"Ponder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army; and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it, cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... and solitude enough, while tending her patient and sitting up with her, to ponder the matter; and as she thought over her married life, and contemplated unflinchingly the constant, weary, fruitless struggle in which it had passed, and in which she had not advanced one single step, but rather had been going always, always back, more and ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... children must be told That something sad is happening far away— Or, if you needs must play, As children must, Play softly children, underneath your breath! For over our hearts hangs low the shadow of death, Those hearts to you mysteriously old, Grim grown-up hearts that ponder night and day On the straight lists of broken-hearted dead, Black narrow lists no tears can wash away, Reading in which one cries out here and here And falls into a dream upon a name. Be happy softly, children, for a woe Is on us, a great woe for little fame,— Ah! in the old woods ...
— The Silk-Hat Soldier - And Other Poems in War Time • Richard le Gallienne
... yesterday? That I may endeavour to foresee and control, what can neither be foreseen nor controlled,—the destiny of the morrow? Spare me these reflections, we will leave them to scholars and courtiers. Let them ponder and contrive, creep hither and thither, and surreptitiously achieve their ends.—If you can make use of these suggestions, without swelling your letter into a volume, it is well. Everything appears of exaggerated ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... deal I'm thinking of,' he told her lightly, letting her have the words to ponder on if she liked. But he had scant time for Sanchia and his eyes came back to Helen. 'I've got to ride into the new camp to see Roberts,' he told her. 'He's seen my mules and is buying. How would an early ride suit you? And I'll ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... power to reveal the significance of the commonplace and to teach us that no slightest detail of our daily work is necessarily devoid of inspiration; that every slightest detail of school method and school management has a meaning and a significance that it is worth our while to ponder. ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... There is not a single improper word we have ever uttered, not a wrong feeling we have cherished, not an ungodly deed we have done, not a duty we have neglected, but God knew it, will exhibit it, and if unrepented of, will punish for it. Hear it, ponder it, hide it in the depths of your heart, ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... with a "Good-night" from Jim and he passed out leaving me to ponder alone. The hermits of the country have time to consider its welfare, so I went to reading my magazines to gather more inspiration for denouncing the United States Senate and the rest of ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... ponder over this, and take to heart the truth that manual mechanical labor is the likeliest career to develop mechanical inventors and lead them to such distinction as these benefactors of man achieved. If disposed to mourn ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... the colonies under the sanction of the crown. The delegates adopted addresses to the British and the Australian public. To the colonies they depicted the vast moment of this agitation, and invoked their instant and earnest aid, closing with these solemn appeals: "Ponder deeply, fellow colonists of Australia, the prospect that lies before you. Consider well the moral and even the merely economical relations of the question. Reflect on the subject of the administration of justice, not only with reference to its enormous expense, but also as ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... and great actions of old, and therefore rendering such more attainable in the future, took deep root in my mind. Aware of the humbleness of my birth, and unrestrained by pride in my parents—I had lost them so early—I would indulge in many a day-dream of what I would gladly have been. I would ponder over the delights of having a history, and how grand it would be to find I was descended from some far-away knight who had done deeds of high emprise. In such moods the recollection of the old sword that had vanished from the wall ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... English-speaking friends of the Province of Quebec, will you not come to our rescue and look into this question? I believe that there is not one who has done me the honor to listen to me to-day, and who will take the trouble to seriously ponder over the matter, but will say: Yes, I am going to help our French-Canadian friends in Ontario to solve this question and obtain justice and British ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt
... While you ponder on the wonderful faith of the tiny creature which suffers handling without resistance, the shred of bark, driven by the imperceptible zephyr, falls a few yards away, and in an agony of anxiety utters an imploring purr, or was ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... You, with your fingers as white as a nun,— You, with your ringlets as bright as the sun. All the day long, with your busy contriving, Into all mischief and fun you are driving; See if your wise little noddle can tell What you are good for. Now ponder ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... feed her pets. First the kits, who rushed at the bowl and thrust their heads in, lapping as if for a wager; then the cats, who each went to one of the four piles of scraps laid round at intervals and placidly ate their meat; while Molly retired to the basket, to ponder over the phenomena taking ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Was she grateful to me for my plain speaking? Did she ponder upon my words and determine to profit by them and to lead from that hour a better and ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Psmith. "Surely we must win through now. All we have to do is to get off this roof, and fate cannot touch us. Are two mammoth minds such as ours unequal to such a feat? It can hardly be. Let us ponder." ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... close bolted in the bagnio's gloom, Think how they ponder on their dreadful doom, Recal the tender sire, the weeping bride, The home, far sunder'd by a waste of tide, Brood all the ties that once endear'd them there, But now, strung stronger, edge their keen despair. Till here a fouler fiend arrests their ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... ponder your question, Miller." As he spoke Foster rose. "Frankly, I've been striving to interest our Government in Whitney's invention, and that is one of the things which has kept me in Washington. Suppose we go and see Whitney now. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... ethnology, study the Jews. Study the Germans, too. What peoples they both are—utterly unlike, yet full of the inspiration of thoughts and deeds and persistence. Persistence—there is a word of might it will pay you to ponder over. ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... flanked on either side by other houses? It is true that by placing the apartment of their wives on one side of the house the danger is lessened by one-half; but are they not obliged to learn by heart and to ponder the age, the condition, the fortune, the character, the habits of the tenants of the next house and even to know their friends ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... willed, yet never perceived by the thousands of inhabitants. They seemed to live in a kind of fourth dimensional state, a realm comparable to that which we people with ghosts and spirits. It was a most uncanny, altogether absorbing, intensely interesting relationship; and sometimes, when I ponder on some general aspect of the great jungle,—a forest of greenheart, a mighty rushing river, a crashing, blasting thunderstorm,—my mind suddenly reverts by way of contrast to the tiny ghosts of springtails flitting silently among the terrible ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... wild wave heaving! But no sailor walks the mole. Quick into it, firm believing, For its sails they have a soul! Thou must trust, nor wait to ponder: God will give no pledge in hand; Nought but miracle bears yonder ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... his head and said nothing. But as soon as Pao-y caught sight of this spot something was suddenly aroused in his heart and he began to ponder within himself. "This place really resembles something that I've seen somewhere or other." But he could not at the moment recall to mind what year, moon, or ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... hearth, to-night, Ghostlike the shadows wander: Now here, now there, a childish sprite, Earthborn and yet as angel bright, Seems near me as I ponder. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... counsel reads the indictment; let the counsel for the defendant swell and strut with indignation that such indignities should be put upon honest men and useful citizens, and let the court frown, and ponder and consider; for that is what courts are for, but what do we care for it all? We have left it all behind, with the ragged programmes in the seats. So if the honourable court, in the person of the more or less honourable Elijah Westlake Bemis, after the fashion of federal judges desiring ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... There have been great thinkers, disdaining the careless judgments of contemporaries, who have thrown themselves boldly on the judgment of a far posterity, that should have had time to review, to ponder, to compare. There have been great actors on the stage of tragic humanity that might, with the same depth of confidence, have appealed from the levity of compatriot friends—too heartless for the sublime interest of their story, and too impatient for the labour of sifting its perplexities—to ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... "Now ponder over those words. Keep them before your eye here, and try at least and bow your stubborn heart to them. Fall on them and be broken, or they will fall on you and grind you to powder." He concluded in a terrible tone; then, seeing Robinson abashed, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... watched the gay little imps dance across the windshield and thought glad thoughts. It was going to be a worth-while evening she felt sure, and it was good that her left-hand neighbors, Miss Major and Mrs. Winslow Teed, had each other to entertain, and she was free to anticipate and ponder and to feast her heart on ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... Ducker was unfastening the china buttons on his waist, preparatory to a season of rest and retirement, that he might the better ponder upon the sins of disobedience and evil associations, Patsey Watson was opening and shutting ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... we meet again, love, In the distant When, love, When the Now is Then, love, And the Present Past? Shall the mystic Yonder, On which I ponder, I sadly wonder, With ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... could not but ponder over this remarkable and mysterious being with whom Godfrey was so impressed. Never before had I known him to hesitate to match himself with any adversary; but now, it seemed to me, he shunned the contest, or at least feared it —feared that he might be outwitted and ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... ponder about my own special work I need not say. There is not the complication of an English colony, it is true; that makes a ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... existence in the one hour of death? Why conclude, from the fact that Socrates and Antigone met with unhappy ends, that it was their wisdom or virtue brought unhappiness to them? Does death occupy more space in life than birth? Yet do you not take the sage's birth into account as you ponder over his destiny. Happiness or unhappiness arises from all that we do from the day