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Doubt not but God who sits on high,
Thy secret prayers can hear;
When a dead wall thus cunningly
Conveys soft whispers to the ear.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: verse inscribed in the Whispering Gallery of Gloucester Cathedral
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O God, if in the day of battle I forget Thee, do not Thou forget
me.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: attributed to a soldier by William King in "Anecdotes of his own time", p. 7 (ed. 1818)
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I pray the prayer the Easterners do,
May the peace of Allah abide with you;
Wherever you stay, wherever you go,
May the beautiful palms of Allah grow;
Through days of labor, and nights of rest,
The love of Good Allah make you blest;
So I touch my heart--as the Easterners do,
May the peace of Allah abide with you.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: Salaam Alaikum (Peace be with you.)
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Yet then from all my grief, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free,
Whilst in the confidence of pray'r
My soul took hold on thee.
- Joseph Addison,
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Miscellaneous Poems--Divine Ode made by Gentleman on Conclusion of his Travels (verse 6)
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Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.
Author: Philip James Bailey
Source: Festus (sc. Elsewhere)
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And from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe,
O never, never turn away their ear!
Forlorn, in this bleak wilderness below,
Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear!
Author: James Beattie
Source: Minstrel (bk. I, st. 29)
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Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
Author: Bible
Source: Mark (ch. XIII, v. 33)
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But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do:
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Author: Bible
Source: Matthew (ch. VI, v. 7)
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Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Author: Bible
Source: Matthew (ch. VII, v. 7-8)
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Pray, n:. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in
behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Author: Bible
Source: Matthew (ch. VII, v. 7-8)
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Every wish
Is like a prayer--with God.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. II)
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God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,
And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,
A gauntlet with a gift in 't.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. II)
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Hope, he called, belief
In God,--work, worship . . . therefore let us pray!
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: Aurora Leigh (bk. III)
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She knows omnipotence has heard her prayer
And cries, "It shall be done--sometimes, somewhere."
Author: Ophelia G. Browning (Mrs. Arthur P. Adams, Mrs. T.E. Burroughs)
Source: Unanswered
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Just my vengeance complete,
The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
So, I was afraid!
Author: Robert Browning
Source: Instans Tyrannus (VII)
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They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!
Author: Robert Burns
Source: The Cotter's Saturday Night (st. 6)
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Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Prayer of Nature
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Father! no prophet's laws I seek,--
Thy laws in Nature's works appear;--
I own myself corrupt and weak,
Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Prayer of Nature
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Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.
Author: Hartley Coleridge
Source: Poems (Posthumous) Prayer
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He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: The Ancient Mariner (pt. VII)
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He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: The Ancient Mariner (pt. VII)
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The saints will aid if men will call:
For the blue sky bends over all.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: Christabel (conclusion to pt. I)
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But maybe prayer is a road to rise,
A mountain path leading toward the skies
To assist the spirit who truly tries.
But it isn't a shibboleth, creed, nor code,
It isn't a pack-horse to carry your load,
It isn't a wagon, it's only a road.
And perhaps the reward of the spirit who tries
Is not the goal, but the exercise!
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke
Source: Prayer--The Uncommon Commoner
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And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Hymns--Exhortation to Prayer
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I ask not a life for the dear ones,
All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun;
I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would bound back to myself:
Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
But a sinner must pray for himself.
Author: Charles M. Dickinson
Source: The Children
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