevolence, God does it! That’s the source of everything. Aiden Wilson Tozer

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We are told God always uses our requests in accordance with God’s purpose

• How immense God is, that He is able to sweep into His purposes even foolish requests and bad motivations. Alistair Begg
• Prayer is not a means for us to persuade a reluctant God to do something which is against His better judgment. Prayer, rather is coming to God for the fulfillment of His will, coming to a God who delights to answer prayer. John F Walvoord
• If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray? Dan Barker

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We are told God’s answers to our requests is dependent on the strength of our belief and faith

• Desire, ask, believe, receive. Stella Terrill Mann
• Begin to live as though your prayers are already answered. Tony Robbins
• Beloved, it is not our long prayers but our believing God that gets the answer. John G. Lake
• Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Eckhart Tolle
• Most Christians expect little from God, ask little, and therefore receive little and are content with little. A.W. Pink
• Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24
• Prayer is not trying to twist God’s arm to make Him do something. Prayer is receiving by faith what He has already done! Andrew Wommack
• God does say He will graciously entertain our prayers. He says that if we exercise faith, and if our request is in accordance with His will, He will hear us. Walter Martin
• When I pray, I pray believing that God will speak to me and give me an answer to that prayer. That’s what a calling is. If I pray, a calling means that I feel like I have a sense from God. Michele Bachmann
• God is eagerly waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as he always has. But he can’t if you don’t pray, and he can’t if you don’t dream. In short, he can’t if you don’t believe. Jeffrey R. Holland
• Release your problem to God with a prayer that the answer will come in its own good time and place. Hold the attitude of faith and expectancy, knowing that God has all the answers, that His knowledge is limitless and can never be exhausted. Wilferd Peterson
• The prayer of faith is a prayer willing to believe and prevail for God’s answer in a situation that is utterly impossible. Regardless of the difficulty of the situation, you require no external confirmation but believe God in spite of appearance. Your eyes are on God, not on the situation. Wesley L Duewel
• Supply does not come through prayer. It comes as a result of an attitude of faith, a condition of mind and heart, in which the Invisible is depended upon for all things necessary, instead of upon the visible and earthly. Prayer in the form of begging and beseeching God to kindly answer our requests is not capable of producing supply in itself. Henry Thomas Hamblin

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We are told to be specific and clear in our requests…

• Be specific in your prayer requests of GOD. Benny Hinn

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…and to ask for difficult, even impossible things…

• God is honored by large, difficult, and impossible requests when we ask, seek, knock, and trust our loving Father always to answer for our good. Charles Stanley

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…but without too much attachment to a specific result

• To pray without expectation is to misunderstand the whole concept of prayer and relationship with God. Aiden Wilson Tozer

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We are told delayed answers are a test of our confidence in God…

• Delayed answers to prayer are not only trials of faith; they also give us opportunities to honor God through our steadfast confidence in Him, even when facing the apparent denial of our request. Charles Spurgeon
• Ever doubt that God answers your prayers? Pray (sincerely) for humility… and watch what happens. Mark Hart
• In prayer we can approach God with complete assurance of His ability to answer us. There is no limit to what we can ask, if it is according to His will. John F Walvoord
• Remember that God, during your prayers, is watching for your affirmative answer to the question which He is inwardly asking you: ‘Do you believe I am able to do this?’ To which question you must from the depth of your heart reply, ‘Yes, Lord’ John of Kronstadt
• The greater and more persistent your confidence in God, the more abundantly you will receive all that you ask. Albertus Magnus
• Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of – infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. Ephesians 3:20

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…and a test of our trust

• When facing the apparent denial of my request, God gave me the opportunity to honor him by trusting His Word. Charles Spurgeon
• It is amazing how much our lack of trust provokes God if we request of him a boon that we do not expect. John Calvin
• Free your mind from all that troubles you; God will take care of things… Trust in him, I beg you, and you will have the fulfillment of what your heart desires. St. Vincent

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God answering our prayers becomes a virtuous cycle

• The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer-the responses of our Father to our requests-our confidence in God’s power spills over into other areas of our life. Dallas Willard

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This metaphor of God as a Request Granter sees God as sovereign with all the power

• Prayer assumes the sovereignty of God. If God is not sovereign, we have no assurance that He is able to answer our prayers. Our prayers would become nothing more than wishes. But while God’s sovereignty, along with his wisdom and love, is the foundation of our trust in Him, prayer is the expression of that trust. Jerry Bridges

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This metaphor encourages dependency on God…

• Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude – an attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Arthur W. Pink
• Listen, my friend! Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness. Ole Hallesby
• You pray and make your requests made known unto God, and God will do something.’ It is not your prayer that is going to do it, it is not you who is going to do it, but God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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…and to some extent, could be seen as a negation of our own power

• Prayer is the sign of your weakness. Rely on your inner strength. You will be the winner. Amit Ray
• Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.

