"Food for thought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impossible task to define the number of attributes of really excellent pianoforte playing. By selecting ten important characteristics, however, and considering them carefully, one at a time, the student may learn much that will give him food for thought. After all, one can never tell in print what can be communicated by the living teacher. In undertaking the study of a new composition it is highly important to gain a conception of the work as a whole. One must ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... course of a week, and some had the happy faculty of relieving their minds of what they saw and heard regardless of the social status of the listener. Mrs. Haldene never came away from the hair-dresser's empty-handed; in fact, she carried away with her food for thought that took fully ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... upon post horses, recommending his men to use all diligence. However rapidly they might travel, they could not arrive before him. He had time, in passing along the Rue des Petits-Champs, to see a thing which afforded him plenty of food for thought, and conjecture. He saw M. Colbert coming out from his house to get into his carriage, which was stationed before the door. In this carriage D'Artagnan perceived the hoods of two women, and being rather curious, he wished to know the names of the women concealed beneath ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... chase warmed up, citizens of all shapes and sizes began to assemble. Miss Pillenger's screams and the general appearance of Mr Meggs gave food for thought. Having brooded over the situation, they decided at length to take a hand, with the result that as Mr Meggs's grasp fell upon Miss Pillenger the grasp of several of his fellow-townsmen fell ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... has succeeded in writing a very interesting narrative and her book will hold the attention of a widely differing clientele. The student of American politics will find an illuminative study of this very remarkable period, and therefore much food for thought. But this book offers to the lover of fiction a new field. There is the hero, Warmoth, the villain, whose protraiture has been limned by a masterly hand. Little by little, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly; sometimes by the words ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... canvas sleeve, round the wrist of which ran a very slight thread of artistic pattern, just enough to distinguish it from a working-dress of a common woman and make it more like the working-dress of a lady art-student. He seemed to find much food for thought in this; but his reply was very slow and hesitant. "You see, madam," he said, "from outside the place looks—well, it is a perfectly decent place—but ladies like you don't—don't generally think so. They never go into such ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... actuated by ill-nature in judging Miss Kingsley's book. After the first phase of curiosity its popularity waned, and the author adopted the fashion of calling it an artistic success. But the complimentary criticism of Mr. Spence gave me food for thought, and for the first time suggested the idea of a possible feeling on his part for Miss Kingsley stronger than friendship. It interested me, and at the same time annoyed me a little. Why the latter I hardly knew, unless it were a conviction that she was not good ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... young prince was shut up alone, entirely alone, like a caged beast, in one of the upper rooms of a tower of the Temple. There he was left, day and night, week after week, and month after month, with no companion, with no employment, with no food for thought, with no opportunity for exercise or to breathe the fresh air. A flagon of water, seldom replenished, was placed at his bedside. The door was occasionally half opened, and some coarse food thrown in to the poor ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... of the whole service, however, is the sermon; and these sermons are characteristic of the man. They come warm and fresh from his heart, and they go home to the hearer, giving him food for thought for days afterward. To attempt to describe his manner would be to paint the sunbeam. Eloquence can be felt, but it can not be described. He enchains the attention of his auditors from the first, and they ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... plenty of food for thought when I found myself in the house where I had made a small fortune by my trick with the mercury five-and-twenty ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a little food for thought during the last few days. It had become perfectly evident to her that the girl was very much in love with this young man, and that while this young man either was, or affected to be, ignorant of it, the Major was not. Gertie had odd silences when Frank came ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... book, and it will not take you long to read this book, or listen to it. It is well-written, and it will surely make a good impression upon you, and give you food for thought. ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... started expectantly every time a chipmunk made a scurrying racket in dead leaves. She made a hundred romantic conclusions to the story, just begun, by Mark King going in the night into the mountains where Brodie was. Her mind was rife with speculation, having ample food for thought in all the information she had extracted from her father. Thus, she knew of Andy Parker's death; of old Honeycutt's box; of Honeycutt's boastings of a wild youth; of Brodie's threats and King's interference ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... in the chair. Are these his boasted higher planes of existence—his brother's brain and a chair? After all, was he not right? Has his eternal form become so attenuated as to be an hallucination? Are hallucinations real entities? Why not? There is food for thought here. Some day I shall come to a conclusion ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... furnished Ishmael with too much food for thought to admit of his moving for some time. He sat by the table in a brown study, reflecting upon all that he had heard, until he was suddenly startled by the pealing out of the second bell. Then he ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... ought to give the judicious such quiet pleasure or more food for thought or for stimulating conversation than Mr. Mencken's "The American Language," except Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," Boswell's "Johnson," the "Devout Life" of Saint Francis de Sales, Pepys's "Diary," ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... Here is some food for thought. These few words, properly considered, cover much ground. The Doctor is a Home Ruler, an ardent lover of his country, one of the best of the many high-minded men I have met in Ireland. Were such as he in the forefront of the battle, John Bull might hand the Irish ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which the problem of "the real and the apparent world" is dealt with at present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and he who hears only a "Will to Truth" in the background, and nothing else, cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolated cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Truth—a certain extravagant ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and some, yes; and some said it all depended—on the artist and his wife. Billy found much food for thought, some for amusement, and a little that made for peace of mind. On the whole it opened up a new phase of the matter, perhaps. At all events, upon finishing it ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... negative virtue of a model to be avoided. One may not, indeed, always find what he seeks, because it may not exist at all, or it may not be found in the limited range of his small library, but he is almost sure to find something which gives food for thought, or for memory to note. And this is one of the foremost attractions, let me add, of the librarian's calling; it is more full of intellectual variety, of wide-open avenues to knowledge, than any other vocation ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... discover a reason for their existence. She invariably sought for the primal causes and the final results of the facts in which she was interested. The civilization of the northern countries through which she travelled, so different from the culture of England and France, gave her ample food for thought. The reflections it aroused found their way into her letters. Some of them are really remarkable, as for ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... judgment which can find him vulgar. Unfortunately, the painting is no longer in a condition to justify reproduction; but such as study this yellow-robed, emaciated, shivering, fever-consumed Judas will, I venture to assert, find food for thought in it even under all the injuries the work ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... Willis had food for thought as he returned to his hotel. Merriman had been thrilled when he learned of the proximity of the distillery to the syndicate's depot, seeing therein an argument in favor of the brandy smuggling theory. This new discovery led Willis at first ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... outer room and listened again to the Promoter's tales of the great strokes of business he had brought off—"deals," he called them. The stories contained much food for thought in the shape of revelations of character in this or that man of prominence. What we should have talked about if he had not thus held the floor I could not guess. I had noted that there were upon a ponderous table six popular novels, as many magazines, and piles of the great dailies. Nowhere could ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... atmospheric disturbance which will be felt everywhere in this region as a bad season, or are we merely the victims of exceptional local conditions? If the latter, there is food for thought in picturing our small party struggling against adversity in one place whilst others go smilingly forward in the sunshine. How great may be the element of luck! No foresight—no procedure—could have prepared us for this state ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... to spend a year upon a desert island and allowed only one book for my companion, it is certainly that which I should choose. For consider how enormous is its scope, and what food for thought is contained within those volumes. It covers a thousand years of the world's history, it is full and good and accurate, its standpoint is broadly philosophic, its style dignified. With our more elastic methods we may consider his manner pompous, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... These incidents gave much food for thought to Castro as well as to his soberer compatriots. The European powers had displayed an apparent willingness to have the United States, if it chose to do so, assume the role of a New World policeman and financial guarantor. Were it to assume these duties, backward ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... strict orders," he remarked, looking down thoughtfully. "We must be most careful ... h—m ... Neutral countries ... America." He seemed to regard the idea of America with misgiving. I agreed that America was food for thought. "And you write books at sea?" he inquired. Yes, I said, anywhere, everywhere. He nodded. "It is, you know," I added slyly, "our national art." He looked grave at this and said he supposed so. By this time the orderly had tied and sealed Aliens in so ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... pains had been taken by the tenants to improve and enlarge it. Two little peeping windows, a cracked and weather-beaten door, and a discoloured barrel for catching the rain water, were the only external objects from which I might draw deductions as to the dwellers within. Yet even in these there was food for thought, for as I drew nearer, still concealing myself behind