The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.
Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery; to humble man's heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven.
No president ever puts American lives at risk without a terrible sense of responsibility. And no American ever hears or reads of a soldier’s death without saying a silent prayer for the dead hero or thinking of the grief of the family and friends. Every young man or woman who dies represents a life with its own dreams and plans, extinguished so suddenly. But all said and done, it is our responsibility to see that (1) we never put our troops in situations where they are subject to unnecessary risk, and (2) we give them all our support at all times.
No effort is complete without prayer - without definite recognition that the best human endeavor is of no effect if it has not God's blessing behind it.
Meditation is a sort of prayer and prayer is meditation. The highest meditation is to think of nothing. If you can remain one moment without thought, great power will come.
When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand--a center of gravity.
Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.
What discord we should bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered. Then we should govern the world and not God. And do you think we should govern it better? It gives me only pain when I hear the long, wearisome petitions of people asking for they know not what. . . . Thanks-giving with a full heart-and the rest silence and submission to the divine will!
The bond between mothers and their children is one defined by love. As a mother's prayers for her children are unending, so are the wisdom, grace, and strength they provide to their children.