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That God does not answer our prayers is seen by some as a reason to rail against God or deny God

• I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishness. This god is as empty as his church. His followers choose to attribute all of their good fortune to him, but when he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, they say only that he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, they say only that he is beyond their understanding and abandon themselves to his will. What kind of god is that? John Connolly
• 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
• I don’t pray because it doesn’t work. Prayer doesn’t fix anything. Bad things happen anyway. Nicholas Sparks
• I talk to God but the sky is empty. Sylvia Plath

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• God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things. Harry Emerson Fosdick
• Prayer did not come easily to me for I always feel that prayer is a silent things, and opening of the heart. To ask for earthly benefits, to reel out a list of requirements and expect them to be supplied is not prayer. It is putting God in the same category as an intelligent grocer. E. Stevenson
• God is not a slot machine. We don’t go to God to get something; we go to give something. Mother Angelica
• The prevailing idea seems to be, that I come to God and ask Him for something that I want, and that I expect Him to give me that which I have asked. But this is a most dishonouring and degrading conception. The popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant: doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting our desires. No, prayer is a coming to God, telling Him my need, committing my way unto the Lord, and leaving Him to deal with it as seemeth Him best. Arthur W. Pink
• There are two Gods, there is the God that people generally believe in – a God who has to serve them. This God does not exist. But the God whom people forget – the God whom we all have to serve – exists, and is the prime cause of our existence and of all that we perceive. Leo Tolstoy
• We believe that God is like a giant vending machine in the sky. We put in our requests in the form of prayers, and then the vending machine dispenses these prayers based upon how well we’ve followed the rules that someone else has told us are God’s rules. Wayne Dyer
• You have to recognize that God isn’t something outside of you – a cosmic bellboy to whom you pray in order to get this or that if you do the right things. Those kinds of understandings are all ego talk. Everybody – you, me, Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler – we all came from the same Source. Then we took on these egos and began to practice all kinds of things based in not having reverence for life, whereas that which is God has reverence for all life. All excuses are nothing more than misalignments with God. Wayne Dyer
• We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don’t have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now I’m sorry, that’s not God, that’s Santa Claus. Harold S. Kushner
• True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God. Many people use religion as a way of getting something else from God they want-blessings, rewards, even escape from judgement. This is wearisome to us, and to God. But when God is His own reward, Christianity becomes thrilling. Sacrifice becomes joy. D. Greear

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The most powerful prayers are not prayers of supplication

• There is no prayer so blessed as the prayer which asks for nothing. J. Simon
• This morning I stood on the river bank to pray. I knew then that the ancient ones were wise to pray for peace and beauty and not for specific gifts except fertility which is continued life. And I saw that if one has even a small degree of the ability to take into and unto him or herself the peace and beauty that God surrounds them with, it is not necessary to ask for more.  Edith Warner
• When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing. Saint Francis of Assisi

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Instead of supplication, use prayer to tap into God’s strength…

• Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Mother Teresa
• O, do not pray for easy lives. Phillips Brooks
• Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart. Ruth Graham
• Patience, prayer and silence-these are what give strength. Mary Faustina Kowalska
• I believe in prayer. It’s the best way we have to draw strength from heaven. Josephine Baker
• I believe in prayer. It’s the best way we have to draw strength from heaven. Josephine Baker
• May I be I is the only prayer–not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong. E. E. Cummings
• Do you need strength? Peace? Wisdom? Direction? Discipline? Ask for it! God will hear you. Charles R. Swindoll
• What I wish to show by these feats of strength is that prayer and meditation can definitely increase one’s outer capacities. Sri Chinmoy
• If you need a transfusion of spiritual strength then just ask for it. We call that Prayer. Prayer is powerful spiritual medicine. Boyd K. Packer
• One night alone in prayer might make us new men, changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth, from trembling to triumphing. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer for worldly goods is worse than fruitless, but prayer for strength of soul is that passion of the soul which catches the gift it seeks. George Meredith
• Prayer is helplessness casting itself on Power, infirmity leaning on Strength, misery reaching to Mercy, and a prisoner clamoring for Relief. Fulton J. Sheen
• God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps us tap and develop these powers. Abdul Kalam
• Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind, and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength. Alexis Carrel
• My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience. Therese of Lisieux
• Prayer is like water – something you can’t imagine has the strength or power to do any good, and yet give it time and it can change the lay of the land. Jodi Picoult
• Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation the source of strength is one’s self. When one prays he goes to a source of strength greater than his own. Madame de Stael
• We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find that He injects into our bodies energy, power and strength. Charles F. Stanley
• Prayer girds human weakness with divine strength, turns human folly into heavenly wisdom, and gives to troubled mortals the peace of God. We know not what prayer can do. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer reveals to souls the vanity of earthly goods and pleasures. It fills them with light, strength and consolation; and gives them a foretaste of the calm bliss of our heavenly home. Rose of Viterbo
• A prayer, it seems to me, implies a promise as well as a request; at the highest level, prayer not only is a supplication for strength and guidance, but also becomes an affirmation of life and thus a reverent praise of God. Walt Disney
• There are prayers that help us last through the day, or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers, that give us strength for the journey. And there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than our own. George W. Bush
• Prayer is a great tower of strength, a pillar of unending righteousness, a mighty force that moves mountains and saves souls. Through it the sick are healed, the dead are raised, and the Holy Spirit is poured out without measure upon the faithful. Bruce R. McConkie
• Prayer and meditation are my inner secret and my outer secret. My muscles are next to nothing compared to the muscles of the professional bodybuilders and weightlifters. It is because of the strength of my prayer-life and meditation-life that I am able to accomplish these feats of strength. Sri Chinmoy
• When a warrior is present and awake to all that she is, she is able to take on any challenge, any project, or any future that she desires. Her daily prayer is to have the strength to love all of herself, the courage to listen to what she is guided to do and the confidence to go out, stand tall and deliver her gifts to the world. Debbie Ford
• Prayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength. Alexis Carrel
• Give Me Strength This is my prayer to thee, my lord—strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might. Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles. And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love. Rabindranath Tagore

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…harnessing strength to endure and transcend life’s challenges…

• Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it. Rabindranath Tagore
• The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Many people pray to be kept out of unexpected problems. Some people pray to be able to confront and overcome them. Toba Beta
• Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. Bruce Lee
• Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks. Phillips Brooks
• I do not pray for a lighter load, but for a stronger back. Phillips Brooks
• It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal. Helen Keller
• Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. John F. Kennedy
• Never pray to God for release of your problems. Never pray to God to change your life, and to give you something better. This is wrong prayer. If you have to pray to God, pray to God to give you the strength and the wisdom and the courage that you need to be able to handle the situation that you’re in. This is correct prayer. Robert Adams

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…and the strength to answer your own prayers…

• God may want you to be the answer to your own prayer. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• God never answers prayers. It is people who answer their own prayers by knowing how to connect and utilize the divine energy of the Creator and the God-like force in their own souls. Yehuda Berg
• We have been deceived into believing prayer is all about persuading God to release His power. We no longer need to beg or plead; we need to exercise the authority He has given us and receive His blessings. Andrew Wommack
• Never pray to God for release of your problems. Never pray to God to change your life, and to give you something better. This is wrong prayer. If you have to pray to God, pray to God to give you the strength and the wisdom and the courage that you need to be able to handle the situation that you’re in. This is correct prayer. Robert Adams
• Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. John F. Kennedy
• 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
• Prayer is not a test of God, but a call for help to find your inner strength and talent. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
• Prayer plumes the wings of God’s young eaglets so that they may learn to mount above the clouds. Prayer brings inner strength to God’s warriors and sends them forth to spiritual battle with their muscles firm and their armor in place. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer is not flight, prayer is power. Prayer does not deliver a man from some terrible situation; prayer enables a man to face and to master the situation. William Barclay

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…as well as the strength do what God wills

• A key to improved prayer is to learn to ask the right questions. Consider changing from asking for the things you want to honestly seeking what He wants for you. Then as you learn His will, pray that you will be led to have the strength to fulfill it. Richard G. Scott

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Instead of asking for what you want, use prayer to ask God what God wants…

• When your will is God’s will, you will have your will. Charles Spurgeon
• What we usually pray to God is not that His will be done, but that He approve ours. Helga Bergold Gross
• The purpose of prayer is emphatically not to bend God’s will to ours, but rather to align our will to his. John Stott
• 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
• Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or bending his will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his. John Stott
• Prayer is the noble supplication which we lift up to the throne of the Most High. It is the most efficient means to obtain from God the graces which we need. Pier Giorgio Frassati
• Prayer is not getting man’s will done in heaven, but getting God’s will done on earth. It is not overcoming God’s reluctance but laying hold of God’s willingness. Richard Chenevix Trench
• Why pray if we cannot change God? …is that why we pray? To change omniscient Love? Isn’t it rather to learn what it is and to fulfill it? Not to change it by our acts, but to change our acts by it. Peter Kreeft
• Prayer is, for me, not an opportunity to ask God to do stuff for me. Prayer is an opportunity to open myself, to try and understand his will, and oftentimes it’s a prayer of thanksgiving, and sometimes it’s a prayer of supplication, and sometimes it is just worship. Francis Collins
• We should not open our mouths too hastily upon approaching God. On the contrary, we first must ask God to show us what and how to pray before we make our request known to Him. Have we not consumed a great deal of time in the past asking for what we wanted? Why not now ask for what God wants? Watchman Nee
• We should not open our mouths too hastily upon approaching God. On the contrary, we first must ask God to show us what and how to pray before we make our request known to Him. Have we not consumed a great deal of time in the past asking for what we wanted? Why not now ask for what God wants? Watchman Nee
• I have to be honest in asking myself: Do I really want to know and do God’s will? Or is it rather that I want God to do my will?  Do I go to God with the assurance that I want only to know and do his will? Or do I rather first make my own plans and then insist that God make my dreams come true? John Powell
• That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done. Brother Lawrence

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… so you can relinquish your requests and become an instrument of God’s will

• Relinquish your request and abandon yourself to God’s will
• Pray till prayer makes you forget your own wish, and leave it or merge it in God’s will. Frederick W. Robertson
• Before we can pray, “Lord, Thy Kingdom come,” we must be willing to pray, “My Kingdom go.” Alan Redpath
• He’s going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn’t you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It’s all very confusing. George Carlin
• Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance, but taking hold of God’s willingness. Phillips Brooks
• Most of us wait until we’re in trouble, and then we pray like the dickens. Wonder what would happen if, some morning, we’d wake up and say, Anything I can do for You today, Lord? Bill Vaughan
• Supplication is an act of humility. To lower levels of consciousness, prayer is an attempt to get something for self or others, such as a new car, a job, recovery from an illness, or special favors. With progress, this intention to control God is given up and the act of supplication becomes a dedication instead of a request. In war, both sides pray to win. With progression of consciousness from selfishness to selflessness, the quality of prayer shifts to the willingness to be a servant of the Lord and a channel of His Will without trying to specify the what or the how it is to be done. David R. Hawkins
• Q: What prayers are useful? A: Ask to be the servant of the Lord, a vehicle of divine love, a channel of God’s will. Ask for direction and divine assistance and surrender all personal will through devotion. Dedicate one’s life to the service of God. Choose love and peace above all other options. Commit to the goal of unconditional love and compassion for all life in all its expression and surrender all judgment to God. David R. Hawkins

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Instead of supplication, pray to know the mind of God

