This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Baal Shem Tov, given name Yisroel ben Eliezer
Each prayer has it own proper meaning and it is therefore the specific key to a door in the Divine Palace, but a broken heart is an axe which opens all the gates.
Augur said, " Give me neither poverty or riches"' and this will ever be the prayer of the wise. Our incomes should be like our shoes: if too small, they will gall and pinch us, but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip. But wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more.
Cause | Gall | Little | Poverty | Prayer | Riches | Wants | Wealth | Will | Wise |
François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
Prayer is more the mere outburst of the desires or sorrows of the soul, seeking that satisfaction or consolation which it does not find within itself. It is the expression of a faith, instinctive or reflective, obscure or clear, wavering or steadfast, in the existence, the presence, the power and the sympathy of the Being to whom prayer is addressed.
Consolation | Existence | Faith | Power | Prayer | Soul | Sympathy | Wavering |
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 |