What are the verses, hadiths, and sermons that encourage prayer and warn against abandoning it, and forbid looking at unlawful things?

Prayer is one of the greatest rituals of Islam and a pillar of the religion; abandoning it is considered disbelief by some scholars. As for lowering the gaze from forbidden things, it is an obligation upon Muslim men and women. It protects the heart from trials, increases intimacy with Allah, and spares one from the regrets that arise from seeing what one does not possess.