• God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God. Oswald Chambers
• Our understanding of God is the answer to prayer; getting things from God is God’s indulgence of us. When God stops giving us things, He brings us into the place where we can begin to understand Him. Oswald Chambers
• The greatest answer to prayer is that I am brought into a perfect understanding with God, and that alters my view of actual things. Oswald Chambers

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Instead of supplication, offer prayers of gratitude

• Prayer is the coin paid to Gratitude. Terri Guillemets
• I believe in prayer. I believe in gratitude. Kiran Bedi
• Mature prayer always breaks into gratitude. Richard Rohr
• Prayer is the fruit of joy and thankfulness. Evagrius Ponticus
• Grow flowers of gratitude in the soil of prayer. Terri Guillemets
• Just a thank you is a mighty powerful prayer. Says it all. Rosanne Cash
• A grateful thought toward heaven is of itself a prayer. Rudolph Edgar Block
• Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines. Satchel Paige
• Gratitude is the greatest prayer. Thank you is the greatest mantra. Swami Nithyananda
• When joy and prayer are married, their first born child is gratitude. Charles Spurgeon
• Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. Maya Angelou
• Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? Gilbert K. Chesterton
• A single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
• When you live with constant gratitude, your life will become a living prayer. Barbara De Angelis
• God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “thank you?” William A. Ward
• If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice. Meister Eckhart
• If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. Meister Eckhart
• Today don’t beg, don’t ask, just thank God in silence for all the blessings in your life. Paulo Coelho
• I would like to explain that I consider prayer above all an act of gratitude for existence. Saul Bellow
• The Bible tells us that whenever we come before God, whatever our purpose or prayer request, we are always to come with a thankful heart. David Jeremiah
• Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts. Alan Cohen
• We ought to be as earnest and frequent in our prayers of thanksgiving when the cupboard is full as we would be in our prayers of supplication if the cupboards were bare. Jerry Bridges
• Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• A prayer, it seems to me, implies a promise as well as a request; at the highest level, prayer not only is a supplication for strength and guidance, but also becomes an affirmation of life and thus a reverent praise of God. Walt Disney
• Let me recommend that periodically you and I offer a prayer in which we only give thanks and express gratitude. Ask for nothing; simply let our souls rejoice and strive to communicate appreciation with all the energy of our hearts. David A. Bednar
• Prayer is, for me, not an opportunity to ask God to do stuff for me. Prayer is an opportunity to open myself, to try and understand his will, and oftentimes it’s a prayer of thanksgiving, and sometimes it’s a prayer of supplication, and sometimes it is just worship. Francis Collins

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…for the more powerful prayer is one of gratitude, not request…

• The most meaningful and spiritual prayers I have experienced contained many expressions of thanks and few, if any, requests. David A. Bednar
• If you make your prayers an expression of gratitude and thanksgiving for the blessings you already have, instead of requests for things you do not have, you will obtain results much faster. Napoleon Hill
• Do not exclusively say your prayers in the form of asking God for something. The prayer of thanksgiving is much more powerful. Norman Vincent Peale
• What discord we should bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered. Then we should govern the world and not God. And do you think we should govern it better? It gives me only pain when I hear the long, wearisome petitions of people asking for they know not what. . . . Thanks-giving with a full heart–and the rest silence and submission to the divine will! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trail as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to God. Therese of Lisieux
• The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude. When you thank God in advance for that which you choose to experience in your reality, you in effect, acknowledge that it is there…in effect. Thankfulness is thus the most powerful statement to God – an affirmation that even before you ask, I have answered. Therefore never supplicate… Appreciate. Neale Donald Walsch

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…and paradoxically prayers of gratitude will bring us far greater abundance that prayers of supplication

• The process of prayer becomes much easier when, rather than having to believe that God will always say “yes” to every request, one understands intuitively that the request itself is not necessary. Then the prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving. It is not a request at all, but a statement of gratitude of what is so. Neale Donald Walsch
• If you beg and supplicate, there seems a much smaller chance that you will experience what you think you are choosing, because the Sponsoring Thought behind every supplication is that you do not have now what you wish. That Sponsoring Thought becomes your reality. Neale Donald Walsch
• Where are we taught that prayer is something we can go to at any time, in any place? Are we ever taught that in order to get results, we must pray with faith and persistence? I will be among the first to admit that for many years my prayers were results-oriented.  There was something I wanted, and I thought prayer could get it for me when I could not get it for myself.  It took me quite some time to realize that prayer is actually an affirmation of what already exists.  Prayer is a demonstration of our willingness to receive what exists as an outgrowth of our faith in the truth that is good for us. Prayer is an acknowledgement of our trust in the Divine to provide everything we need, when we need it. Iyanla Vanzant
• The purpose is to be in gratitude forever. Live with applied consciousness, prosperity will break through the walls, flood you with it. You do prayer when you are in difficulty. Pray when you are not in difficulty! That is the attitude of gratitude. Harbhajan Singh Yogi

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Instead of supplication, pray for others and for the good of The All…

• If God answered all of your prayers, would the world look different or just your life? Dave Willis
• Instead of viewing God as one who helps me accomplish my purposes, it is now my joy to help God accomplish the divine purpose – seeking the best for others and seeking the growth of the beloved, which is to say everyone. Philip Gulley
• We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray. Corrie Ten Boom
• Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us. Socrates

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…and ask for opportunities to serve

• In your morning prayer each new day, ask Heavenly Father to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children. Then go throughout the day with your heart full of faith and love, looking for someone to help. Stay focused, just like the honeybees focus on the flowers from which to gather nectar and pollen. If you do this, your spiritual sensitivities will be enlarged and you will discover opportunities to serve that you never before realized were possible. Russell Ballard