of our birth to the day of our death; and it is not in death, but indeed in the days and the years that precede it, that we can discover a man's true ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Twryv Vliant, by reason of the pity that he felt on hearing this story of Rhiannon and her punishment, inquired closely concerning it, until he had heard from many of those who came to his court. Then did Teirnyon, often lamenting the sad history, ponder within himself, and he looked steadfastly on the boy, and as he looked upon him, it seemed to him that he had never beheld so great a likeness between father and son, as between the boy and Pwyll the Chief of Annwvyn. Now the semblance of Pwyll was well known ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... to ponder over the efficiency of James Holden's operations. It was time for Paul Brennan to cope, and it seemed sensible to face the fact that Paul Brennan alone could not plot the illegal grab of the Holden Educator and at the same time masquerade as ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... had reason to ponder the eventful experiences of that day. Each felt keen disappointment, chafing at the perversity ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... the cigarette was suddenly whisked from the soft lips and pointed full at her. "Allegro,"—it was Violet Campion's special name for her, and she uttered it weightily,—"mark my words and ponder them well! You ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... interesting people, and, moreover, some very queer things have happened lately, I thank Heaven, I have none of Dr. Cricket's curiosity; but I should be ashamed if I were so indifferent to those about me as not to take an interest in their concerns. This interest has led me of late to ponder on recent events, and speculate as ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... bodies, or as a place of temporary security for the plunder 'looted' by laundresses; but I incline to the last opinion. It is about breast high, and usually serves as a bulk for defendants in reduced circumstances to lean against and ponder at, when they come on the hopeful errand of trying to make an arrangement without money— under which auspicious circumstances it mostly happens that the legal gentleman they want to see, is much ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... seemed a little doubtful of the word. At any rate Mamma said it was something like that, and it meant they liked it anyway. So Mr. Winslow was left to ponder whether "antique" or "unique" was intended and to follow his train of thought wherever it chanced to lead him, while the child prattled on. They came in sight of the Smalley front gate and Jed came out of his walking ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... this present form and composition of yourself for just so long as it takes the forces of Nature to build you up again—an incredibly brief moment of time! But you gain nothing—you neither lose your consciousness nor your memory! Ponder this well before you pull down your present dwelling- house!—for ingratitude breeds narrowness, and your next habitation might be smaller and less fitted for ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... "When that foremost of Brahmanas had gone away on some other errand, the maiden began to ponder over the virtue of those mantras. And she said to herself, 'Of what nature are those mantras that have been bestowed on me by that high-souled one? I shall without delay test their power.' And as she ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... said too much, Kettering began to talk of the next day's sport; and soon afterward Bland left him and went out on the terrace to smoke and ponder. Putting what he had learned together, he thought he understood the situation, and it was not a pleasant one, though he was not very indignant with Sylvia. It looked as if she made an unfair use of Lansing's regard for her, unless, in spite of Kettering's opinion, she had until lately been undecided ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... upon my bump of benevolence. Whatever people may think, I feel that no one can be very imaginative where these animals are so eternally tormenting them. You meditate under the shady boughs of some forest-king (slap knee, slap cheek), and farewell to anything like concentration of thought; you ponder on the sailing moon (clap again, right and left, above, below), always unpleasantly interrupted. It won't do at all: you are teased and phlebotomised out of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of elation had passed he found a peculiar mood settling down upon him. It was as if all was not so well as he had impulsively conceived. He began to ponder over this strange depression, to think back. What had happened to dash the cup from his lips? Did he regret being freed from guilt in the simple minds of the villagers—regret it because suspicion would fall ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... by the ambition to be esteemed by my fellow naturalists. From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,—that is, to group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem. As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... a mind under such circumstances is an almost inexplicable thing, and yet it is absolutely true. Hurstwood could not bring himself to act definitely. He wanted to think about it—to ponder over it, to decide whether it were best. He was drawn by such a keen desire for Carrie, driven by such a state of turmoil in his own affairs that he thought constantly it would be best, and yet he wavered. He did not know what evil might result from it to him—how soon he might come to grief. The ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... to? Solve the riddle if you can. Ponder on a "Northwestern Confederacy"; the Sons of Liberty, and the seizure of their arms; and also on Lincoln's assassination, only a few days after ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... it, I ponder, no sense of pleasing, No least estate in the world of joy? Have the leaf and the