"Meditate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neither with an advocate nor even with a single friend. Alone in his chamber of bondage he was to meditate on his defence. Out of his memory and brain, and from these alone, he was to supply himself with the array of historical facts stretching over a longer period than the lifetime of many of his judges, and with the proper legal and historical ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the inner room," ordered old Barr, "it's a nice warm place for a young man to sit and meditate on his stubbornness, and perhaps to-morrow he will ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... one, and scarcely ever spoke a single word, but went about silent and wrapped up in his own thoughts. All the day long he toiled for his ducats, and at night he had to count them, and to plan and meditate how he might find out a still swifter kind ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... cheerful spirit, and a good conscience, the Providence of God, our hopes of Heaven, our charity for those who have injured us; perhaps a loving wife, and many friends to pity, and some to relieve us; and light and air, and all the beauties of Nature; we can read, discourse, and meditate; and having still these blessings, we should be much in love with sorrow and peevishness to lose them all, and prefer to sit down on our ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... sunrise, Don Jorge and his boatmen were on the lake, leaving Jose to meditate on the vivid experiences of the past few days, their strange mental origin, and the lesson ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... To meditate on dewy lawn, To breathe the fragrance of the morning, And, like philosophers, all scorning To think or care where he was bound, Fell on a farm. A hammer's sound Arrested ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... interest in their spiritual welfare. She pleads with them by the love of Jesus that they be faithful to the Savior of their souls and walk worthy of Him who has bought them with his own blood. To do this, she urges them to study the word of God, and be constant in the closet, and meditate much upon spiritual things, and watch and guard the heart from temptation and sin. Nor does she forget to recommend the cultivation of a missionary spirit, but, with all the eloquence of a sister's love, urges them to do ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite personal alacrity and cleanliness, extending even to his dwelling-place; to discriminate, ever more and more fastidiously, select form and colour in things from what was less select; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects, on objects, more especially, connected with the period of youth—on children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on young animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by him if it were but a single ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... plenty, but the greater part of them could not be used by me, nor for these hundred years to come. However, there is enough without these, and merely as a literary man, to make a preface for such an edition as you meditate. But this is by the way: I have not ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... with these thoughts, his greatest comfort was, that Amelia and Booth were now separated; and his greatest terror was of their coming again together. From wishes, therefore, he began to meditate designs; and so far was he from any intention of procuring the liberty of his friend, that he began to form schemes of prolonging his confinement, till he could procure some means of sending him away far from her; in which ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... and unlikely to return until late. Therefore Dominic had walked on to Barnes Common, and finding the uncomfortable bench by the roadside—whereon Cappadocia, the toy spaniel, had sought his protection more than a year ago—untenanted, had sat down there to meditate. Cedar Lodge was no longer a refuge. He preferred to keep away from it as long as might be. Perhaps, too, as the sun dropped the air would grow cooler, and the southeasterly draught, parched and scorching as from the mouth of a furnace, which huffled ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... next in order, where the culprit could cool his heels and meditate upon the sinfulness of superior officers. In this particular case he seems to have blamed it upon the missing leg, for he remarked, long afterwards: "Never employ any one minus a limb to be in authority over boys. They are apt to ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... began to meditate schemes of opposition against the duke of Marlborough. They looked upon him as a selfish nobleman, who sacrificed the interest of the nation, in protracting a ruinous war for his own private advantage. They saw their country oppressed with an increasing load of taxes, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and generosity, his slightly weak chin, his lavishly-lipped mouth, being all amiability and affection, above the nose was quite different. In the middle came his nose, a nose that led him to improve himself, to read and meditate the poets, to be tenacious in following after the noble; and above were eyes in which simplicity sat side by side with appreciation; and above these was the forehead like a dome; and ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... replied Mrs. Marvelle calmly. "Old Van Clupp paid me the last hundred this morning. And poor Mrs. Van Clupp is so very grateful!" She sighed placidly, and appeared to meditate. Then she smiled sweetly and, approaching Mr. Marvelle, patted his shoulder caressingly. "I think we'll do the Italian lakes, dear—what ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... not one, or hardly any one, which we could place in a young man's hands, with such warm confidence as would let us say of it—'Read that; there is a man—such a man as you ought to be; read it, meditate on it; see what he was, and how he made himself what he was, and try and be yourself like him.' This, as we saw lately, is what Catholicism did. It had its one broad type of perfection, which in countless thousands of instances was perpetually reproducing itself—a type of character not ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Utah, and