“We must pray for more prayer for it is the world’s mightiest healing force.”
— Frank C. Laubach
“None can pray well but he that lives well.”
— Thomas Fuller
“When prayer is a struggle do not worry about the prayers that you cannot pray. You yourself are a prayer to God at that moment. All that is within you cries out to Him. And He hears all the pleas that your suffering soul and body are making to Him with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
— O. Hallesby
“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“There is neither encouragement nor room in Bible religion for feeble desires listless efforts lazy attitudes all must be strenuous urgent ardent. Flamed desires impassioned unwearied insistence delight heaven. God would have His children incorrigibly in earnest and persistently bold in their efforts. Heaven is too busy to listen to half-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls. Our whole being must be in our praying.”
— E. M. Bounds
“Watch your motive before God have no other motive in prayer than to know Him.”
— Oswald Chambers
“Straight praying is never born of crooked conduct.”
— E. M. Bounds
“There are two main pitfalls on the road to mastery of the art of prayer. If a person gets what he asks for his humility is in danger. If he fails to get what he asks for he is apt to lose confidence. Indeed no matter whether prayer seems to be succeeding or failing humility and confidence are two virtues which are absolutely essential.”
— Anonymous
“Prayer in the sense of petition asking for things is a small part of it confession and penitence are its threshold adoration its sanctuary the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.”
— C. S. Lewis
“It is only when the whole heart is gripped with the passion of prayer that the life-giving fire descends for none but the earnest man gets access to the ear of God.”
— E. M. Bounds
“For we know not what we should pray for.”
— Bible
“A wicked man in prayer may lift up his hands but he cannot lift up his face.”
— Thomas Watson
“Prayer requires more of the heart than of the tongue.”
— Adam Clarke
“If your prayer is selfish the answer will be something that will rebuke your selfishness. You may not recognize it as having come at all but it is sure to be there.”
— William Temple
“To say prayers in a decent delicate way is not heavy work. But to pray really to pray till hell feels the ponderous stroke to pray till the iron gates of difficulty are opened till the mountains of obstacles are removed till the mists are exhaled and the clouds are lifted and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens-this is hard work but it is God’s work and man’s best labor.”
— E. M. Bounds
“Pray a little each day in a childlike way for the Spirit of prayer. If you feel that you know as yet very little concerning the deep things of prayer and what prayer really is then pray for the Spirit of prayer. There is nothing He would rather do than unveil to you the grace of prayer.”
— O. Hallesby
“We pray pious blether our will is not in it and then we say God does not answer we never asked Him for anything. Asking means that our wills are in what we ask.”
— Oswald Chambers
“Productive prayer requires earnestness not eloquence.”
— Anonymous
“Selfishness is never so exquisitely selfish as when it is on its knees. … Self turns what would otherwise be a pure and powerful prayer into a weak and ineffective one.”
— A. W. Tozer
“Importunity is a condition of prayer. We are to press the matter not with vain repetitions but with urgent repetitions. We repeat not to count the times but to gain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray “with all perseverance.” We hang to our prayers because by them we live. We press our pleas because we must have them or die.”
— E. M. Bounds
“I sit beside my lonely fire and pray for wisdom yet: for calmness to remember or courage to forget.”
— Charles Hamilton Aide
“Praying which does not result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the whole office and virtue of praying if it does not rectify conduct. It is in the very nature of things that we must quit praying or quit bad conduct.”
— E. M. Bounds
“Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart.”
— Ruth Graham
“Pray for one another.”
— Bible
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
— Bible
“When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ then we pray correctly.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Prayer is a fine delicate instrument. To use it right is a great art a holy art. There is perhaps no greater art than the art of prayer. Yet the least gifted the uneducated and the poor can cultivate the holy art of prayer.”
— O. Hallesby
“Intercessory prayer for one who is sinning prevails. God says so! The will of the man prayed for does not come into question at all he is connected with God by prayer and prayer on the basis of the Redemption sets the connection working and God gives life.”
— Oswald Chambers
“Let me burn out for God … prayer is the great thing. Oh that I may be a man of prayer!”
— Henry Martyn
“If we would have God in the closet God must have us out of the closet. There is no way of praying to God but by living to God.”
— E. M. Bounds