grasses no conscious sense Of what they give us—no want ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... we? whither go we? All is still And voiceless in the past! A veil is drawn Across the future! by life's mystic rill We sit and ponder, watching for the dawn Of some yet unconceived, far-reaching thought, By which our nature's secret shall be taught! Why sorrow is our element—why sin Is native in us—by what curse we bear An ever aching, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... and how poor We seem when we are richest,—most secure Against all poverty the lifelong years We yet must waste in childish doubts and fears That, in despite of reason, still endure! Alas! the sermon of the rose we will Not wisely ponder; nor the sobs of grief Lulled into sighs of rapture; nor the cry Of fierce defiance that again is still. Be patient—patient with our frail belief, And stay it yet ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... hoc donavit.' It is no wonder if the minds of men were moved at this occurrence and they stood aghast to find themselves thus touching hands with forgotten ages, and following an antiquity with hound and horn. And even for you, it is scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder how many centuries this stag had carried its free antlers through the wood, and how many summers and winters had shone and snowed on the imperial badge. If the extent of solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter's hounds and houses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the corner where Mawg and his friends were grouped, but a glance from the Chief silenced it. With his piercing gaze making relentless inquisition of the eyes that answered his so steadily, he seemed to ponder Grom's words. Slowly the anger faded from his scarred and massy face, for he knew men; and this man, though his most formidable rival in strength ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... continent; Yet be not wholly wrapp'd in public cares, Tho' such high cares should call as call'd of late; The cause of kings and emperors adjourn, And Europe's little balance drop awhile; For greater drop it: ponder and adjust The rival interests and contending claims Of life and death, of now and of for-ever; Sublimest theme; and needful as sublime. Thus great Eliza's oracles renown'd, Thus Walsingham and Raleigh, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... fish, who nobly braves The dangers o' the ocean waves, While monsters from the unknown caves Make thee their prey, Escaping which the human knaves On thee lig way. No doubt thou was at first designed To suit the palates of mankind; Yet as I ponder now, I find Thy fame is gone, With dainty dish thou art behind With ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... honored by the presence of Washington, who, it is said, had a platform built among the branches, where, we may suppose, he used to ponder over the plans of the campaign. The Continental army, born within the shade of the old tree, overflowing the Common, converted Cambridge into a fortified camp. Here, too, the flag of thirteen stripes for the first time swung to ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... becomes her bane. In vain she names her children o'er; They fail her in her hour of need; She mourns at desperation's door. Be thine the hand to do the deed, To seize the sword, to mount the throne, And wear the purple as thy meed! No heart shall grudge it; not a groan Shall shame thee. Ponder what it were To save a land thus twice thy own!" Use gave a more familiar air To my companions; and I spoke My heart out to the ethereal pair:— "When in her wrath the Nation broke Her easy rest of love and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... taken off the gloves she wore to do the grate, and was about to pull herself up from her knees by the arm of his chair when he spoke, but paused to ponder his words. It was with her left hand that she had grasped the arm of his chair, and he happened to notice it particularly as it ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... before his decease; it is in an exceedingly rare little volume, including his poems of "One thing needful" and his "Ebal and Gerizzim"; with "a catlogue of all his other books." London: printed for Nath, Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, 1688. On the reverse of the title is a singular advertisement; "This author having published many books, which have gone off very well, there are certain ballad sellers ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... days, there had been in his mind the vague form of a story, and he strove to summon it now, but the forms that came were shadows with no light in their eyes. Throughout all the dark woods this dim web of a plot had not come to him, though he had thought to ponder over it before setting out, but had forgotten it when once on the road. He sent his mind back over the course he had followed, to pick up any little suggestions that might have come to him to be held for a moment and ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... dare ocean's swell, Or could say by the moon how the tides rose and fell; A philosopher seated one day on the brink Of the silvery margin thus took him to think: "If on this side the waters are girted by land, What controls the wide expanse, I'd fain understand." Thus buried in thought had he ponder'd till now, But a beautiful nautilus sail'd to and fro; Just then a sly breeze raised the curls from his eyes, And he woke from a dream to extatic surprise. O'er his head a huge oak spread a canopy round, Whose trunk being hollow, he levell'd ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... duel of words, and rather surprised to learn that Mother Jael was present, Cargrim slipped away at the first opportunity to ponder over the information and consider what use he could make of it. So the old woman still followed the bishop?