to the gold fields of California, in 1849. It was always a pleasant spot, and is now a station on the Union Pacific Railway. As the tourist crosses the bridge over the stream in a palace car, he may look down from his window, and meditate on the brilliancy of the present, and the misty past, with all its adventures and suffering. The march of civilization has made wonderful changes in fifty years. It has forced the Indians, the buffaloes, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... on which a free man will meditate less than on death. Desirous to write down what was in his mind, Spinoza turned from the sea and pursued his peaceful ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... taught, and then continued rapidly, "Thank you, too, very much, for making me and Tutti good; and please let us go on putting beans into the fiasco till it can't hold any more—and then we'll find something else...." He paused to meditate. "Make grandmother pleased with us, ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... lay done more at ease on his bed, and began to meditate upon the poverty and pitiful lot of the artist, and the thorny path lying before him in the world. But meanwhile his eye glanced involuntarily through the joint of the screen at the portrait muffled in the sheet. The light of the moon heightened the whiteness of the sheet, and it seemed to him as ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... self-possession, and replied: "Oh! one can never tell exactly whether news is good or bad. It seems that his Holiness passed a somewhat painful night, but I devoutly hope that the next will be a better one." Then he seemed to meditate for a moment, and added: "Moreover, if God should have deemed it time to call his Holiness to Himself, He would not leave His flock without a shepherd. He would have already chosen and designated the Sovereign ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to the women of the seventeenth century; and the fourth to those of the eighteenth and present centuries. We have read many of these records of other days, as told by Miss Kavanagh, and we are sure that the influence upon every Christian-minded person cannot but be for good, if he will meditate upon what our holy religion is every day doing. The volume is well worthy a place in every Christian family."—Ban. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... or generosity, and is not to be met with hatred in return. But in order that we may always have this prescript of reason in readiness whenever it will be of service, we must think over and often meditate upon the common injuries inflicted by men, and consider how and in what way they may best be repelled by generosity; for thus we shall connect the image of injury with the imagination of this maxim, and it will be at hand whenever an injury is offered to us. If we also continually have regard ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... ["To meditate upon banishments, tortures, wars, diseases, and shipwrecks, that thou mayest not be a novice in any disaster." —Seneca, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... perplexed, It hath been asked before By singers and by sages, "What is act, And what inaction? "I will teach thee this, And, knowing, thou shalt learn which work doth save Needs must one rightly meditate those three— Doing,—not doing,—and undoing. Here Thorny and dark the path is! He who sees How action may be rest, rest action—he Is wisest 'mid his kind; he hath the truth! He doeth well, acting or resting. Freed In all his works from ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... to Isaac that the policeman could either make a mistake of judgment, or meditate one. Therefore he approached the ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... fact induce some genius of the State to meditate the subject, there being full proof that the alliance of Prison and Hell does not succeed in eradicating the seeds of corruption and crime ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... beg food, but only once a day; if it is not given to him, he must not be sorrowful, and if he receives it he must not be glad; he is to meditate on the "subtle indivisible essence of the Supreme Being," he is to be careful not to destroy the life of the smallest insect, and he must make atonement for the death of those which he has ignorantly destroyed by making six ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... room the Princess begged Peggy to excuse her, pleading weariness, and so the astonished and curious hostess was forced to relinquish her latest social conquest and seek her own room, there to meditate upon the extraordinary thing that had happened. Why was Anastasie Galitzin so perturbed at learning of the wounds of Peter Nichols? What did it all mean? Had she known him somewhere in the past—in England—in Russia? What ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... trousseau or get out wedding cards and invitations fine enough to make all the girls of Nahor sigh in envy and admiration, but she departed at once. Now Isaac was of a poetical nature, and sought the solitude of the fields at eventide to meditate. Like most young men who have a love affair on hand he wanted to be alone and ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire to see a truth. Meditate only upon the wish of thy heart, seeing first that it can injure no man and is not ignoble. Then will it take earthly form and draw near to thee. This is the ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I am now. I have the advantage of having a room to apply my time to whatever study I resolve to persevere in. If I had time, I would give you a more correct account of my transactions through the day; but if I have time to meditate a little, I hope I will be enabled to give you some account of the sermons that I hear, as I think it would be greatly to my own interest, for if I pry into that part of information, there is no danger but that I will have success in ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... the Meloe, in its turn, will not be dispossessed by a fresh thief; or even whether it will not, in the state of a drowsy, fat and flabby larva, fall a prey to some marauder who will munch its live entrails? As we meditate upon this deadly, implacable struggle which nature imposes, for