the ridge, I saw that thick bars of iron covered the windows, while the old door was slashed and plated with the same metal. These strange precautions, together with the wild surroundings and unbroken solitude, gave an indescribably ill ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at five or six tons, and they were cut from quarries in the trachyte rock of the mountains some five miles away, and more than 1,000 feet above the site of Mitla. In this quarry half-cut blocks for columns and lintels are still in place. Food for thought, even for the modern engineer, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... refuse to inhale any more of this mist. I think a comfortable arm-chair by the fire would be far more conducive to comfort. You have given me plenty of food for thought, and I mean to sleep on it. Now, not another word. I am going to ring the bell.' And Uncle Max was as good as ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Gerald obviously saw that the door was open, for he banged it noisily and Thorn heard nothing more. He had, however, heard enough to give him food for thought and waited until Gerald came out. The young man stood still with his mouth firmly set and his eyes fixed on the wall as if he saw nobody. His clothes were in the latest fashion, but the look of fastidious languidness that generally ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... left the brown-eyed maid much food for thought. Some of their conversation had puzzled her, but she gathered from their remarks that an addition to the hospital had become necessary, and for some reason seemed unobtainable, except by appealing to the churches for the money to ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... furiously after the rejection of his olive branch. For he knew now that his captives knew that the game was up, and it gave him food for thought indeed. ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... elections gave the Democrats food for thought. Five out of nine congressional districts had chosen anti-Nebraska or Fusion candidates; the other four returned Democrats to Congress by reduced pluralities.[516] To be sure, the Democrats had elected their candidate for the State Treasury; but this was poor consolation, if the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... with a sample of this classical food for thought when the door-bell rang and Neville looked up in astonishment to see Jose ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... much larger than the first. Miss Church-Member led the way into one of the large halls where Satan, through his agents, gave special instruction concerning "The Condition of the Heathen." They listened to four speakers from whose brief addresses they received food for thought. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... men whom I tried to limn with loving care, but sparing none of their weaknesses, was characterised by a friendly reviewer as a lot of engaging ruffians. This gave me some food for thought. Was it, then, in that guise that they appeared through the mists of the sea, distant, perplexed, and simple-minded? And what on earth is an "engaging ruffian"? He must be a creature of literary imagination, ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... dwelt at some length upon the various forms of brush discharge because, in studying them, we not only observe phenomena which please our eye, but also afford us food for thought, and lead us to conclusions of practical importance. In the use of alternating currents of very high tension, too much precaution cannot be taken to prevent the brush discharge. In a main conveying such currents, in an induction ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... thought through the medium of the senses. The effect of nature upon the senses, and through the senses upon the brain, must be natural. All food for thought, then, is natural. As a consequence of this, there can be no supernatural idea in the human brain. Whatever idea there is must have been a natural product. If, then, there is no supernatural idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the human brain an idea of the supernatural. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... opinion and co-ordinated action of the "churches" against the CHURCH should give to all Catholics food for thought. To be indifferent would be criminal. We can say with Augustine Birrell: "It is obviously not a wise policy to be totally indifferent to what other people are thinking about—simply because our own thoughts are running in ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... motive, the analogy with the case at the beginning which I analyzed, and at last the fact that Lena, when she looked at the stars, wanted to see a farmhouse where some one was just driving out the calves, all this gives food for thought. ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... address me as 'worthy Mother,'" she remarked; "not 'Reverend Mother,' as we address our noble Prioress. And this has given me much food for thought. Is it better to be worthy and not reverend, or reverend and not worthy? Our large white sow, when she did contrive to have more little pigs in her litters, than ever our sows had before; and, after a long and fruitful life, furnished us with two excellent hams, ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... the coming of Zoe, the strange advances made to him by Mademoiselle Idiale, her incomprehensible connection with this tragedy across which he had stumbled, and her apparent knowledge of his share in it,—these things were sufficient, indeed, to give him food for thought. Laverick was not by nature a pessimist. Other things being equal, he would have made, without doubt, a magnificent soldier, for he had courage of a rare and high order. It never occurred to him to sit and brood ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it by seeking it; it comes to us when we do not expect it. This project of marriage, conceived in cold blood, which Pere Maurice laid before him, the unknown fiancee, and, perhaps, even all the good things that were said of her common-sense and her virtue, gave him food for thought. And he went his way, musing as a man muses who has not enough ideas to fight among themselves; that is to say, not formulating in his mind convincing reasons for selfish resistance, but conscious of a dull pain, and not struggling against an evil ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... I found food for thought in this little speech when I remembered the fatuous talk at dinner-tables where I had sometimes met Browning, and thought of Tennyson's great talk and the lofty ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... thank you for what I myself achieved,' I said. 'We are, as in the past, to be at war, you threaten, and I have no gratitude.' 'Well, well, adieu and au revoir, sweetheart,' he answered. 'If I should go to the Bastile, I shall have food for thought; and I am your hunter to the end. In this good orchard I pick sweet fruit one day.' His look fell on me in such a way that shame and anger were at equal height in me. Then he bowed again to me and to Jamond, and, with a sedate gesture, walked away with the soldiers ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... phrase, as food for thought, was distinctly worth hearing. We left the river three days afterwards and I never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened to the protagonist of my Willems nobody can deny that I have recorded for him a ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... keep those hours from dragging by following up his love-making with a proposal of marriage, which she neither accepted or declined, but which gave her additional food for thought. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... such as we should abhor in others, and of neglecting the culture of virtues such as in others we esteem indispensable. Society at large, too, is around us, and domestic circles, with all their complex relations, their jarring discords, or their heavenly harmonies; and all are full of food for Thought. The true and the false, the right and the wrong, are everywhere, and the highest wisdom is to be able to distinguish one from the other. He who has spent his whole life in intellectual pursuits may, in this greatest wisdom,—the only wisdom that belongs to eternity equally ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... whispered back, and the words would have given La Mothe food for thought had he heard them. "As you say, it will be safer to have him before our eyes than behind our backs. We may be quite sure that Hugues will watch him. Yes, I agree: at least he is prettier to look at than that beast of ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... not attempt to say another word. He had new food for thought. Yes, to be sure, Peg and his two cowboy guides had had plenty of time to climb that far up the side of Thunder Mountain. If they had taken daylight for the task of course they avoided the danger of getting lost, such as had overtaken ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... to Ransom's mind would bear but one interpretation, gave him ample food for thought. He decided to be more circumspect in the future and to keep an eye out for inquisitive strangers. Not that he had any thing to conceal, but no man enjoys having his proceedings watched, especially ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... and manners of Truth won the admiration of a few, while the majority paid tribute to Error, who kept her admirers listening to her wonderful adventures amid the region of the stars. Truth spoke but seldom; but what she uttered was food for thought, instead of a constellation ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... was the same with others; and as I once asked our mother how it could be, she shook her head a little, and said, 'I am afraid,—I am afraid that the nice little Aloise is a trifle heedless, and may have to suffer for it.' These words gave me much food for thought, and recurred to me ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... to her room," said Blanche, advancing towards the door, where Rodin had stopped short, and stood listening with growing attention to this unexpected scene, which seemed to give him ample food for thought. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... steaks and live. It is a wonderful country. Their cooks are also generally ignorant of the axiomatic mission of a dripping-pan, as soggy fowls will prove to you. But what we lose in pleasing alimentation, we make up in scenery and food for thought. Collectively, this is the greatest people on earth; individually, the smallest. Their national life is the most communal, the best regulated, the nearest socialistic of any in the world, and—they ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... food for thought in what he said. He had taken punishment in defense of my property—the crack on his head was undeniable—and I could not abuse him or question his veracity with any grace; not, at least, without time for investigation ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... Providence that women were more adroit than men. Mrs. Haxton seemed to take no notice of him. Indeed, she had scarcely spoken to him since they met at Marseilles, and, were he a vain man, such studied neglect on the part of a pretty woman might have supplied food for thought. Yet it is possible that Mrs. Haxton herself would confess to a certain chagrin if she realized how small a place she occupied in his mind as he followed her along the deck. Irene flitted in front, light-limbed and agile, humming ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... his earlier life, when his enthusiasm for knowledge was fresh, and his active mind, "all as hungry as the sea," was reaching out eagerly and strenuously to all sorts of food for thought,—literary, philosophical, and political,—that Mr. Mill set himself, among other things, to study and theorize upon poetry and the arts generally. He could hardly have failed to know the most recent efflorescence of English poetry, living as he did in circles where the varied merits of ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... stars, during