—had followed him even into society, and had made herself Mrs Pansey's professional fortune-teller so that she might still continue to vex the eyes of her victim with the sight ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... along and had more time to ponder the matter, other doubts forced themselves into my reluctant mind. Put it as I pleased, the affair smacked too much of secrecy to be quite savoury. It was curious, to say the least, that an honest encounter ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... spoke with hurried words and accents wild; Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. No trembling word the mother's joy revealed,— One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, But kept their words to ponder ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... say that it is meditation. Other learned Brahmanas say that it is Sacrifice. Others, again, say that it is gift. Others applaud penances; others, the study of the scriptures. Some say that knowledge and renunciation (should be followed). Others who ponder on the elements say that it is Nature. Some extol everything; others, nothing. O foremost one of the deities, duty being thus confused and full of contradictions of various kinds, we are deluded and unable to come to any conclusion. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the difficulty discussed in Section 21, there is a second fundamental difficulty attending classical celestial mechanics, which, to the best of my knowledge, was first discussed in detail by the astronomer Seeliger. If we ponder over the question as to how the universe, considered as a whole, is to be regarded, the first answer that suggests itself to us is surely this: As regards space (and time) the universe is infinite. There are stars everywhere, so that the density of matter, although very variable ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... at Ralph. His eyes were meditative, and she wondered what he found in this old gossip to make him ponder so contentedly. She felt, she hardly knew why, a curious ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... uneventfully the endless summer days slipped by. Her strength was undoubtedly returning to her, the youth in her reviving. The long rest was taking effect upon her. The overstrung nerves were growing steady again. Often she would sit and ponder upon the future, but she had no definite idea to guide her. At first she shrank unspeakably from the bare thought of the end of the voyage, but gradually she became accustomed to it. It seemed too remote to be terrible, and her reliance upon Pierre's good faith increased daily. Somehow, unaccountably, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... death, or the death of desire, Pass about the cold winter-tide garden and ponder On the rose in his glory amidst of June's fire, On the languor of noontide that gathered the thunder, On the morn and its freshness, the eve and its wonder; Ye may wake it no more—shall Spring ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... study Cole; to ponder the thin, mirthless smile. The Coroner said, "Mr. Cole, this inquest has been called to look into the death of one Sanford Smith, who was found near your home with a gun in his hand and a bullet in his brain. The theory ...
— The Smiler • Albert Hernhunter
... Owl hadn't thought of that. He was puzzled to know what to say. And he wanted time in which to ponder. ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... ponder over those mysterious words, and ask himself what they meant. He again conferred with his mother, and when she had heard all he had to tell, she was ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... political aspirations, and began to ponder that passage of scripture that said man should not be alone. But he did not make such progress with Viola as was satisfactory to him. Sometimes she would appear delighted to see him and was all life and gayety. Again she ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... the gloom without, To ponder o'er a tale of old; A legend of the age of Faith, By ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... are equally pleasant; only the Memory of good and worthy Actions is a Feast which must give a quicker Relish to the Soul than ever it could possibly taste in the highest Enjoyments or Jollities of Youth. As for me, if I sit down in my great Chair and begin to ponder, the Vagaries of a Child are not more ridiculous than the Circumstances which are heaped up in my Memory. Fine Gowns, Country Dances, Ends of Tunes, interrupted Conversations, and midnight Quarrels, are what must necessarily ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Five years ago there was an Armenian question, and it took five years before the Powers stepped in and made them conclude peace. I wish to ask you not to take a step which you may regret later. Let us ponder before we part with our freedom. I must also point out that our comrades in the Cape Colony are not safeguarded by the terms offered. They will have to leave their country, and they have lost all they have. Those who remain with ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... to ponder. "You inquire if I am satisfied. I don't know, Krag. It's miraculous, and that's all I can say about it.... But I'm satisfied of one thing. There must be very wonderful astronomers at Starkness and if you invite me to your observatory I ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... stayed open that night as long as it could, and that the one ear listened to the sleepy song until the song got too low to be heard, until it was too tender to be felt vibrating along those soft arms, until Fionn was asleep again, with a new picture in his little head and a new notion to ponder on. ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... recipes in our cook-books are mere murder to such constitutions and stomachs as we grow here. We require to ponder these things, and think how we in our climate and under our circumstances ought to live, and in doing so, we may, without accusation of foreign foppery, take some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... could listen carefully to a medical problem of an alien race on a remote planet, and then seem to know exactly which questions to ask to draw out the significant information about the situation. Tiger was not nearly as quick and clever as Jack; he needed more time to ponder a question of medical treatment, and he would often spend long hours poring over the data tapes before deciding what to do in a given case—but he always seemed to come up with an answer, and his answers ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... was in already. Oh! that false reverence which men substitute for adoring obedience, and wherewith they reprove the childlike spirit that does not know another kingdom than that of God and that of Mammon! God never gave man thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the son of God ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... wickedness is to have you laid aside with sickness. It is probable that He will smite you by taking away from your evil influence some of your children. God is very merciful to little children when they are in the hands of brutes like you. Go away from me! and ponder over what ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... [Springing to his feet] No; and that is the enigma on which I ponder in darkness. Why am I here? I, who repudiated all duty, trampled honor underfoot, and ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... misgiving which is strengthened by reflecting on all those to him incomprehensible inferences to which the admission of the argument leads him, and which seem almost to involve contradictions. Let him ponder for awhile the ideas involved in the notion of Selfsubsistence, Eternity, Creation; Power, Wisdom, and Knowledge, so unlimited as to embrace at once all things, and all their relations, actual and possible,—this 'unlimited' expanding into a dim ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... present the sum and perfection of his accumulated knowledge, delivered with the impatience and passion of one who feels too much, and knows too much, and has too little time to say it in, to pause for expression, or ponder over his syllables. There is in them the obscurity, but the truth, of prophecy; the instinctive and burning language, which would express less if it uttered more, which is indistinct only by its fulness, and dark with ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... Why, one may ponder, should a man who is great enough to mould a woman to help him be great, not be great enough to do without her at all? Let lovers of the unfathomable ask at the same time: Why is man, man? and woman, woman? and what ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... did. As it was, the matron contented herself by making some rather snappish remarks upon the folly of going out to drive late on a January afternoon, and retired to administer poultices and cataplasms to herself in the solitude of her own apartment soon after dinner, leaving Adela Branston free to ponder ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... He was not a systematic thinker; but he was more, for he was not only a religious character, but at the same time a man with an organising talent, such as has no peer in the early Church. If we think of the lofty demands he made on Christians, and, on the other hand, ponder the results that accompanied his activity, we cannot fail to wonder. Wherever Christians were numerous about the year 160, there must have been Marcionite communities with the same fixed but free organisation, with the same canon ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... otherwise communicable, in a novel situation a man is abler to act, the more he has availed himself of the knowledge and the suggestions of others. Absorbed with the duties of his station, it was of the first importance that he should possess every information, and ponder every idea, small and great, bearing upon its conditions, as well as upon the general political state of Europe in that period of ominous waiting, wherein great events were evidently coming to birth. Day after day, Dr. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... attainder of William Fytzhenry of Dublin, "Capytayn," in the reign of Edward VI., it was found by inquisition that he had "unum torquem aureum ponder' septem uncias d[i]," put in pledge for 20l., and worth 22l. sterling. In this reign "quinque vasa vocat' fyrkyns de prunis" each worth 6s. 8d.; a firkin of wine, 5s., "a fyrkyn de aceto," 6s. 8d.; "quinque tycks", worth 11s. 8d. each; and "duas duodenas cultellorum," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... "grandmother", propped his forehead to ponder that thing; and presently said: "Oh, it is ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... companions in crime; and, while some tried to laugh and scoff away the unwelcome impression which the scene produced upon their minds, there were others who went into the open air and wandered away by themselves to ponder upon this miserable ending of ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... Decrepit as befits that stage; How else would'st thou retire apart With the hoarded memories of thy heart, And gather all to the very least Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, Let fall through eagerness to find The crowning dainties yet behind? Ponder on the entire past Laid together thus at last, When the twilight helps to fuse The first fresh with the faded hues. And the outline of the whole Grandly fronts for once thy soul. And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam Of yet another morning breaks, And, like the hand which ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... full of the fragrance of flowers and the foreign trees. There was no breath of wind. They were shades in some garden of dream compelled to stand and ponder for ever in an eternal night of numerous beneficent stars. No sound manifested except the lady's breathing, that to another than the dreamer would have told an old and wholesome Panic story, for her bosom heaved, that breath was sweeter than the flowers. And the dryads, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... is! The Priest telleth me that the soul is worth all the gold in the world, and the merchants say that it is