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Ponder   /pˈɑndər/   Listen
Ponder

verb
(past & past part. pondered; pres. part. pondering)
1.
Reflect deeply on a subject.  Synonyms: chew over, contemplate, excogitate, meditate, mull, mull over, muse, reflect, ruminate, speculate, think over.  "Philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years" , "The scientist must stop to observe and start to excogitate"



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"Ponder" Quotes from Famous Books



... "martyr of enlightenment." However, during the period under consideration he moved entirely within the boundaries of the Haskalah, of which he was a most radical exponent. Persecuted for his harmless liberalism by the fanatics of his native town of Vilkomir, [1] Lilienblum began to ponder over the question of Jewish religious reforms. In advocating the reform of Judaism, he was not actuated, as were so many in Western Europe, by the desire of adapting Judaism to the non-Jewish environment, but rather by the profound and painful conviction that dominant Rabbinism in its medieval ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... useful criticism and discussion in the scientific world. I hope that it may do the same in the clerical world; and I earnestly beg those clergymen who heard me with so much patience and courtesy at Sion College, to ponder well Mr. Mivart's last chapter, ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... will push out from the grass and go in fat leaps down to the water—plop! and away he swims with his sarcastic nose up and his legs going like fury. The strange, very-little-boy motions of a frog in water is a thing to ponder over. There are small frogs also, every bit as interesting, thin-legged, round-bellied anatomies who try to jump two ways at once when they are observed, and are caught so easily that it is scarcely worth one's trouble to ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... readjusting. I have just been musing over a remarkable thing, that no two objects are alike. Even the most accurate machinery can not produce two nails without variation. So it is with humans. You look so like the man I know back home that it is impossible not to ponder over you." She smiled into his face. "Why should nature produce two persons who are mistaken for each other, and yet give them two ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... they looked high and low, indoors and out, not a trace could they find of it, except the clean, empty plate under the dishpan; and in despair Peace climbed to her gatepost to ponder the question of whether tramp and cake had disappeared together or whether some local agent was the cause of its vanishing. "If it had been a nanimal," she said, thoughtfully, "it would have knocked the dishpan off the ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... I will not have thee suffer, if I can give thee aid. But one may suffer in other ways—quite other—which thou hast no knowledge of, for to thee there seemeth to be, in all the world, nothing worthy but this wish of thine! But it is no promise; one must ponder in so great ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... returned to my lodgings, and set myself to ponder over some other means of support. I had been, while at school, one of the best French and Spanish scholars in the seminary. I had also given great attention to music, and could have taught it as skillfully as our musical professor. But five years had passed since I touched the keys ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... From Pentecost and Ponder's End They write: from Deal, and from Dacotah, The people of the Shetlands send No inconsiderable quota; They write for AUTOGRAPHS; in vain, In vain does Phyllis write, and Flora, They write that Allan Quatermain Is not at all ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang

... abroad, in that coach, which had made Dulcie Locke look longingly after it, and ponder what it would be for one of her frail children to have "a ride" on the box as far as Kensington. They were bound for the house of one of the lordly patrons of arts and letters. They were bound for my Lord Burlington's, or the Earl of Mulgrave's, or Sir William Beechey's—for a destination ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... policy of Bismarck and the manoeuvres of those whom he 'allowed to do what they liked and say what they liked—or rather to do what they thought he would like done, and say what they thought he would like said—and then suddenly sent them about their business to ponder in poverty and disgrace on the mutability of human affairs'. In a passage like this Morier's letters show that he could distinguish between a lion and his jackals, between 'policy' ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... "It is easy to be flippant about Miss Garden's singing. Her faults of voice and technique are patent to a child, though he might not name them. One who has become a man can ponder the greatness of her singing. I do not mean exclusively in Debussy, though we all know that as a singer of Debussy ... she has scarce a rival. Take her mezza voce and her phrasing in the second act of Monna Vanna, take them and bow down before ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... me ponder about my own special work I need not say. There is not the complication of an English colony, it is true; that ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of your 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 ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... There were none among her friends, not even her mother, to whom she could write. It was still her hope,—her faintest hope, that she need confess to none of them the fact that her husband had quarrelled with her. She could only sit and ponder over the tyranny of the man who by his mere suspicions could subject a woman to so cruel a fate. But on the evening of the third day she was told that a gentleman had called to see her. Mr. Gray sent ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... to think—I have much to think on now. I have had to read and ponder upon my instructions here,"—tapping her teeth with the letter, she still carried, "Good uncle, I would speak with you—yes, even now," quick to notice Adrian's slight frown of disapproval (poor fellow, he ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... the play . . . But how unfitted Was THIS Rosalind!—a mammet quite to me, in memories nurst, And with chilling disappointment soon I sought the street I had quitted, To re-ponder on ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... are pitched, but the fires will scarcely burn, and are at last allowed to go out. The men seek shelter under the oiled cloths of the boats; while the travellers, rolled up in damp blankets, with the rain oozing through the tents upon their couches, gaze mournfully upon the dismal scene, and ponder sadly on the shortness of the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... often think of Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would in days of childhood Fling round my cradle their magic spells, On this I ponder where'er I wander, And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee; With the bells of Shandon That sound so ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black