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Instead of supplication, turn prayer into a form of communication and dialogue with God…

• Prayer is conversation with God. Josippon
• Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Charles Hodge
• Prayer is a friendly conversation with the One we know loves us. St Teresa of Avila
• The prayer preceding all prayers is ‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’ S. Lewis
• Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation and for me the most important part is listening to God’s replies. Frank C. Laubach
• For me, prayer is not so much me setting out a shopping list of requests for God to consider as it is a way of keeping company with God. Philip Yancey
• To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say. Madeleine L’Engle
• Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God’s voice is its most essential part. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine. Andy Murray
• Prayer is neither black magic nor is it a form of a demand note. Prayer is a relationship… We pray not to get something, but to open up a two-way street between us and God, so that we and others may inwardly become something. John Heuss
• Don’t look at prayer as me asking God to give me something, like some type of cosmic bell captain, look at prayer as my communication with the quantum intelligence, the divine intelligence that we have out there and that is how things are manifested. John Assaraf
• Prayer is spiritual communication between man and God, a two-way relationship in which man should not only talk to God but also listen to Him. Prayer to God is like a child’s conversation with his father. It is natural for a child to ask his father for the things he needs. Billy Graham
• Praying actualizes and deepens our communion with God. Our prayer can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude from the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer. Pope Benedict XVI
• 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 J. Wolpe
• Prayer is a supernal gift of our Father in Heaven to every soul. Think of it: the absolute Supreme Being, the most all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful personage, encourages you and me, as insignificant as we are, to converse with Him as our Father. Our supplication can be brief or can occupy all the time needed. It can be an extended expression of love and gratitude or an urgent plea for help. He has created numberless cosmos and populated them with worlds, yet you and I can talk with Him personally, and He will ever answer. Richard G. Scott

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… in order to connect with God…

• Prayer is not the answer. God is the answer. Prayer is the vehicle by which we reach God. Greg Laurie
• Prayer is the link that connects us with God. B. Simpson
• Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer. Oswald Chambers
• Prayer is the link that connects us with God. B. Simpson
• Meditation goes in. Prayer goes out. But they both aim for the same place of union between you and the devine. Lisa Jones
• As long as you are performing prayer, you are knocking at the door of Allah, and whoever is knocking at the door of Allah, Allah will open it for him. Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
• Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the soul to God. John Bunyan
• God is near at hand when you do approach Him in prayer. Octavius Winslow
• The Spirit of prayer makes us so intimate with God that we scarcely pass through an experience before we speak to Him about it, either in supplication, in sighing, in pouring out our woes before Him, in fervent requests, or in thanksgiving and adoration. Ole Hallesby

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…and to build an intimate relationship with God

• Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings. A. Carson
• Our prayer cannot be reduced to an hour on Sundays. It is important to have a daily relationship with the Lord. Pope Francis

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Once we sense our oneness with God, we are able to transcend begging

• As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Instead of supplication, contemplate God through prayer

• This is the path of prayer-contemplative prayer, that is, as distinct from simple prayers of supplication and thanksgiving-which is a specific discipline of thought, desire, and action, one that frees the mind from habitual prejudices and appetites, and allows it to dwell in the gratuity and glory of all things. As an old monk on Mount Athos once told me, contemplative prayer is the art of seeing reality as it truly is; and, if one has not yet acquired the ability to see God in all things, one should not imagine that one will be able to see God in himself. David Bentley

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Instead of supplication, ask for access to God’s intelligence and wisdom

• God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what He knows. D. Greear
• God’s answers are wiser than our prayers. Croft M. Pentz
• It is God’s will not only to hear our prayer, but to give us the best and the richest answer which He, the almighty and omniscient God, can devise. He will send us the answer when it will benefit us and His cause the most. Ole Hallesby
• We never understand what we’re praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom. Rich Mullins
• Is not prayer a study of truth, a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Prayer puts you in touch with the infinite and prepares your mind for the finite. Peter Daniel
• I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day. Abraham Lincoln
• God, grant me strength to accept those things I cannot change. Dan Brown
• Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? Corrie Ten Boom
• I always pray for God’s guidance in my life and he always provides it. He opens the right doors he shuts the right doors. Benjamin Carson

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…and for new ways of seeing things

• Sometimes, however, I recognize there could be another way of seeing things, but I don’t know what it is. I can’t make the shift on my own; I need help. But where to go for help? Other people are as likely to be caught in the same thought system as I am. The place to go for help is deep within, to that level of consciousness that lies beyond the materialistic mindset–to the God within. I have to ask God for help. I have to pray. When I pray in this way, I am not asking for divine intervention by an external God. I am praying to the divine presence within, to my true self. Moreover, I am not praying for the world to be different than it is. I am praying for a different perception of the world. I am asking for divine intervention where it really counts–in the mindsets that govern my thinking.  Peter Russell
• Only God can provide us with an eternal perspective. R. C. Sproul

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Instead of supplication, use prayer to praise God

• Devotion gradually progresses to higher levels. . . . One type goes to God and asks Him to remove his suffering. Another one will ask for money or material things. A third will request liberation or release from his bondage. And the fourth will not ask for anything. He will just enjoy praying and praising his Lord. That is the highest form of prayer. Swami Satchidananda
• A prayer, it seems to me, implies a promise as well as a request; at the highest level, prayer not only is a supplication for strength and guidance, but also becomes an affirmation of life and thus a reverent praise of God. Walt Disney