not worth a clipped piece of silver.' And he passed out of the market-place, and went down to the shore of the sea, and began to ponder ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... must continually ponder and consider with thyself, what manner of men they be, and for their minds and understandings what is their present estate, whose good word and testimony thou dost desire. For then neither wilt thou see cause to complain of them that offend against their wills; or find any want ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... sit down and meditate; let such a paper as the London Times—that old, old paper—give every day three laboured and thoughtful essays written by scholars and philosophers on the topics of the day. It is not for youth to ponder over the meaning and the tendencies of things; it is for youth to act, to make history, to push things along; therefore let the papers record everything that passes; perhaps when the country is old, when the time comes for meditation, the London Times may be imitated, and even a weekly ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... not in anger or impatience, but in sadness. Brought up to reverence her elders, she had ignored the shallowness of her aunt's character in happier days. But now Mrs. Colfax's conduct carried a prophecy with it. Virginia sat down on the landing to ponder on the years to come,—on the pain they were likely to bring with them from this source—Clarence gone to the war; her father gone (for she felt that he would go in the end), Virginia foresaw the lonely days of trial in company with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... yon still towers in sunset lie, Her face oblivious of all else I'll ponder long. My body thrills with ecstasy! My heart beats with the rhythmic ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... where he had fallen, and there beside the trail, so that all who passed might read and ponder, the men of Sheep Camp raised a ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... her, with a bitterness born of her former experience with Granville, that she had lost something of the standing that certain circles had accorded her as the wife of a successful mining man. It made her ponder. Was Bill so far wrong, after all, in his estimate of them? It was a disheartening conclusion. She had come of a family that stood well in Granville; she had grown up there; if life-time friends blew hot and cold like that, was ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of my home-coming. Master Webster, in the Humanities, droning away like a Boreraig bagpipe, would be sending my mind back to Shira Glen, its braes and corries and singing waters, and Ben Bhuidhe over all, and with my chin on a hand I would ponder on how I should go home again when this weary scholarship was over. I had always a ready fancy and some of the natural vanity of youth, so I could see myself landing off the lugger at the quay of Inneraora town, three inches more of a man ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... will enable you to distinguish the verb from other parts of speech, when you cannot tell it by its signification. Any word that will make sense with to before it, is a verb. Thus, to run, to write, to smile, to sing, to hear, to ponder, to live, to breathe, are verbs. Or, any word that will conjugate, is a verb. Thus, I run, thou runnest, he runs; I write, thou writest, he writes; I smile, &c. But the words, boy, lady, child, and ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... filled Julian's face. There was no time to ponder. He had always trusted Lucian for the cunninger insight and did it now though Lucian lay in the bishop's arms limp and senseless. He drew forth the letter. Gayly stooping over the skylights Ramsey reached for it and ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... isn't so far as the Cuthbert's," and with this parting shot, Helen ran upstairs, leaving Frank to ponder over her meaning. ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... Now ponder well, you parents dear, These words which I shall write; A doleful story you shall hear, In time brought forth to light. A gentleman of good account In Norfolk dwelt of late, Who did in honour far surmount Most men ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... none quite perfect, now extant, of which the best sold not long since for more than L1400? Of these five, the first that came to light had been preserved owing to its having taken sanctuary, almost upon publication, in a great library, where it was forgotten. But the others that passed over Mr. Ponder's counter in the Poultry,—were they all lost, thumbed and dog's-eared out of being? They are gone,—that is all you can say; and gone ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... to ponder. "Well, you've hit your cousin Soames off to the life," he said suddenly. "He'll never blow his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... young man of the companionship of a beautiful woman and his own broken bones, had been to make him feel and ponder on the nature of her power over him. The name of love was of course familiar to him, but he could hardly as yet, perhaps, grasp the full significance of the sentiment. Like other forms of knowledge, it must ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... husbands had gone to the war. They are to sleep in the same room but in different beds; and not a kiss is to be given meanwhile until this terrible war reaches a successful conclusion under Christ's favour. I know that these enactments will irritate wives who do not sufficiently ponder the importance of the business; though I know that your wife, sensible as she is, and obedient in regard to a matter of Christian observance, will even be glad ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... not yet recovered from his surprise, followed his aged guide to a distant part of the forest. Then the hermit bade him farewell and left him to ponder on the cryptic saying: "Here thy ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... manifest, that the lawfulness of our conforming unto the