their preservation, on these different creatures, which are by turns possessors and dispossessed, devourers and devoured, a painful impression ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... stroll in the direction of Champdoce, and, pipe in mouth, would meditate over his schemes. Pausing on the brow of a hill that overlooked the Chateau, he would ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... and nights to the gloom of malice, and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease. Resentment is an union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief, and to exasperate his own rage; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... is enamored. It need not be said that Kean arrives at the nick of time, saves the innocent Meess Anna, and exposes the infamy of the Peer. A violent tirade against noblemen ensues, and Lord Melbourn slinks away, disappointed, to meditate revenge. Kean's triumphs continue through all the acts: the Ambassadress falls madly in love with him; the Prince becomes furious at his ill success, and the Ambassador dreadfully jealous. They pursue Kean to his dressing-room at ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... phantasies of honeytongued Spenser, I adjure you to attempt the Epic. Or do something more ample than writing an occasional brief ode or sonnet; something "to make yourself for ever known,—to make the age to come your own". But I prate; doubtless you meditate something. When you are exalted among the Lords of Epic fame, I shall recall with pleasure, and exultingly, the days of your humility, when you disdained not to put forth in the same volume with mine, your religious musings, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the duration and obstinacy of the conflict, the slow advance and occasional repulse of the host in which he has enlisted, and the tardy progress that Liberalism has made in that stupendous reconstruction which the Revolution has forced the modern political thinker to meditate upon, and the modern statesman to ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... dedicated his "Titles of Honour." Selden, according to Aubrey, had chambers in these pleasant river-side buildings, looking towards the gardens, and in the uppermost storey he had a little gallery, to pace in and meditate. The Great Fire swept away Selden's chambers, and their successors were destroyed by the fire which broke out in Mr. Maule's chambers. Coming home at night from a dinner-party, that gentleman, it is said, put the lighted candle under his bed by mistake. The stately ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... gambling, indulgence in scandal, all relations arising out of women, attachment to dancing, instrumental music and songs—all these qualities, ye learned Brahmanas, have been said to belong to Passion. Those men on Earth who meditate on the past, present, and the future, who are devoted to the aggregate of three, viz., Religion, Wealth, and Pleasure, who acting from impulse of desire, exult on attaining to affluence in respect of every ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lands, lover of populous pavements, Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas, Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner in California, Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring, Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy, Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of mighty Niagara, Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and strong-breasted bull, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... inevitably the earth must be annihilated if the statue of Serapis should be overthrown. In the warmth of their discussion they paid no heed to the young girl, who was sitting on a fallen Hermes by the road-side. Her vigorous and lively temperament rendered her little apt to dream, or even meditate, in broad daylight; but the heat and the recent excitement had overwrought her and she felt into a drowsy reverie. Now and again, as her heavy head drooped on her breast, she fancied the Serapeum had actually fallen; then, as she raised it again, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... incubation. Removed from the din of controversy a certain number of people are always found who are keenly sensible of the evils which the new system was supposed to cure, and who continue to meditate upon the possibility of its possessing the power to do so. These persons, it may be, make but little noise in the arena either of literature or politics, but they are not the less active, nor perhaps in the end the less really influential, on ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. 8. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. 9. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... yesterday's lesson; nevertheless, during the meditation thoughts came and went, and I found much difficulty in trying to fix my mind. Perhaps I shall never learn how to meditate on—shall I say the Cross?—I shall never be able to fix my attention. Thoughts of the heroes and heroines of legends come and go in my mind, mixing with thoughts of Christ and His apostles; yet there is little ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... image of the presence of such men, he would have passed on, as he assuredly did, to the next picture, representing, doubtless, Diana and Actaeon, or Cupid and the Graces, or a gambling quarrel in a pothouse—with no sense of pain or surprise? Let him meditate over the matter, and he will find ultimately that what I say is true, and that religious art at once complete and sincere never yet ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... pipe, presently (after I had had leisure to meditate on the foregoing philosophical dialogue), "mate, I'll give ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Ellisland stands but a few yards to the west of the Nith. Immediately underneath there is a red scaur of considerable (p. 095) height, overhanging the stream, and the rest of the bank is covered with broom, through which winds a greensward path, whither Burns used to retire to meditate his songs. The farm extends to upwards of a hundred acres, part holm, part croft-land, of which the former yielded good wheat, the latter oats and potatoes. The lease was for nineteen years, and the rent fifty pounds for the first three ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... lived for sixty years and has not reached the nirvana. He'll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate. But we will not reach the nirvana, he won't and we won't. Oh Govinda, I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one, not a single one, will reach the nirvana. We find comfort, we find numbness, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... during the fifteen months I resided in London I was too much occupied to prevent myself from starving, to meditate about anything else; that my stomach was my sole meditation as well as anxiety. That, however, I believed that in England, as everywhere else, a mixture of good and bad qualities was to be found; but which prevailed, it would be presumption in me, from my position, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... are greatly mistaken. I think and act differently from what you say. I have not had time to meditate over the theory of principles; but all my life has rested on one of them—on labor. Skilled and iron labor was my principle, and it has ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... the feeble, faltering, thrilling (oh, how thrilling!) pressure of the hand; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us from the threshold of existence; the faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give once more assurance of affection! aye, go to the grave of buried love and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded of that being who can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition. If thou art a child and hast ever added a sorrow to ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... to life. The impulse to know is only a phase of the more general impulse to be and to act. Beneath all man's activities, as their source and spring, there is ever some dim perception of an end to be attained. 'The ultimate end,' says Paulsen, 'impelling men to meditate upon the nature of the universe, will always be the desire to reach some conclusion concerning the meaning of the source and goal of their lives.' The origin and aim of all philosophy is consequently to be ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... got plenty of time to read, and pray, and meditate; but she was at a great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets; for she found that, without this advantage, about which there was a perfect rage at that time, the reading and learning of Scripture texts, and sentences of intricate doctrine, availed her naught; ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... which would not get done without them; they set their mark plainly upon history, which realizes a portion of their ideas and wishes; but they are far from doing all they meditate, and they know not all they do. They are at one and the same time instruments and free agents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, and which, even if a glimpse of it be caught, remains ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the fallen sovereign rested at Bellevue to meditate on the caprices of fortune or the decrees of fate. But that day, at the head of a splendid company of princes and generals, King William, crossing the bridge of Donchery, rode throughout the whole ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... he, in a voice of thunder. Emily obeyed, and, walking down to the rampart, which the strangers had now left, continued to meditate on the unhappy marriage of her father's sister, and on her own desolate situation, occasioned by the ridiculous imprudence of her, whom she had always wished to respect and love. Madame Montoni's ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... ever dare again to utter a word or meditate a thought of evil against that unhappy creature," he cried, "I will tear you limb ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... meditate that hopeless project—the offspring, poor angel, of her artless, unthinking generosity? Does she still fancy that it is in her power to assert my innocence before the world? Oh, mother (if she do), use your utmost ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... "Collect your thoughts, meditate, demand from the depths of your soul pardon from God. The Sacrament will purify you, and will strengthen you anew. Your eyes will become clear, your ears chaste, your nostrils fresh, your mouth ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... with himself, and at last resolved to lay it out in glass-ware which he bought of a wholesale dealer. He put all in an open basket, and sat with it before him, and his back against a wall, in a place where he might sell it. In this posture, with his eyes fixed on his basket, he began to meditate; during which he spoke as follows: "This basket cost me a hundred dirhems, which is all I have in the world. I shall make two hundred of them by retailing my glass, and of these two hundred, which I will again lay out in glass-ware, I shall make four hundred; and going on ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... Prakriti—To this the Sutra replies, 'an agent, on account of Scripture thus having a meaning.' The Self only is an agent, not the gunas, because thus only Scripture has a meaning. For the scriptural injunctions, such as 'he who desires the heavenly world is to sacrifice,' 'He who desires Release is to meditate on Brahman,' and similar ones, enjoin action on him only who will enjoy the fruit of the action—whether the heavenly world, or Release, or anything else. If a non-sentient thing were the agent, the injunction would not be ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... with passionate indignation; her lips quivered; she seemed to consume the king as she gazed at him with sidelong glances. Concealing her feelings and nerved by anger, she held in check the magic power that her ascetic life had given her. She seemed to meditate a moment, overcome by grief and anger. She gazed at her husband, then spoke passionately: "O shameless king, although you know, why do you say, 'I do not know,' like any other ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... evasion were unworthy of one whose word has hitherto been truth. You meditate not the destruction of the deer—your hand and your heart are aimed at other game—you seek to do battle with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the Marmora, became observable. The valorous, knightly heart, groaning under the humiliations of the haughty Turk, weary not less of the incapacity of his own people to perceive their peril, and arise heroically to meet it, found opportunity to meditate while he was pacing the lofty lookout, and struggling to descry the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... way.