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Instead of supplication, pray in silence…

• At the heart of silence is prayer. Mother Teresa
• Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. Richard Rohr
• Prayer is like a secret garden made up of silence and rest and inwardness. But there are a thousand and one doors into this garden and we all have to find our own. Jean Vanier

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…and listen for God’s voice…

• True listening is obedient listening. To listen to God is to obey Him. Leanne Payne
• God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer. Mother Teresa
• If you would have God hear you when you pray, you must hear him when he speaks. Richard J. Needham
• The value of consistent prayer is not that God will hear us, but that we will hear Him. William McGill
• If you do all the talking when you pray, how will you ever hear God’s answers? Aiden Wilson Tozer
• Listen in silence because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God. Mother Teresa
• The real ‘work’ of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. Henri Nouwen
• The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. Mother Teresa
• When you pray be sure that you listen as well as talk. You have things you want to say to God but He also has things He wants to say to you. Joyce Meyer
• Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts. Mother Teresa
• To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say. Madeleine L’Engle

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…realising prayer and meditation are complimentary

• Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation, the source of strength is one’s self. When one prays, he goes to a source of strength greater than his own. Madame de Stael
• Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God. Diana Robinson

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Instead of supplication, use prayer to awaken to the divinity within you…

• Prayer is that which enables the soul to realize its divinity. Avicenna
• Be aware of your own worth, use all of your power to achieve it. Create an ocean from a dewdrop. Do not beg for light from the moon, obtain it from the spark within you. Muhammad Iqbal
• We have been deceived into believing prayer is all about persuading God to release His power. We no longer need to beg or plead; we need to exercise the authority He has given us and receive His blessings. Andrew Wommack
• The light is within. It is already there. Take your time to see it. Swami Satchidananda

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…and realise the immense power you have in you to make a difference

• All power that anyone can possibly use is within, waiting to be made visible, first by recognizing it, then affirming it as ours. C Haanel
• All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark. Swami Vivekananda
• Be afraid of nothing. You have within you all wisdom, all power, all strength, all understanding. Eileen Caddy
• Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers, powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing, forces that would revolutionise his life if roused and put into action. Orison Swett
• I believe that you’re great, that there’s something magnificent about you.
• No matter what his position or experience in life, there is in everyone more latent than developed ability; far more unused than used power. James Cash Penney
• Realize that enough hidden strength lies within you to overcome all obstacles and temptations. Bring forth that indomitable power and energy. Paramahansa Yogananda
• The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise person. Euripides
• The power is in you. The answer is in you. You are the answer to all your searches: You are the goal. It’s never outside. Eckhart Tolle
• There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become. Orison Swett Marden
• True Power is within, and it is available now. Eckhart Tolle
• You have enormous untapped power you’ll probably never tap, because most people never run far enough on their first wind to ever find they have a second. William James
• You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. there are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind. Darwin P. Kingsley
• Your great power lies not on the surface, but deep within your being. Roger McDonald

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This power is the spiritual power of God within you, being you

• With the realization of God comes all power. If the little wave knew that behind it is the great ocean, it could say, “I am the ocean.” You should realize that just behind your consciousness is the Ocean of God. Paramahansa Yogananda
• God is the life behind your life, the sight behind your eyes, the taste behind your tongue, and the love behind your love. To realize this to the fullest extent is Self-realization. Without God’s power you can do nothing. If you always hold this thought, you cannot go wrong, because you will have purified the temple of your mind and your soul with the vibrations of God. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Accept your own divinity. Everything is a manifestation of God. When you know that, the power that is LIFE is inside you, you accept your own divinity, and yet you are humble, because you see that see the same divinity in everyone else. Don Miguel Ruiz
• I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the extraordinary is not the birth right of a chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That is my one certainty: we are all the manifestation of the divinity of God. Paulo Coelho
• Our Higher Self, which we might say is the composite of our higher feelings, has almost unlimited capabilities. It can create employment opportunities. It can create situations for the healing of relationships. It has the power to create the opportunity for loving relationships. David Hawkins 
• When we move from being selfish with a small “s,” we move into being Selfish with a capital “S.” We move from our smaller self to our greater Self. We move from weakness to power, and from self-hatred and pettiness to lovingness and harmony. We move from strife to ease, and from frustration to accomplishment. David R. Hawkins

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Prayer contains great power…

• Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. Mahatma Gandhi
• Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer is the place of refuge for every worry, a foundation for cheerfulness, a source of constant happiness, a protection against sadness. Saint John Chrysostom
• Patience, prayer and silence-these are what give strength to the soul. Mary Faustina Kowalska
• Prayer is doubts destroyer, ruin’s remedy, the antidote to all anxieties. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer is a weapon, a mighty weapon in a terrible conflict. Our prayers are to be a continual, conscious, earnest effort of battle, the battle against whatever is not God’s will. Peter Forsyth
• Miracles happen. But prayer is needed! Prayer that is courageous, struggling and persevering, not prayer that is a mere formality. Pope Francis
• God shapes the world by prayer. Edward McKendree Bounds
• The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity…if we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.” Hudson Taylor
• Prayer turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. Samuel Chadwick
• Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God’s perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying! Pope John Paul II
• Prayer is the window that God has placed in the walls of our world. Leave it shut and the world is a cold, dark house. But throw back the curtains and see His light. Open the window and hear His voice. Open the window of prayer and invoke the presence of God in your world. Max Lucado
• More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Prayer moves the arm that moves the world. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer is to the spiritual life what the beating of the pulse and the drawing of the breath are to the life of the body. John Henry Newman