... brothers. All I had I lavish'd for the glory of the King; I shone from him, for him, his glory, his Reflection: now the glory of the Church Hath swallow'd up the glory of the King; I am his no more, but hers. Grant me one day To ponder ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... your motionless drooping noses, dark against the dusky night sky. As black and immovable as the silent fir-trees you solemnly slumber beneath, Whilst I wakefully meditate on a glorious past, and painfully ponder the future, as the dews fall ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... countrymen! shun boarding-houses, especially if you have ladies in your train; or ponder well, and examine the characters of the keepers thereof, before you lead your innocent daughters, and their mamma, into places so dangerous. In the first place, you have bad dinners; and, secondly, bad company. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... whole interview, his eyes brightened momentarily with a hint of cunning or attempted cunning. Except for these few flashes, he was manifestly beaten, unnerved, suffering from a simultaneous desire and inability to weigh and ponder ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... picture, so unattractive to the fancy in merely physical recommendations, has formed a deeper part of my inner consciousness than any I have yet seen. I can recall it with perfect distinctness, and often return to ponder it ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... little precipice in a thick grey-mare's tail of twisted filaments, and then lay and worked and bubbled in a lynn. Into the middle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving to a cape; and thither Otto scrambled and sat down to ponder. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... recalled would have been prompted only by an exercise of the will, by my intellectual memory, and since the pictures which that kind of memory shews us of the past preserve nothing of the past itself, I should never have had any wish to ponder over this residue of Combray. To me it ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... ponder on the bitter days of old, Ere the toil of strife and battle overthrew the ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris

... sleep, by an unknown alchemy, restore his spirits and the freshness of his countenance. Hair grows on him like grass; his eyes, his brain, his sinews, thirst for action; he joys to see and touch and hear, to partake the sun and wind, to sit down and intently ponder on his astonishing attributes and situation, to rise up and run, to perform the strange and revolting round of physical functions. The sight of a flower, the note of a bird, will often move him deeply; yet he looks unconcerned on the impassable distances ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... be met in part, for the novelist must devise a situation in which human and feline psychology can be merged. The Egyptians probably could have written good cat stories. Perhaps they did. I sometimes ponder over the possibility of a cat room having been destroyed in the celebrated holocaust of Alexandria. The folk and fairy tales devoted to the cat, of which there are many, are based on an understanding, although often superficial, of cat traits. But the moderns, speaking generally, have ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... dispelled by inquiry; and this only in the case of those who are sufficiently instructed and reflective to perceive the discord in question. The rest are well used in their reading to take what is familiar and to leave what is strange, so that they will find in her pages much to ponder, and but a little ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... sons of kings and mighty lords, ponder well and think upon that which I tell you in these my lamentations, of what takes place in spring and of the end which overtook King Tezozomoc; and who, seeing this, can refrain from tears and wailing that these ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... a swamp of deceit. And where am I to find elasticity of spirit to bring out my grand invention now? I used to shut myself up in the parlour, and ponder and cry, when I thought that the effort of inventing anything would sap my vitality. (Pathetically.) I did want to leave you an inventor's widow; but I never shall now, particularly as I haven't made up my mind ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various