—There are certain beaten tracks well-worn by His feet, and if we would meet Him we must frequent their neighborhood. Olivet, where He used to pray; Calvary, where He died; Joseph's garden, where He rose, are dear to Him yet. When we pray or meditate; when we commemorate His dying love at the memorial feast; when we realize our union with Him in death and resurrection; when we open our hearts to the breathing of the Holy Spirit—we put ourselves in His way, and are more ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... rule over subjects differing from him in religion, and the more probable reading of the rule as to the building of places of worship. Against them was the unquestioned text of the Majestatsbrief, not yet nine years old. The new emperor did not meditate a breach of faith. Real violence was unavailing where the opponents were in a large majority. The Counter-Reformation had produced in Central Europe a scheme of persecution, which stopped short of tragedy, and laboured to accomplish, by infinite art and trouble, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... there has arisen the thought, 'Shall I ever again see the buds unfold? Shall I ever again be awakened at dawn by the song of the thrush?' Now that the end is not likely to be long postponed, there results an increasing tendency to meditate upon ultimate questions."... Then he tells us that these ultimate questions—"of the How and the Why, of the Whence and the Whither"—occupy much more space in the minds of those who cannot accept the creed ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... wonder, the pursuing of a train of thought, the quiet dwelling upon mysteries, are all lost if one has to stumble and run in a prescribed track. To follow a service with uplifted attention requires more mental agility than I possess; point after point is raised, and yet, if one pauses to meditate, to wonder, to aspire, one is lost, and misses the thread of the service. I suppose that there is or ought to be something in the united act of intercession. But I dislike all public meetings, and think them a waste of time. I should make an exception in favour ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... wanted three or four hours of daybreak, he resolved to have us dry and comfortable for his morning's adventure. With this intention he drew us off, and placed us on the hearth before the fire, and threw himself on the bed—not to sleep—he would sooner have committed suicide—but to meditate upon the charms of Miss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold, the camels ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Quentin prison on April 17, 1929. He was then thirty-four years of age. And for three years and a half, much of the time in solitary confinement, he was left to meditate upon the injustice of man. It was during that period that his bitterness corroded home and he became a hater of all his kind. Three other things he did during the same period: he wrote his famous treatise, Human Morals, ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... the Revolution. When a man cannot lay the blame on his father or mother, he holds God responsible for his hard lot. In short, dear child, we are here to open your eyes. I will say all I have to say in a few words, on which you had better meditate: A woman ought never to put her husband in ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... prisoners was so great, that the natives did not think proper to trust to the return of our people for their release; or, at least, their impatience was so great, that it hurried them to meditate an attempt which might have involved them in still greater distress, had it not been fortunately prevented. Between five and six o'clock in the evening, I observed that all their canoes in and about the harbour began to move off, as if some sudden panic had seized ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... complaint; And for sweet flowers to crown thy herse Receive a strew of weeping verse From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see Quite melted into tears for thee. Dear loss! since thy untimely fate, My task hath been to meditate On thee, on thee! Thou art the book, The library whereon I look, Tho' almost blind. For thee, loved clay, I languish out, not live, the day.... Thou hast benighted me; thy set This eve of blackness did beget, Who wast my day (tho' overcast ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... another door opened upon a balcony. From this balcony we looked down on Petrarch's garden, which, presently speaking, is but a narrow space with more fruit than flowers in it. Did Petrarch use to sit and meditate in this garden? For me I should better have liked a chair on the balcony, with the further and lovelier prospect on every hand of village-roofs, sloping hills all gray with olives, and the broad, blue Lombard plain, sweeping from heaven to ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... are inured to shipwreck; they are eager to purchase booty with the peril of their lives. Tempests, which to others are so dreadful, to them are subjects of joy; the storm is their protection when they are pressed by the enemy, and a cover for their operations when they meditate an attack. Before they quit their own shores, they devote to the altars of their gods the tenth part of the principal captives; and when they are on the point of returning, the lots are cast with an affectation of equity, and the ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... now mention that many concurrent circumstances had caused me, during the few last days, to meditate on the approach of this painful necessity. The strong breezes we had encountered for some days, led me to fear that the season was breaking up, and severe weather would soon ensue, which we could not sustain in a country destitute ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... American embassy. It was a hard task to provide