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…particularly prayers that ask for nothing

• There is no prayer so blessed as the prayer which asks for nothing. J. Simon

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Prayer is most powerful when we pray for another

• When you are blessing the sick, you beg of the Almighty, but actually you are not begging for anything, because from inside your being, energy is pouring into the other person. It is from a state of compassion, of compassionate meditation, that the healing activity of God, within the being, flows. Harbhajan Singh Yogi
• If you want God to hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you wish God to anticipate your wants, provide those of the needy without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the needs of those who are ashamed to beg. To make them ask for alms is to make them buy it. Thomas of Villanova

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Prayer can be a salve and a comfort in difficult times

• Prayer is a salve for every sore, a remedy for every malady; and when we are afflicted with thorns in the flesh, we should give ourselves to prayer. If an answer be not given to the first prayer, nor to the second, we are to continue praying. Troubles are sent to teach us to pray; and are continued, to teach us to continue instant in prayer. Matthew Henry
• Never give up prayer, and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what love your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction. John of the Cross
• Prayer is the acid test of the inner man’s strength. A strong spirit is capable of praying much and praying with all perseverance until the answer comes. A weak one grows weary and fainthearted in the maintenance of praying. Watchman Nee
• Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed. Pope Benedict XVI
• Prayer is a means of sharing the burden, which relieves pressure, as you tell your worries and concerns to someone who will listen and won’t judge, no matter what you say. Praying is like handing the problem over to someone else as you talk it out. Then you can tune in for guidance and a different perspective that will exude heartfelt energy. When you pray, you are exposing your real self and extending sincere, loving energy to yourself. It doesn’t matter if your words are fancy or plain, and there is no way to do it right or wrong. Prayer is about opening your heart and being sincere. Lucinda Bassett

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Prayer helps us transcend worry and anxiety

• Pray, hope and don’t worry. Anxiety doesn’t help at all. Our Merciful Lord will listen to your prayer. Pio of Pietrelcina
• Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He’s going to be up all night anyway. Mary C. Crowley
• Daily prayers will diminish your cares. Betty Mills
• Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. Corrie Ten Boom
• Every morning I spend fifteen minutes filling my mind full of God; and so there’s no room left for worry thoughts. Howard Chandler Christy
• The more you pray, the less you’ll panic. The more you worship, the less you worry. You’ll feel more patient and less pressured. Rick Warren
• We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. Oswald Chambers
• Prayer is a means of sharing the burden, which relieves pressure, as you tell your worries and concerns to someone who will listen and won’t judge, no matter what you say. Praying is like handing the problem over to someone else as you talk it out. Then you can tune in for guidance and a different perspective that will exude heartfelt energy.  Lucinda Bassett

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Prayer helps us solve problems

• We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer. John Ortberg Jr.
• Prayer can solve more problems, alleviate more suffering, prevent more transgression, and bring about greater peace and contentment in the human soul than can be obtained in any other way. Thomas S. Monson
• Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble. Philip Melanchthen
• When you embrace the mystery and open yourself to it, a new life is created, resistant to the old problems. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

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Prayer changes us and shapes us…

• Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. Soren Kierkegaard
• Prayer doesn’t change things – God changes things in answer to prayer. John Calvin
• Prayer is designed to adjust you to God’s will, not to adjust God to your will. Henry Blackaby
• If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquillity of bearing, a facial and bodily repose, are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fears, his greeds, his blunders. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace. Alexis Carrel

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…and even transforms us…

• Prayer changes things? No! Prayer changes people, and people change things. Burton Hills
• Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered. George Meredith
• The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. Soren Kierkegaard
• Your prayer for someone may or may not change them, but it always changes YOU. Craig Groeschel
• Not being changed by prayer is sort of life standing in the middle of a spring rain without getting wet. It’s hard to stand in the center of God’s acceptance and love without getting it all over you. Steve Brown
• Prayer enables us to transform the world, because it transforms us. Marianne Williamson
• Prayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing it changes is us. As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly. C. Sproul
• Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for things. Samuel M. Shoemaker
• Prayer changes things. Prayer changes us. Prayer changes life.  Sometimes an event has been manifested that needs to be stopped, midair.  Don’t pray just when you’re in trouble.  Pray every day.  Surround yourself with prayer.  You never know when you might need an extra miracle. Melody Beattie
• 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
• Your requests change history because your prayers change God! Max Lucado

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…especially our character

• Prayer is not a check request asking for things from God. It is a deposit slip – a way of depositing God’s character into our bankrupt souls. Dutch Sheets
• The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. Soren Kierkegaard
• Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered. George Meredith

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Time spent praying is a great investment

• Prayer is an investment. The time you dedicate to prayer isn’t lost; it will return dividends far greater than what a few moments spent on a task ever could. If we fail to cultivate this discipline, prayer winds up being our last resort rather than our first response. Charles R. Swindoll

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Pray regularly

• Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening. Mahatma Gandhi

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Give God your full attention

• …people mostly pray as if there were no God with them, or as if He did not heed their prayers. Let us ascribe to the Lord at least the same amount of attention that good parents show to the requests of their children, at least that provident and attentive love which good parents have for their children. John of Kronstadt

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Combine prayer with purposeful action