... 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 show you how easy it is to collect six hundred dollars ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... he collected these heads, and not as a miser counting his secret hoard did he ponder these heads, unwrapped, held in his two hands or lying on his knees. He wanted to know. He wanted to know what he guessed they might know, now that they had long since gone into the darkness that ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... mortals, whom conscience tells that they are immortals, bewildered and bewildering ponder upon the dust! Do your duty to God and man, and fear not that, when that dust dies, the spirit that breathed by it will live for ever. Feels not that spirit its immortality in each sacred thought? When did ever religious soul fear annihilation? Or shudder to ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... a few seconds later the two followed their friend into the house, leaving Jet to ponder upon the magnitude of the task he ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... little finger in her mouth, would ponder these sayings. They gave her a feeling of life again, and vivified things which had meant nothing to her. She managed to find some meaning in his struggling, abstract speeches. And they were the medium through which she came ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... 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

... are for pain. Other people 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 ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... snake had made this vow he curled up into a hoop and began to ponder. One can hardly imagine anything that would be more difficult for a poor water-snake than to wreak vengeance upon a big, strong elk; and old Helpless pondered day and ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... silver dove descending upon her as she prayed; but, unfolding in the clear, keen, cold New England clime, and nurtured in its abstract and positive theologies, her religious faculties took other forms. Instead of lying entranced in mysterious raptures at the foot of altars, she read and ponder treatises on the Will, and listened in rapt attention while her spiritual guide, the venerated Dr. H., unfolded to her the theories of the great Edwards on the nature of true virtue. Womanlike, she felt the subtile poetry of these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... all that, for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of attention—as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the descent of the steel. I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the garment—upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... 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 usually worked. Above all, Tiger's relations with the odd life-forms ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... '80's the eight hour movement laid me off on several strikes, long and short. This enforced leisure was not idleness for me, for in these periods the world of science, art and philosophy shot their stray gleams into my startled mind, and I found time to ponder on what leisure might do for the mob. What did it not do for me, and what has it not done for me since? And I in the very ecstasy of my being was ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... husband's words without changing her position; only at the word "evening," she moved her head slightly and seemed to ponder. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... consequence, compelled to bottle up some of wonder and disappointment. He had perhaps, hoped to get a "rise" after his dextrous cast, and in this way learn what one or more of his mates thought about the matter. As it was he continued to ponder, look solemn, and occasionally shake his head, as though unable to decide on ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... No one can ponder upon the above-mentioned harmonic foundation of the musical scale without conceiving a new idea of the beauty and significance of that glorious art and science which may be proved to be based upon laws decreed by the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... convulsions of 1848; and whether even yet finished I do not know.] But my purpose is narrower. 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 ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... with a neighbour in town pending his negotiations and thither he went to ponder on his circumstances. Then it was that Cindy Ann came into the equation. She demanded to know what was to be done and how it ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... a moral" that we have opened these annals of the past; and we would have the young ponder well the lesson that this history teaches. There is a danger in novel reading; it vitiates the taste, enervates the understanding, and destroys all inclination for spiritual enjoyment. The soul that is bound in fetters of this habit, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... articles, the City man turns to "Round the Markets: Home Railways firm. The Chilian Scrip reacted to 1-1/4 premium and Norway sixes give way to ninety-five." They then read: "By the Silver Sea, the Sunny South, or Glowing East"; ponder over lists of those who are going to Egypt, America, or the Riviera; and end by learning that the site of the old General Post Office was ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... eat each other; Neither can it be an aimless Nonsense, for they are in general Wise, and know well what they're doing. Why then is it, I ask vainly, Why do people kiss each other? Why do mostly so the youthful? And why mostly so in Spring-time? Over all these knotty questions, I intend to ponder further, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... had somehow seen a type, a mystery. These incidents do not befall one by chance, and I was sure, in some remote way, that I had looked, as it were, for a moment into a dark avenue of the soul; that I was bidden to think, to ponder. These tokens of violence and death, the blood outpoured, in witness of pain, in the heart of the quiet sanctuary, before the very altar of the God of peace and love. What is it that we do that is like that? What is it that I ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... new-comer, Marsham had time to ponder what this visit of a self-invited guest might mean. The support of the Herald and its brilliant editor had been so far one of Ferrier's chief assets. But there had been some signs of wavering in ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... buried 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