entertainment and occupation for all these people and to fuse such different elements. No one understood the business better than she, but just now it was a burden and a weariness to her. She would have liked to keep quiet and meditate on her happiness, to think of nothing else: and she could devise no other amusements for her guests than the invariable. visit to the fish preserves, to Ronsard's castle, and to the Orphanage. Her own pleasure was complete when her hand touched Paul's, as accident brought ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... knowing—it casts aside with the careless indifference of a girl refusing her true lover. It's terrible to think of this phenomenon. I tremble in all my members when I consider all the really valuable things that I've forgotten in seventy years—when I meditate upon the caprices ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sensation; or Diogenes living in a tub; or Plato in his garden; or Aristotle in the shady side of the Lyceum; or Zeno guarding the keys of the citadel. See the good Aurelius, in later and more corrupt ages, forsaking the pleasures of an imperial throne, that he might meditate on his soul's welfare, or the slave Epictetus, unfolding the richest lessons of moral wisdom to ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... them, and swam to the nearest boats, where they assisted during the remainder of the action. The enemy's gunboats and galleys (fifteen in number) were all in motion close under the batteries, and appeared to meditate an attack on our boats; the Constitution, Nautilus, and Enterprize, were to windward, ready, at every hazard, to cut them off (p. 142) from the harbour, if they should venture down; while the Syren ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... "And meditate on the Unknown?" queried the little American. "Perhaps you'll see her at her window. I ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... began to meditate on my escape, for I knew the country round very well, having often hunted there. The third day after the great body of the Indians quitted us, my keepers visited the mountains in search of game, leaving me bound in such a way that ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Nate affected to meditate on this view of the question. "But it will be toler'ble fur away fur me ter go prowlin' in the woods, a- huntin' fur gold, an' our fodder jes' a-sufferin' ter be pulled. Ef the spot air fur off, I can't come an' I won't, not fur ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... of his confinement Waverley found himself so well that he began to meditate his escape from this dull and miserable prison-house, thinking any risk which he might incur in the attempt preferable to the stupefying and intolerable uniformity of Janet's retirement. The question indeed occurred, whither he was to direct his course when again at his own disposal. Two ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... [1559]a primary cause, Piso calls it; most pleasant it is at first, to such as are melancholy given, to lie in bed whole days, and keep their chambers, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect them most; amabilis insania, et mentis gratissimus error: a most incomparable delight it is so to melancholise, and build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... in peaceful Innocence enjoy a Life unenvy'd, the Divine, whilst with its bless'd Tranquility it affords a happy Leisure and Retreat for Man, who, made for contemplation and to search his own and other natures, may here best meditate the cause of Things, and, plac'd amidst the various scenes of Nature, may nearer view her Works. O glorious Nature! supremely fair and sovereignly good! All-loving and All-lovely All-Divine! Whose looks are so becoming, and of such infinite grace, whose study brings such Wisdom, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... my useless valet sent to loiter, and improve himself in vice, as valets usually are, and I left to meditate on the plan I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... meekness is good through and through, that which is shown toward opponents and enemies, does them no harm, does not revenge itself, does not curse nor revile, does not speak evil of them, does not meditate evil against them, although they had taken away goods, honor, life, friends and everything. Nay, where it is possible, it returns good for evil, speaks well of them, thinks well of them, prays for them. ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... Years before the Gospel could have been universally preached. But even in those Times of Inspiration, as Timothy himself was not to neglect the Gift that was in him given by Imposition of Hands, so he was charg'd to give Attendance to Reading, to Exhortation, to Doctrine, to meditate upon these things, to give himself wholly to them, that his profiting might appear unto all, 1 Tim. 4, 14, 15. And it is granted by all, that the Ministers of the Gospel in our Day are to acquire ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts
... ate only a light supper. Following his usual custom he went into the woods to pray, to meditate, and to get his sermon into order for the evening. When he came back those who saw him were struck with his look. It was something like that of Moses when he came down from the mount. His face seemed to shine with the light of God. Jasper's natural ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... Heyst looked deliberately over his shoulder, stepped back a pace, and sat down on the end of the camp bedstead. Leaning his elbow on one knee, he laid his cheek in the palm of his hand and seemed to meditate on what he should say next. Mr. Jones, planted against the wall, was obviously waiting for some sort of overture. As nothing came, he resolved to speak himself; but he hesitated. For, though he considered that the most difficult step had been taken, he said to himself that every stage of progress ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... decay upon shipping.