This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Pray as though no work could help, and work as though no prayer could help.
I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Man of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.
Blessings | God | Man | Men | Prayer | Pride | Troubles | God | Think |
Jack Dempsey, fully William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey, "The Manassa Mauler"
I never went to bed in my life and I never ate a meal in my life without saying a prayer. I know my prayers have been answered thousands of times, and I know that I never said a prayer in my life without something good coming of it.
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire uttered and expressed, the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast. Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, the upward glancing of an eye, when none but God are near. Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, prayer, the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high.
A word of compassion to the weak criminal or prostitute is nobler than the long prayer which we repeat emptily every day in the temple.
Compassion | Day | Prayer |
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
Intelligence by its nature always moves for well-being when connections can be made. A prayer that leads to healing, then, might function much as a collective electrical charge that gathers to arc the gap to a smaller charge in its opposite polarity.
Intelligence | Nature | Prayer |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
Prayer without devotion is no prayer at all. What then is devotion? One must free his heart from all other thoughts and regard himself as standing in the presence of God.
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is.
Prayer |
When we preach unworthily it is not always in vain. There is poetic truth concealed in all the commonplaces of prayer and of sermons, and though foolishly spoken, they may be wisely heard.
Is not prayer also a study of truth – a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought, shall at the same time kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation.
God | Learning | Light | Man | Object | Prayer | Science | Soul | Study | Thought | Time | Truth | Will | God |
The prayer of the monk is not perfect until he no longer recognizes himself or the fact that he is praying.
Prayer |
He who prays fervently knows not whether he prays or not, for he is not thinking of prayer which he makes, but of God, to whom he makes it.
Sherwood Eddy, born George Sherwood Eddy
We can prove the reality of prayer only by praying.