• Brilliant ideas are gifts from God, sent to you in answer to your prayers . . . and all you need to do is act upon the ideas, one divinely guided step at a time. If you want to validate if an idea is truly heavensent, ask your angels to send you clear signs. Doreen Virtue
• Prayer and action…can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. Henri Nouwen
• … if a man prays God for some virtue, and at the same time gives himself up to negligence, acquiring no definite means to gain this virtue, and making no effort towards it, truly this man tempts God, rather than prays. Thus the divine James says: ‘The effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much’ (Jms. 5:16). What avails to make prayer effective? is when, besides begging a saint to pray for him about something, the man also prays about it himself and with all diligence does everything necessary for obtaining his request. Lorenzo Scupoli
• Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. Mohandas K. Gandhi
• I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer. Martin Luther
• Go where your best prayers take you. Frederick Buechner
• Right prayer is not escape from action, it is equipment for action. It is not idle luxury, it is no luxury at all. . . . It is not a waste of time.  The hours spent in communion with God, make better, more effective, the hours spent in action.  It is not an effort to get God to do what we ought to do, but to let God equip us for the doing, and help us in the doing and finally to do only what we alone cannot do. Albert E. Day

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… rather than using prayer as a substitute for action

• If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them. Wally Lamb
• Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can. Julia Cameron
• I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. Frederick Douglass
• One must pray first, but afterwards one must help oneself. God does not care for cowards. Ouida
• Pray like it all depends on God, but work like it all depends on you. Dave Ramsey
• Call on God, but row away from the rocks. Indian Proverb
• Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to. Terry Pratchett, Snuff
• Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers. Austin O’Malley
• Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living. Mary Harris Jones
• The Sufis have a saying: “Praise Allah, and tie your camel to a post.”  This brings together both parts of practice:  pray, yes, but also make sure that you do what is necessary in the world.  Jack Kornfield
• Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.

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Our everyday actions must live up to our prayers

• It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk. Henry Ward Beecher
• It is good for us to keep some account of our prayers, that we may not unsay them in our practice. Matthew Henry
• The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer. Mahatma Gandhi

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Pray from the heart for your feelings are more important than the words

• Prayers not felt by us are seldom heard by God. Philip Henry
• Cold prayers shall never have any warm answers. Thomas Brooks
• Prayer requires more of the heart than the tongue. Adam Clarke
• Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. Mahatma Gandhi
• May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in. Mother Teresa
• In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. John Bunyan
• Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused. Charles H. Spurgeon
• When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart. John Bunyan
• Prayer is essentially about making the heart strong so that fear cannot penetrate there. Matthew Fox
• God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked. Voltaire
• When I worship, I would rather my heart be without words than my words be without heart. LaMar Boschman
• Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude – an attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Arthur W. Pink
• Perfect prayer does not consist in many words, silent remembering and pure intention raises the heart to that supreme Power. Amit Ray
• The reason why we obtain no more in prayer is because we expect no more. God usually answers us according to our own hearts. Richard Alleine
• Prayer is the song of the heart. It reaches the ear of God even if it is mingled with the cry and the tumult of a thousand men. Khalil Gibran
• It is not eloquence, but earnestness, not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. Hannah More
• I’ve often thought, I’m nobody. Why would God answer my prayer? But God’s not impressed by eloquence; he’s impressed by our longing for him. Stormie Omartian
• True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length. Charles Spurgeon
• …True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length. Charles Spurgeon
• The easiest way to get touch with this universal power is through silent Prayer. Shut your eyes, shut your mouth, and open your heart. This is the golden rule of prayer. Prayer should be
• Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Gandhi
• In essence, prayer is communion with mystery. And for that reason, there can be no one right way to do it, no prescription for prayer that will minister to everyone’s needs. However, perhaps there is one requisite: that our heart be in it. Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins

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Pray with love

• For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. Therese of Lisieux
• It is good to love God for hope of reward, but it is better to love God for love’s sake; and the prayer goes: O Lord, I do not want wealth nor children nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth. But grant me this, that I may love thee without the hope of reward ‘love’ unselfishly for love’s sake. Swami Vivekananda
• Love is the only prayer I know. Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Teresa of Avila
• Prayer is love raised to its greatest power, and the prayer of intercession is the noblest and most Christian kind of prayer because in it love–and imagination– reach their highest and widest range. Robert J. McCracken
• soundless words coming forth from the centre of your heart filled with love. Amit Ray
• When man is with God in awe and love, then he is praying. Karl Rahne
• When you pray, you are exposing your real self and extending sincere, loving energy to yourself. It doesn’t matter if your words are fancy or plain, and there is no way to do it right or wrong. Prayer is about opening your heart and being sincere. Lucinda Bassett

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Pray while you work

• You can pray while you work. Work doesn’t stop prayer and prayer doesn’t stop work. It requires only that small raising of the mind to him: I love you God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now. Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers. Mother Teresa

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Pray during both good times and bad

• You pray in your distress and in your need, would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. Kahlil Gibran
• Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines. Leroy Paige
• The trouble with our praying is, we just do it as a means of last resort. Will Rogers
• Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill; they come only when they hurt. Graham Diners
• Pray on the shadowy hillside of hardship and on the sunny hillside of happiness. Terri Guillemets
• We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all. Most of us would prefer, however, to spend our time doing something that will get immediate results. We don’t want to wait for God to resolve matters in His good time because His idea of ‘good time’ is seldom in sync with ours.  Oswald Chambers
• When it’s a glorious day I pray and it’s a glorious day when I pray. Terri Guillemets

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Realise you never need beg God for love for it is given

• It is tragic for our God, Who gave us His Son to die on the cross, to beg us to love Him. Jack Hyles
• All his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved. Truman Capote