... bliss in peace. But his reasoning exploded in the face of facts. He was constrained to confess, at the bottom of his heart, that this idleness rendered his anguish the more cruel, by leaving him every hour of his life to ponder on the despair and deepen its incurable bitterness. Laziness, that brutish existence which had been his dream, proved his punishment. At moments, he ardently hoped for some occupation to draw him from his thoughts. Then he lost ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... deep affection and recollection I often think of the Shandon bells— Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood, Fling round my cradle their magic spells; On this I ponder, where'er I wander, And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee; With thy bells of Shandon, That sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... nevertheless it is true. Where the average man goes wrong is in making the game difficult for himself. Observe the non-player, the man who walks round with you for the sake of the fresh air. He will hole out with a single care-free flick of his umbrella the twenty-foot putt over which you would ponder and hesitate for a full minute before sending it right off the line. Put a driver in his hands and he pastes the ball into the next county without a thought. It is only when he takes to the game in earnest that he becomes self-conscious and anxious, and tops ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... correspondence; and Adams, with his grimmest smile, sent it to the Senate. It was a terrible blow to the Jacobins, not only the manner in which France had prejudiced her interests in this country; some of the disclosures were extremely painful to ponder upon. "Perhaps," one of the backstairs ambassadors had remarked, "you believe that, in returning and exposing to your countrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this Government, you will unite them ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... 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, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... sir," said the colonel, trying to be proof against the flattery, "but I am afraid you overrate my influence." Fulkerson let him ponder it silently, and his daughter governed her impatience by holding her fan against her lips. Whatever the process was in the colonel's mind, he said at last: "I see no good reason for declining to act for you, Mr. Fulkerson, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... middle of the room, dressed up as fancy pleases the audience. His face is often absurdly painted, and after enduring every indignity, to the amusement of his friends, he is escorted from the room to ponder over the answers to the riddles. How they chaff him. Does he enjoy Hymyl? Are the dogs howling and the children running away? If he wants to come back he had better harness a mouse to his carriage, find ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... Ceuta's site, 'Brothers,' I cried, 'that into the far West Through perils numberless are now addressed, In this brief respite that our mortal sense Yet hath, shrink not from new experience; But sailing still against the setting sun, Seek we new worlds where Man has never won Before us. Ponder your proud destinies: Born were ye not like brutes for swinish ease, But virtue and high knowledge to pursue.' My comrades with such zeal did I imbue By these brief words, that scarcely could I then Have turned them from their purpose; so again We set out poop against the ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... we do that we may work the works of God?" He answered: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent." When we hear or preach this word, we hasten over it and deem it a very little thing and easy to do, whereas we ought here to pause a long time and to ponder it well. For in this work all good works must be done and receive from it the inflow of their goodness, like a loan. This we must put bluntly, ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... leave that bed save to be borne to his grave seemed violently improbable, and if his silence could be assured while he lay there, success for the plotter would after all be complete. Yet Rowlett pretended to ponder the proposition which he burned ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... last) Sonata bears the title, "The Tomb of Jacob." We have, at first, mournful music: the sons of the Patriarch are standing round the deathbed. At length Jacob dies, and they "ponder over the consequences of the sad event." A ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... each turn, went a little nearer to the engine. Only three minutes remained to him in which to render his decision, which was to help the unhappy man a half-thousand miles on the way to his dying wife, or leave him sadder still because of the failure—to pine and ponder upon ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... dull books and thought; Sweet is folly, sweet is play: Take the pleasure Spring hath brought In youth's opening holiday! Right it is old age should ponder On grave matters fraught with care; Tender youth is free to wander, Free to frolic light as air. Like a dream our prime is flown, Prisoned in a study: Sport and folly are youth's ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... listen to my words, and ponder deeply. Let him remain mute, and his question shall be answered. He has asked the opinion which the red men of the wilderness entertain of the Country of Souls;—he has asked us whither the spirits of good men repair when the sleep which knows no waking has come over them. Again, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... Let such doubter ponder well the signification of truth, its relation to life, its identity with the good, and the paramount might of wisdom and a clear understanding, and he will be ready to exclaim with the passionate piety of St. Augustine: "Ubi inveni veritatem, ibi ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... discuss with their daughters what So-and-so meant, or whether he meant anything, as Dick supposed, is a question I am not prepared to enter into. But Mrs. Warrender had said nothing to Chatty on the subject, and did not now: though it cannot be said that she did not ponder ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... enough reason and brave common sense among the people to ponder on the condition of things as I have presented them to you. The outlook was not encouraging. I cannot remember the order in which some of the events came to pass which I am to narrate, but the order is unimportant. Certainly there were Association meetings in which prospects were talked ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... 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 ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... I ponder many a silent hour, On friends belov'd when far at sea, And, tell me, have I not the power To draw one kindred thought ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... say that such a man is an idiot. Yet is not experience, or rather the good advice which results from experience, treated over and over again by worldly idiots exactly in that way? Do not you, dear readers, join that throng of idiots. Take an old man's advice, and ponder over the matters of which I have just now been speaking. This exhortation has arisen out of our paying-off dinner. I might have given you a very amusing account of that same feast—though it was not "a feast of reason," albeit it might have been a "flow of soul;" ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, as might have inspired the muse of Homer or Shakspeare; and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the Angler's Souvenir, I am fain ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... to die an unnatural death in Canada. I ask you, my 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 ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt

... forces from around your castle; I have set you free and your path to Schonburg lies unobstructed. Even now your underling, thinking himself victorious, is preparing an expedition against me, and nothing but your word stands, between me and instant attack. Ponder, I beseech of you, on my position. War, not of my seeking, was bequeathed to me, and a woman who cannot fight must trust to her advisers, and thus may do what her own heart revolts against. They told me that if I made you prisoner I could ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... Oh, ponder what it means! Oh, turn the rapturous thought in every way! Oh, give the vision and the fancy play, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... likewise of no use to ponder over the intelligence of crazy people, for their most weird notions are, in fact, only ideas that are already known, which appear strange simply because they are no longer under the restraint of reason. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... And yet, continuing to ponder the situation, he saw that he need not completely yield to pessimism. For though circumstances—and his own lack of foresight—had placed him in a contemptible position—he need not act the blackguard. On the contrary, he could admirably assume ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... as we are Here mysteriously, with God!—Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and whatever will be, is even now and forever. This, should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure; for the next twenty years, or the next twenty centuries: believe it thou must; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... 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 his ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... Next he began to ponder his own affairs, which were not encouraging, though he did not think he really regretted the self-sacrificing course he had taken. His father had died involved in debt, and Blake suspected that it had cost Colonel Challoner something ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... love, shall come revenge! This boy Greek—who has crossed my passion—thwarted my designs—baffled me even when the blade was about to drink his accursed blood—shall not a second time escape me! But for the method of my vengeance? Of that let me ponder well! Oh! Ate, if thou art indeed a goddess, fill me with thy direst Inspiration!' The Egyptian sank into an intent reverie, which did not seem to present to him any clear or satisfactory suggestions. He changed his position restlessly, as he revolved scheme after scheme, which no sooner ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... 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 ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... two best loved the other? Here is a thing to ponder on. A true friend is a precious thing, And all to aid you he will bring, But with excess of love the other In dreams was thinking of ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... the Kalantar who entered. He went in, as far as her room, and said to her, "Come, Madam, for they are asking for you." "Yes," said she, "I know it. I know, too, whither I am to be taken; I know how I shall be treated. But, ponder it well, a day will come when thy Master will give thee like treatment." Then she went out dressed as she was with the Kalantar; we had no idea whither she was being taken, and only on the following day did we learn ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... misapprehensions, and to discredit both the method which they employ and the results which they have obtained. If we were to give full weight to the statements which are sometimes made, we should perforce believe that primitive men had nothing to do but to ponder about the sun and the clouds, and to worry themselves over the disappearance of daylight. But there is nothing in the scientific interpretation of myths which obliges us to go any such length. I do not suppose that any ancient Aryan, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... began to ponder the problem which is so weighty to girls of the city—where she could see her lover, since the parks were impolite and her own ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... retired to the mortar-gallery to work at the forge and ponder. He always found that he pondered best while employed in hammering, especially if his ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... were three of them to meet daily, to study and to ponder over. And types as far apart as the three points of a triangle; the man at her side, young, witty, agreeable; Cathewe, grave, kindly, and sometimes rather saturnine; Breitmann, proud and reserved; and each of them having rung true in some great crisis. If ever she loved a man ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... and passed on, not pausing to ponder upon the meaning of the words he had heard. Indeed, he had small time to ponder, for his comrade was quickening his steps, and he had to ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... you ever sit down and talk with men In a serious sort of a way, On their views of life and ponder then On all that they have to say? If not, you should in some quiet hour; It's a glorious thing to do: For you'll find that back of the pomp and power Most men have a goal ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... Nor pass'd Anchises' son Unseen of Juno, through the crowded ranks 145 Seeking Achilles, but the Powers of heaven Convened by her command, she thus address'd. Neptune, and thou, Minerva! with mature Deliberation, ponder the event. Yon Chief, AEneas, dazzling bright in arms; 150 Goes to withstand Achilles, and he goes Sent by Apollo; in despite of whom Be it our task to give him quick repulse, Or, of ourselves, let some propitious ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... and of well-nigh all things, heavenly and human— stretching back to the very spring and cradle of our race, older than the oldest writings, and yet so ever fresh and new that while great scholars ponder over them for their deep meaning, little children in the nursery or by the fire-side in winter listen to them with delight for their wonder and their beauty. Else, if there were time and space we might tell the story of Jason, and show how it springs ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce

... Death is a glorious event to one going to Jesus. Whither does the soul wing its way? What does it see first? There is something sublime in passing into the second stage of our immortal lives if washed from our sins. But oh! to be consigned to ponder over all our sins with memories excited, every scene of our lives held up as in a mirror before our eyes, and we looking at them and waiting for ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... 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 ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... often 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 ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth. This is a solemn fact on which young and old might frequently ponder with advantage, and on which we might enlarge to an unlimited extent; but our space will not admit of moralising very much, therefore we beg the reader to moralise on that, for him—or herself. The subject is none the less important, that circumstances require ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne

... your pledge—to those who have claims upon you, for such, I know there must be, and you shall yet fill that position of usefulness in society, which no one else but you can occupy. And now let me advise you to go home, and ponder well this act, and your future course. No matter how dark all may now seem, light will spring up. If you are anxious to walk in a right path, and to minister to those who have claims upon you, the way will be made plain. This encouragement ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... driven when it woos, he accounted Cynthia responsible for it, and laughed in his sardonic way, whereat the boy would blush and scowl in one. Gregory, too, looked on and laughed, setting it down to the same cause. Even Cynthia smiled, whereat the Tavern Knight was driven to ponder. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... question arises I prithee examine And ponder the pull that it has Over headings like "Foch and Parisian Gamine," "Are Bolshevists really believers in Famine?" Or "Vocalist Lynched at La Paz." I look for it oft and in vain and say, "Blow it! There must be an answer and England should know it." Here, then, is the problem that's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various

... ponder over this. As a matter of fact, he had once told Bip this same thing in these very words. Now he temporized by squinting ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... rows. When I looked aloft, and saw those petticoated beings toiling in the terrible heat, I thought it a pity that there was no society to protect women as well as horses from being cruelly overworked. Let social reformers ponder this truth: The more the man is encouraged to shirk work, the more the woman will have to toil to make up for wasted time. As it is, women everywhere, except perhaps in England, work harder than men, as far as ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... when I ponder over my life it seems like some brilliant dream. Just think of being left a squalling baby for Mrs. Calvert, my great-aunt, to take care of, then sent to Mother Martha and Father John, because Aunt Betty ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... from having sight And beggared from high fortune, with a staff In stranger lands he shall feel forth his way; Shown living with the children of his loins, Their brother and their sire, and to the womb That bare him, husband-son, and, to his father, Parricide and corrival. Now go in, Ponder my words; and if thou find them false, then say my power is naught in prophecy. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... replied Andreas, and his expressive face darkened. "But those who assemble there are aliens to me; they follow evil heresies. But never mind—they also call themselves Christians, and the words which led you to ponder, stand to me at the very gate of the doctrine of our divine master, like the obelisks before the door of an Egyptian temple. Paul, the great preacher of the faith, wrote them to the Galatians. They are easy to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... That woman is perpetually here, and if peerages are to be had for the asking, she ought to have been a duchess by this time. I would not have admitted her but for a reason that I have. Go you now and ponder upon what you have heard and seen. Be on good terms with Scully, and, above all, speak not a word concerning our interview—no, not a word even to your mistress. By the way, I presume, sir, ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the sea, but the waves are dumb—they keep their eyes on the watch for the quarter whence the fierce winds may spring upon them, but they stay where they are and set neither this way nor that, till some particular wind sweeps down from heaven to determine them—even so did the old man ponder whether to make for the crowd of Danaans, or go in search of Agamemnon. In the end he deemed it best to go to the son of Atreus; but meanwhile the hosts were fighting and killing one another, and the hard bronze rattled on their bodies, as they ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... that must be carefully watched!" These men are protected, and their industry and their entire living afford a charming picture of the results of the "protective" system, so far as the Iron Monopoly is concerned. With such facts as these to ponder over, and with the additional knowledge that there is not a single person today employed in a cotton or woolen mill in the United States who is not taxed in the name of protection, to enrich the corporation for ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various

... and superficial. Of what use is a man who knows a little of everything and not much of anything? It is the momentum of constantly repeated acts that tells the story. "Let thine eyes look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left." One great secret of St. Paul's power lay in his strong purpose. Nothing could daunt him, nothing ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... myself a Pension on this side of absolute incapacitation and infirmity, till years have sucked me dry. Otium cum indignitate. I had thought in a green old age (O green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End—emblematic name how beautiful! in the Ware road, there to have made up my accounts with Heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and Cheshunt, anon stretching on some fine Izaac Walton ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... you to ponder this story. I wish to say to the mother who has started out upon a career in life, who has prepared herself for teaching school, for a business career, for story writing, for millinery, for lecturing, or has perhaps graduated in a domestic science course, that she ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... immensely. I should not speak of it—of her—unless I were dying; but, after all, when one is dying, there are things one may say. I have held my peace so long. And since I have been lying here I have had time to ponder it, to have thought it all out. It seems to me that simply for her sake someone should know before—before the occasion passes—just the plain truth. Of course, Sylvester by rights ought to be the man, only I can't ask him ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... admired the statues, took a very light dinner, consisting of coffee, sandwiches, and ice, at the Chinese Pavilion, and, toward evening, discovered an inviting leafy arbor, where he could withdraw into the privacy of his own thoughts, and ponder upon the still unsolved problem of his destiny. The little incident with the child had taken the edge off his unhappiness and turned him into a more conciliatory mood toward himself and the great pitiless world, which seemed to take so little notice of him. And he, who had come here with so warm ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... and in the name of One Whom mayhap ye will know one day. He died that ye should live! Bear that in mind and ponder on it. Mayhap ye will find the solution to that riddle. That such as you should live in eternity, therefore did He die.... When ye have understood this and can explain the value of your lives as compared with His, come and tell it to the praefect of Rome and he will shower ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... deg.! Lo, their answer at last! deg.33 "Has Persia come,—does Athens ask aid,—may Sparta befriend? Nowise precipitate judgment—too weighty the issue at stake! Count we no time lost time which lags thro' respect to the Gods! Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast: Athens must wait, patient as we—who ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... me capable of doing any thing that is against his interests," said Mrs. Hart, solemnly; and without a bow, or an adieu, she retired. She went back to her own room to ponder ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... more than enough of wandering, and would fain settle down here, Guy, if you will give me a chamber for myself, and one for my instruments. I shall need them but little henceforth, but they have become a part of myself and, though no longer for gain, I love to watch the stars, and to ponder on their lessons; and when you ride to the wars I shall be company for Katarina, who has long been used to my society alone, and I promise you that I will no longer ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... over his name, to whisper the words with which he had blessed her, and ponder over and over the tone of those words. She was bewildered and astonished by her own happiness. Now she longed to steal into Mrs. Harrington's presence, and tell her of the great joy that had fallen upon her life, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... exceedingly loth to quit, such flaming patriotic letters? My kind, best brother was always led by somebody; by me when we were together (he had such an idea of my wit and wisdom, that if I said the day was fine, he would ponder over the observation as though it was one of the sayings of the Seven Sages), by some other wiseacre when I was away. Who inspired these flaming letters, this boisterous patriotism, which he sent to us in London? "He is rebelling against ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hast sworn that never more Thy heart shall bow to passion's spell; But ever sadly ponder o'er The anguish of our last farewell! Yet, as you still are in your teens— I say, "tell that to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various

... boys for whom it is in season, and not to scan words to be set to music for the Roman harps, but [rather] to be perfectly an adept in the numbers and proportions of real life. Thus therefore I commune with myself, and ponder these things in silence: "If no quantity of water would put an end to your thirst, you would tell it to your physicians. And is there none to whom you dare confess, that the more you get the more you crave? If you had a wound which was not ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace



Words linked to "Ponder" :   think, study, cerebrate, consider, wonder, puzzle, cogitate, question, bethink, premeditate, introspect, theologize, theologise



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