ceremonies in question can be no way warranted by any ordinance of the supreme magistrate, or any power which he hath in things spiritual or ecclesiastical; and if our opposites would ponder the reasons we have given, they should be quickly quieted, understanding that, before the prince's ordinance about the ceremonies can be said to bind us, it must first be showed that they have been lawfully prescribed ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... second thoughts; retrospection &c (memory) 505; excogitation^; examination &c (inquiry) 461; invention &c (imagination) 515. thoughtfulness &c adj.. V. think, reflect, cogitate, excogitate^, consider, deliberate; bestow thought upon, bestow consideration upon; speculate, contemplate, meditate, ponder, muse, dream, ruminate; brood over, con over; animadvert, study; bend the mind, apply the mind &c (attend) 457; digest, discuss, hammer at, weigh, perpend; realize, appreciate; fancy &c (imagine) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... At a dinner so various, at such a repast, Who'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last? Here, waiter! more wine, let me sit while I'm able, Till all my companions sink under the table; 20 Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head, Let me ponder, and tell what I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... of current political questions, and to every one of them he applied his principle and managed by means of it to take a definite side. As he worked at his last he would concentrate his mind on some chosen problem of social reform, and would ponder, with singular pertinacity, the ways and degrees in which alternative solutions of it would affect the happiness of men. He would sometimes spend weeks in meditating thus on a single problem, and, when a solution had been reached according to his method, he ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... our national Capitol, guarded by the goddess Minerva, her right hand resting on the ballot-box, her left hand on the spelling book, the Declaration of Rights and the Federal Constitution. It would be well for us to ponder the Frenchman's idea, but instead of the royal lion, representing force to guard the sacred urn, let us substitute wisdom and virtue in the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... present in the Gold mine, that they regarded the new departure with no great favour. The President himself, although he admitted that it concerned the Sovereigns more closely than any other person, pointed out certain objections which he begged their Majesties to ponder. And Councillor after Councillor rose and protested against the scheme with the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... talk. I guess very few people ever really think, I mean sit down and ponder and have ideas in sequence. I do my thinking in writing or conversation. You've got to have a start, sort of—something to defend ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... little that was picturesque, and a great deal that was very unclean. Indeed, in spite of its general beauty, Berlin is lamentably deficient in the modern and common-place article, sewerage. But even this will come; and in the meantime we may well ponder over the rapid growth of the city, since the brief space of time that has elapsed since it was the little town of Cologne upon the Spree, to distinguish it from the then greater one of ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... out tranquilly by my side, lying on her stomach, with her forehead resting on her folded arms, and I felt almost immediately that fleeting, untutored thoughts were lulled in repose, while I began to ponder, as I lay by her side, and tried to understand it all. Why had Mohammed given her to me? Had he acted the part of a magnanimous servant, who sacrifices himself for his master, even to the extent of giving up the woman whom he had brought into his own tent, to him? Or had he, on the other hand, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... should not accumulate chariots and horses, nor wives, nor immense wealth: because through craving for such things princes become tyrants and forsake justice. He also appointed the manner in which they were to conduct themselves towards God: namely, that they should continually read and ponder on God's Law, and should ever fear and obey God. Moreover, He decided how they should behave towards their subjects: namely, that they should not proudly despise them, or ill-treat them, and that they should not depart from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... shoulders. "Dost Thou not see that each man of us occupies some position, low, less low, or very low, in which he must labor? But dost Thou suffer because Thou art not pharaoh, and thy tomb will not be a pyramid? Thou dost not ponder at all over this, for Thou knowest it to be the world's condition. Each creature does its own duty: the ox ploughs, the ass bears the traveler, I cool his worthiness, Thou rememberest and thinkest for him, while the earth-worker tills land and pays tribute. What is it to us that some bull ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... reflect upon all this, and feel, besides, that the political principles upon which the country is governed are those that are calculated to promote British at the expense of Irish interests—we say, when we reflect upon and ponder over all this, we need not feel surprised that the prudent, the industrious, and the respectable, who see nothing but gradual decline and ultimate pauperism before them—who feel themselves neglected ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... pause to ponder long, 'for what,' thought he, 'could be in my palace without my knowing about it—the thing is absurd;' ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... indolence, I am not surprised you took to him) that I am continually occupied every minute of the day, reading, writing, forming plans: in short, you know me. He is an inoffensive, good creature, but had rather ponder over a foreign gazette than ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole |
