35 Powerful Quotes on Prayer

Last Updated on August 16, 2025 by The Unbounded Thinker

After learning from first-hand experience that prayer is powerful because it loosens the body’s grip on the soul, I studied prayer extensively and I stumbled upon this powerful quotes on prayer from great spiritual masters.

“Mercy is what we need, grace is what we must have, or all our life and effort will end in complete failure. Prayer is the way to get them. There is infinite grace at our disposal, and we make it ours experimentally by prayer”. – R.A. Torey, How To Pray,
“Prayer promotes our spiritual growth as almost nothing else, indeed as nothing else”. – R.A. Torey, How To Pray
“The key to the kingdom of heaven is prayer. He who uses this key as he should sees what blessings the kingdom holds in store for those who love it.” – Ilias the Presbyter
“Whenever the soul, paying no attention to external things, is concentrated in prayer, then a kind of flame surrounds it, as fire surrounds iron, and makes it wholly incandescent. The soul remains the same, but can no longer be touched, just as red-hot iron cannot be touched by the hand.” – Ilias the Presbyter
“In order that a prayer should be really unto God, there must be a definite and conscious approach to God when we pray; we must have a definite and vivid realization that God is bending over us and listening as we pray.” – How To Pray, R.A. Torey
“All you have to do as you begin to cultivate the practice of prayer is to prepare yourself with sincere effort and intent to bring your will into harmony with the will of God.” – Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“But there is no better crucible for testing the genuine value of prayer than the effects and the actions that follow it.” – Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“We must be diligent. We must continuously ask God in prayer to take us by the hand. We must always bear in mind that if he lets go of us, we may plummet into the abyss.” – Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“Many people who practice prayer hear things”. – Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“If the soul wishes for her prayer to be fruitful, let her give up her attachment to her own way and open to the divine will”. – Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“Prayer alone can do a lot of good for the people you pray for. Beyond that, it’s not necessary to try to help the whole world. Concentrate on your own circle of companions who need you. Then, whatever you do will be of greater benefit”. – Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“If God seems slow in responding, it is because He is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for His greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart”. – Saint Augustine
“Do what you can and pray for what you cannot yet do”. – Saint Augustine
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you”. – Saint Augustine
“In storms and squalls we need a pilot, and in this present life we need prayer; for we are susceptible to the provocations of our thoughts, both good and bad”. – Saint Abba Isaiah
“Try to make your intellect deaf and dumb during prayer: you will then be able to pray”. – Evagrius Ponticus
“Rancour darkens the intellect of one who prays, and extinguishes the light of his prayers”. – Evagrius Ponticus
“Undistracted prayer is the highest intellection of the intellect”. – Evagrius Ponticus
“Pray first for the purification of the passions; secondly, for deliverance from ignorance and forgetfulness; and thirdly, for deliverance from all temptation, trial and dereliction”. – Evagrius Ponticus
A man who is tied up cannot run. Nor can the intellect that is a slave to passion perceive the realm of spiritual prayer. For it is dragged about by impassioned thoughts and cannot stay still. – Evagrius Ponticus
“He who prays with understanding patiently accepts circumstances, whereas he who resents them has not yet attained pure prayer”. – Saint Mark the Ascetic
“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God”. – John Bunyan
“Right prayer bubbleth out of the heart when it is overpressed with grief and bitterness”. – John Bunyan
“Prayer is an ordinance of God, in which a man draws very near to God”. – John Bunyan
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”. – Saint Paul
“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”. – Jesus Christ
“The crown of every good endeavour and the highest of achievements is diligence in prayer”. – Anonymous
“It is in prayer that the saints experience communion in the hidden energy of God’s holiness and inner union with it, and their intellect itself is brought through unutterable love into the presence of the Lord”. – Anonymous
“Let prayer inhere in the intellect as a ray in the sun. If the intellect lacks prayer, then worldly cares, like ‘clouds driven about by the wind and bringing no rain’ deprive it of its native luminosity”. – Ilias the Presbyter
“Prayer is the communication of the soul of man with the Soul of God. It is the effective means, whereby the great dam of spiritual power and inspiration is tapped. Above all it is not a babble of words”. – The Kolbrin Bible
“Prayer is a state of harmony embracing heart and spirit; it is not a rite”. – The Kolbrin Bible
“The ingredients of prayer are humility, sincerity, surrender of desire, acknowledgement of inadequacy and a wholehearted offering of self. It is the opening of a door to admit a wonderful power into the chambers of the soul”. – The Kolbrin Bible
“Prayer is little understood, for it raises the worshipper above a normal state. It is a state of being wherein man loses himself in the Spirit of Divinity. To those great souls who know the true nature of prayer in its highest expression, it seems a miracle that after losing himself in prayer, the worshipper continues to live in the flesh. True worship, however, is not prayer but the devotion of a life dedicated to the fulfilment of the Divine”. – The Kolbrin Bible
“Be grateful for the good things of life, for they far exceed your needs. Offer a prayer of thanks in the morning and another in the evening, and if you can find no reason for doing so, be certain the fault lies within yourself”. – The Kolbrin Bible
“Prayer has been hedged about with too many man-made rules. I am convinced that God has intended prayer to be as simple and natural, and as constant a part of our spiritual life, as the intercourse between a child and his parent in the home. And as a large part of that intercourse between child and parent is simply asking and receiving, just so is it with us and our Heavenly Parent.” – Rosalind Goforth, How I Know God Answers Prayer