[N] For a wrecked ship, or shattered boat, is a noble subject, while a ship in full sail, or a perfect boat, is an ignoble one; not merely because the one is by reason of its ruin more picturesque than the other, but because it is a nobler act in man to meditate upon Fate as it conquers his work, ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... give oats to the horse, maize to the chickens, cabbage to the rabbits, groundsel to the canaries, snails to the ducks and bran-water to the pigs. At eight o'clock, summer and winter, she prepares the cafe au lait for her maid—and herself. Scarcely a day passes that she does not meditate ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... week in and week out, and year in and year out, with some of us, there be scarce a thought turned to Him; scarce a desire winging its way to Him; scarce one moment of quiet contemplation of these great truths. We have to ruminate, we have to meditate; we have to make conscious and frequent efforts to bring before the mind, in the first place, and then before the heart and all the sensitive, emotional, and voluntary nature, the great truths on which our salvation rests. In so far as we do that we get good ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... kinder demute for a minute, and I went right on, and sez I, "I'd have a immense big house built if I had my way so's to accommodate 'em if I could git a house big enough. And I would set 'em there in immense rows and let 'em meditate on their sins a spell and I'd have good likely preachers of both sects go and preach to 'em about fallen men and fallen wimmen, and how they could git up agin with God's help if they tried hard enough to. And I'd have pictures hung on the wall of Mikel and Magdaline and them old fallen ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... was sleeping off the fumes of the schnaps, but Mr. Dodge bowed to the compliment, and foresaw many capital things for the journal, and for the columns of the Active Inquirer. He even began to meditate a book. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Captain Bowse," returned the colonel, who was so pleased with the master's coolness and bearing, that he no longer refused to give him the usual title,—"I've no objection. They can't eat us; and if they meditate running alongside, they will see we are prepared ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... half-witted woman, but even a group of Little Dorrit's old turnkey friends from the prison—among whom was the disconsolate Chivery, who had so long solaced himself by composing epitaphs for his own tombstone, and who went home to meditate ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... were no more than a few hours in which he had to meditate on what he had to do, when his affairs took a very different turn, and by the most unthought-of means imaginable: It was towards the close of day, when the wife of the exempt came into his chamber, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... terrible and sleepless night my mind roamed abroad, and amidst the reproaches with which I overwhelmed myself I found a certain satisfaction in the thought that they were not wholly undeserved. This is the sole enjoyment I still have when I meditate on my past life and its varied adventures. I feel that no misfortune has befallen me save by my own fault, whilst I attribute to natural causes the blessings, of which I have enjoyed many. I think I should go mad if in my soliloquies I came across any misfortune which I could not trace to my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... right pretend. She seems attentive to their pleaded vows, Her heart detesting what her ear allows. They, vain expectants of the bridal hour, My stores in riotous expense devour. In feast and dance the mirthful months employ, And meditate my ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... sundry lank, high-backed wood chairs, with some plaster images in resplendent colors on the mantel-shelf, above a very dimly-smoking grate; a long hard-wood settle extended its uneasy length by the chimney, and here Haley sat him down to meditate on the instability of human hopes ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... unconsciously acquire, at a very early age, the finest perception of character and manners, and are almost as soon instinctively schooled in the deep and more dangerous learning of feeling and emotion; while the very minuteness with which they make and meditate on these interesting observations, and the finer shades and variations of sentiment which are thus treasured and recorded, train their whole faculties to a nicety and precision of operation, which often discloses itself to advantage in their application to ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... house immediately, and Eve, perceiving that things were in the right train, left her father alone to meditate on what had just passed. Mr. Effingham walked up and down his library for some time, much disturbed, for the spot in question was identified with all his early feelings and recollections; and if there were a foot of land on earth, to which he was more attached than to all others, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... We have rebuilt Newgate, and tenanted the mansion. We have prisons almost as strong as the Bastile, for those who dare to libel the queens of France. In this spiritual retreat let the noble libeller remain. Let him there meditate on his Talmud, until he learns a conduct more becoming his birth and parts, and not so disgraceful to the ancient religion to which he has become a proselyte,—or until some persons from your side of the water, to please your new Hebrew brethren, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in bed for three days, I think about my bed, and even in my sleep I meditate on it still, and I have come to the conclusion that the bed constitutes our whole life; for we were born in it, we live in it, and we shall die in it. If, therefore, I had Monsieur de Crebillon's pen, I should write the history of a bed, and what exciting and terrible, as well as delightful ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... before Vicksburg, with the whole available force of the Army of the Gulf. When he learned from Banks that this would be out of the question so long as Port Hudson should continue to be held by the Confederates, Grant took up the same line of thought that had already attracted Banks, and began to meditate a junction by the Atchafalaya, the Red, the Tensas, and the Black rivers. What Grant then needed was not more troops, but standing-room for those he had. Accordingly, he began by preparing to send twenty thousand men to Banks, when the Ohio River steamers he had asked for should ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... tripping over the carpet. Driving through the fresh air, however—where at first I muttered and fidgeted about so much that Kuzma, my coachman, asked me what was the matter—I soon found this feeling pass away, and began to meditate quietly concerning my love for Sonetchka and her relations with her mother, which had appeared to me rather strange. When, afterwards, I told my father that mother and daughter had not seemed on the best of terms with ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... private chamber close To meditate a day or two alone; And, tyrant, if thou find us living then, Commit us straight ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... heart and life, God's amplest provision is nought to us; and we are empty in the midst of affluence. Get near to God if you would partake of what He has prepared. Live in fellowship with Him by simple love, and often meditate on Him, if you would drink in of His fulness. And be sure of this, that howsoever within His house the stores are heaped and the treasury full, you will have neither part nor lot in the matter, unless you are children of the house. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... shaded with long whiskers; and his ample turban was fashioned in the shape of a crown. The remains of the sultan were deposited in the tomb of the Seljukian dynasty; and the passenger might read and meditate this useful inscription: [40] "O ye who have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it buried in the dust." The annihilation of the inscription, and the tomb itself, more forcibly proclaims the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... contrary, on his first arrival, having been unknown to them before, had begun with an act of clemency and liberality: and Abelux, a man of prudence, did not seem likely to have changed his allies without good cause. Accordingly all began, with great unanimity, to meditate a revolt; and hostilities would immediately have commenced, had not the winter intervened, which compelled the Romans, and the Carthaginians ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... attention between the muse and an earthly mistress, is likely not only to lose the favor of the former, but, as the ubiquity of the rejected poet in verse indicates, to lose the latter as well, because his temperament will incline him to go into retirement and meditate upon his lady's charms, when he should be flaunting his own in her presence. It will not be long, indeed, before he has so covered the object of his affection with the leafage of his fancy, that she ceases to have an actual existence ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... trembles like a criminal, and withdraws into the thickest gloom of night, that fearful refuge of a guilty conscience. Whate'er they answer falls from the trembling tongue in doubtful accents. Oh, Fiesco! what horrid business dost thou meditate? Ye heavenly powers! watch over ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ever become 'cankered!' It would be a terrible thing for their 'rust' to 'witness against me,' and eat my 'flesh as it were fire'; and it would be yet more dreadful for the money which has such power for good to be itself given up to canker and rust!" Then he would meditate on the uncompromising declarations of Christ—"How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God!" "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God." He trembled as he read; but, pondering, ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... he has no objection to play as deep as any one.' 'Has he money?' said I. 'As for that,' replied the treacherous Cerise, 'would to God you had won a thousand pistoles of him, and I went your halves; we should not be long without our money.' I wanted no further encouragement to meditate the ruin of the high-crowned hat. I went nearer to him, in order to take a closer survey; never was such a bungler; he made blots upon blots; God knows, I began to feel some remorse at winning of such an ignoramus, who knew so little of the game. He lost his reckoning; supper was served ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Who on this everlasting basis placed His own immutable and moveless throne. Time to these writings daily adds new force, Deepening the traces of Jehovah's love, His fathomless, unbounded love to man.— Peruse this volume, and then walk abroad And meditate in silence on the scenes Which lately charmed your unassisted sense, Till your soul burns within you, and breaks forth In holy ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... making proper offerings, as already described. The candidate then informs his auditors of his desire and enumerates the various goods and presents which he has procured to offer at the proper time. The Mid[-e]/ priests sit in silence and meditate; but as they have already been informally aware of the applicant's wish, they are prepared as to the answer they will give, and are governed according to the estimated value of the gifts. Should the decision of the Mid[-e]/ priests ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... weapons, and ammunition, together with as much of their clothing as happened to take his fancy. As he executed his self-imposed task with considerable deliberation, those passengers whose turn was still to come had plenty of time to meditate upon their coming despoilment, and one of them—the individual who had so kindly relieved me of my letter—took it into his head to do me a good turn. Withdrawing quietly to his cabin, he presently reappeared with a mahogany case, to which he unostentatiously directed ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... you, my lady. (Reading a little breathlessly) "But his delight is in the Law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night—" ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and unwelcome ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no other way but to meditate, and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life. And the best time to do this, is to look back upon anger, when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca saith well, That anger is like ruin, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon |
