Quotes on Prayer

The classic writers on the life of prayer — the secret place, persevering intercession, and prayer that prevails.

Pray without ceasing.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:17

81 quotations from 9 writers, each traced to the exact paragraph it comes from.

Amanda Berry Smith 1

  1. How I do thank the Lord when it is my privilege to sing and pray and cheer the weary traveler along the lonesome road.

Andrew Murray 9

  1. The knowledge of God's Father love is the first and simplest, but also the last and highest lesson in the school of prayer.
  2. Let us beware of the prayer for forgiveness becoming a formality: only what is really confessed is really forgiven.
  3. Throughout Scripture, in the life of every saint, of God’s own Son, throughout the history of God’s Church, God is, first of all, a prayer-hearing God.
  4. Intercession is the most perfect form of prayer: it is the prayer Christ ever liveth to pray on His throne.
  5. It is the branch-life, existing solely for the Vine, that will have the power to pray aright.
  6. It is the life abiding wholly in Christ that can pray the effectual prayer in the name of Christ.
  7. Christ’s life and work, His suffering and death—it was all prayer, all dependence on God, trust in God, receiving from God, surrender to God.
  8. To be a branch means not only bearing fruit on earth, but power in prayer to bring down blessing from Heaven.
  9. The life of abiding and obedience, of love and joy, of cleansing and fruit-bearing, will surely lead to the power of prevailing prayer.

Augustine of Hippo 3

  1. Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not.
  2. O let the Light, the Truth, the Light of my heart, not mine own darkness, speak unto me.
  3. I call upon Thee, O my God, my mercy, Who createdst me, and forgottest not me, forgetting Thee.

Charles H. Spurgeon 7

  1. Jesus is exalted on high, that through the virtue of His intercession repentance may have a place before God.
  2. The Lord Jesus has led captivity captive, and now sits at the right hand of God, forever making intercession for us.
  3. The prayer that this morning you offered, Christ is now offering before His Father's throne.
  4. God give us to be much in the holy art of arguing with God in prayer.
  5. The Lord give you large mouths in prayer, great potency, not in the use of language, but in employing arguments.
  6. One prayer coming from the soul is better than a myriad cold readings.
  7. God’s Spirit is teaching you how to wrestle and agonize in prayer.

E. M. Bounds 47

  1. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor.
  2. God’s true preachers have been distinguished by one great feature: they were men of prayer.
  3. Prayer which is felt as a mighty force is the mediate or immediate product of much time spent with God.
  4. Prayer puts the preacher’s heart into the preacher’s sermon; prayer puts the preacher’s sermon into the preacher’s heart.
  5. Nothing is too hard for prayer because nothing is too hard for God.
  6. Nothing is clearer than that prayer has its only worth and significance in the great fact that God hears and answers prayer.
  7. Prayer unites with the purposes of God and lays itself out to secure those purposes.
  8. The prayer is made to God and the issue is with God.
  9. God’s people were always safe when their princes were princes in prayer.
  10. Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons and widens all straits by which God’s saints have been holden.
  11. The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.
  12. No person is a soul-winner who is not an adept in the ministry of prayer.
  13. The number and efficiency of the labourers in God’s vineyard in all lands is dependent on the men of prayer.
  14. The closet cannot be made holy to God when the life has not been holy to God.
  15. Prayer is mighty in its operations, and God never disappoints those who put their trust and confidence in Him.
  16. Every revival of which we have any record has been bathed in prayer.
  17. Prayer promotes the spirit of devotion, while devotion is favourable to the best praying.
  18. Prayer without fervour is as a sun without light or heat, or as a flower without beauty or fragrance.
  19. Prayer does not interpret God’s providences, but it does justify them and recognise God in them.
  20. Prayer so prepares the heart that it softens under the disciplining hand of God.
  21. God can afford to commit Himself in prayer to those who have fully committed themselves to God.
  22. God wants consecrated men because they can pray and will pray.
  23. The prayer life is the direct fruit of entire consecration to God.
  24. Prayer is natural and almost spontaneous when compassion is begotten in the heart.
  25. Prayer is intended for all men, because all men need God and need what God has and what prayer only can secure.
  26. Prayer holds earth to heaven and brings heaven in close contact with earth.
  27. Faith in Christ is the basis of all working, and of all praying.
  28. Christ holds Himself ready to supply exactly, and fully, all the demands of faith and prayer.
  29. The one prominent characteristic of the experience into which believers are brought through prayer, is not a life of works, but of faith.
  30. To see God, to know God, and to live for God -- these form the objective of all true praying.
  31. Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as prayer.
  32. To do God's will without demur, is the joy as it is the privilege of the successful praying-man.
  33. Prayer is not a mere form of words; it is not just calling upon a Name.
  34. The difficulty in prayer is not with faith, but with obedience, which is faith's foundation.
  35. No man can pray -- really pray -- who does not obey.
  36. The will must be surrendered to God as a primary condition of all successful praying.
  37. The Christian soldier is to pray at all seasons, and under all circumstances.
  38. The entire life of a Christian soldier -- its being, intention, implication and action -- are all dependent on its being a life of prayer.
  39. Prayer is not simply to get things from God, but to make those things holy, which already have been received from Him.
  40. God is so concerned that men pray that He has promised to answer prayer.
  41. Prayer is the seeking of God’s great and greatest good, which will not come if we do not pray.
  42. Prayer is the child’s request, not to the winds nor to the world, but to the Father.
  43. Prayer is God’s plan to supply man’s great and continuous need with God’s great and continuous abundance.
  44. God has everything to do with prayer, as well as everything to do with the one who prays.
  45. Jesus Christ was always a busy man with His work, but never too busy to pray.
  46. God’s Gospel has always waited more on prayer than on anything else for its successes.
  47. Prayer is the only element in which the Holy Spirit can live and work.

Gareth Evans 1

  1. The last prayer of Jesus for all who would come to believe Him, is that we may be ONE.

George Müller 8

  1. In our natural state we dislike dealing with God alone.
  2. Our motives must be godly: we must not seek any gift of God to consume it upon our lusts.
  3. If, after prayer, I feel persuaded that I should, I fix upon it, yet so that I would desire to leave myself open to the Lord to change it if he please.
  4. Frequently, too, a fresh answer to prayer, obtained in this way, has been the means of quickening my soul, and filling me with much joy.
  5. How good is the Lord to have thus appeared for us, in answer to prayer, and what an encouragement to commit everything to him in prayer!
  6. A hearty desire for the conversion of sinners, and earnest prayer for it to the Lord, is quite scriptural; but it is unscriptural to expect the conversion of the whole world.
  7. When God gives a spirit of prayer, how easy then to pray!
  8. The lying too long in bed not merely keeps us from giving the most precious part of the day to prayer and meditation, but this sloth leads also to many other evils.

Hudson Taylor 2

  1. How much of prayer there is that begins and ends with the creature, forgetful of the privilege of giving joy to the Creator!
  2. Sometimes we have trials which we cannot put into prayer; the LORD knows the secrets of our heart.

John Wesley 3

  1. Every new victory which a soul gains is the effect of a new prayer.
  2. Prayer is the lifting up of the heart to God: All words of prayer, without this, are mere hypocrisy.
  3. Every action of a Christian that is good, is sanctified by the word and prayer.