First things first.

1. These quotes about prayer aren't specific to any one set of beliefs or practices.
2. Please, believe in what you believe in. And, keep room in your heart for the unknown, for the roots of spirituality that run deep and connect people of all faiths.
3. This post is about how you love, as much as it's about how you pray.

Now...

A shattered heart needs to be held together, and prayer is an age-old ritual that can heal and mend the spirit like nothing else can, or when nothing else can.

Praying can bring people together, whether the other is right next to you or tucked away in your heart.

Prayer could be closing your eyes and asking for help. Or dedicating your yoga practice to someone who needs help. Or looking at the sky with wonder on your lips. Or walking barefoot in the grass with gratitude for being alive.

You don’t need to be religious to pray.

I don’t think you even need to believe in anything specific to pray.

How you pray is up to you, and these quotes about prayer are about that — your personal relationship with the nature of things.

Sometimes it’s not even about the act of praying, or what you think or say when you pray. Sometimes it’s about what you learn while waiting for an answer. It might be about how you feel during a moment of reflection or silence — at peace, connected, understood.

For me, it’s a highly personal, spiritual experience of communing with… something, everything.

Communing with the soul of the world, with the soul of a person, or with my loved ones who've died. With the cells in my body, the beating of my own heart, the miracle of my own existence. With the trees and the stars and my own place in a galaxy of galaxies.

Pray how you want. You must do your own believing.

But one thing I’ll say is this: when you pray, be the prayer. When you love, be the love. Be all there in everything you do. Everything is, after all, part of you, and in everything, there you are.

I hope these quotes about prayer inspire you to open your heart, and to consider that, itself, a form of prayer. The most essential kind.

16 Refreshing Quotes about Prayer, However You Pray

1. “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” — Mary Oliver

2. “But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.”— Mary Oliver

3. “Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were struck, and there was absolutely no way for you to get there on your own.” — Anne Lamott, Small Victories 

4. “If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” — Meister Eckhart

5. “You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.” ― Kahill Gibran, The Prophet

6. “Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

7. “In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” ― John Bunyan

8. “Most mornings I’m up to see the sun, and that rising of the light moves me very much, and I’m used to thinking and feeling in words, so it sort of just happens. I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and … almost involuntary in my life,” she says. “And when I talk about prayer, I mean really … what Rumi says in that wonderful line, ‘there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.'” — Mary Oliver

9. “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” —Rumi

10. “Poetry is prayer, it is passion and music, it is beauty, comfort, it is agitation, declaration, it is thanksgiving.” — Mary Oliver

11. “We should seek not so much to pray but to become prayer.” ― St. Francis of Assisi

12. “Where did you get the idea you aren't allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You're a constituent -- you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known. So, put your opinion out there. Make your case. Believe me -- it will at least be taken into consideration.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

13. “Prayer is the soul's sincere desire. Your desire is your prayer. It comes out of your deepest needs and it reveals the things you want in life.” ― Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

14. “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.” — Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

15. “I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.” ― Henri Matisse

16. “A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual.” ― Paulo Coelho, Brida

. . .

Tell me:

Which of these quotes really speaks to you and your own personal experience with spirituality and prayer?

Tell me in the comments. I'd love to know!

x Jen