the night season, eating, and sleeping. Thus did I pass away an existence without pleasure and without pain. As for what my thoughts were I can hardly say, my knowledge and my ideas were too confined for me to have any food for thought. I was little better than a beast of the field, who lies down on the pasture after he is filled. There was one great source of interest, however, which was to listen to the sleeping talk of my companion, and ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... majority of the human race has not yet got beyond the sensual stage of amorous evolution, or realized the difference between sentimentality and sentiment. There is much food for thought in this sentence from Henry James's charming essay on ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... a phenomenal break-up of sea-ice should occur, and take with it part of the Barrier, this place would remain. Subsequent events proved the supposition well founded. This short bit of Barrier sledging gave all of us food for thought, for the surface was appallingly soft, and the poor ponies were sinking deep. It was obvious that no animals could last long under such conditions. But somehow Shackleton had got his ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... of the engagement sent to the king, nothing was said of the German emperor for the reason, as was said by the commander, "that he does not desire notice, and, in fact, Maximilian objections to the use of his name." This remark still furnishes food for thought on rainy days at Balmoral, and makes the leaden hours go ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... of at the other man, was too many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it. And that she should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally overlook her own merits in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a display of magnanimity, too, that was surprising in one so young. There was food for thought here. I moved along as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... day, while the higher Thoughts—the soul of Man—contains within itself a spark from the Divine Flame itself—the Spirit of the Infinite. But these things will appear in their own place, as we proceed with this series. We have merely given you a little food for thought at this point, in connection with the Mind of ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... let me quote the delightful account of a centagenarian out of Smith's History of Kerry, a book already referred to, and which can now be finally put back on its shelf, dry as dust, as Carlyle might say, 'but pregnant with food for thought, ay, and for grim mirth,'—those are not exactly the words of the Sage of Chelsea, but just have the rub of his ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... easy-chair, and sat with his hands pressed against his temples. The events of the day, from the morning at Sandringham to his recent conversation with Lord Redford, were certainly of sufficiently exciting a nature to provide him with food for thought. And yet his mind was full of one thing only, this chance meeting with Berenice. It was wonderful to him that she should have changed so little. He himself felt that the last two years were equal to a decade, that events on the other side of that line with which his life was riven ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... harassing General Talbot's forces. At last, by a rapid movement, his cavalry surprised several batteries of the enemy's horse artillery. He commanded them to dismount and made the whole force his prisoners. When the umpires upheld his claim, the experts aforesaid were given considerable food for thought. ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... the province of large families. Ten children to a marriage is a commonplace, and twenty is not a rarity. A man is not thought to be worth his salt unless he has his quiver full. And the result of this as I saw it in the streets gives food for thought. ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... little, the train pulled out of the junction, neither found reason to resume the conversation. During the brief balance of the journey Mrs. Hallam presumably had food for thought; she frowned, pursed her lips, and with one daintily gloved forefinger followed a seam of her tailored skirt; while Kirkwood sat watching and wondering how to rid himself of her, if she proved really as troublesome ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... continued, "I have given thee food for thought. Futile indeed were Israel's hopes if it set itself unaided against the Pharaoh. But the God of Israel hath appointed His hour and hath already descended into fellowship with His chosen people. He hath promised ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... This was food for thought. Wimperley, dismissing the idea of lunch, sat down. The group became universally reflective, and for a little while no one spoke. Stoughton threw away his cigar, rested his chin on his hand and stared at the model of the pulp mill on Wimperley's desk. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... porcupine. Gale, game as he undoubtedly was, cornered, felt perhaps recollections of Calabasas and close quarters with the brown eyes and the burning face. What they might mean in this little room, which de Spain was crossing step by step, was food for thought. Nor did de Spain break his obstinate silence until their burst of rage had blown. "You've arranged your marriage," he said ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... children at regular hours in all she could teach, making her bed-chamber into their schoolroom. Their father was in the habit of relating to them any public news in which he felt an interest; and from the opinions of his strong and independent mind they would gather much food for thought; but I do not know whether he gave them any direct instruction. Charlotte's deep, thoughtful spirit appears to have felt almost painfully the tender responsibility which rested upon her with reference to her remaining sisters. She was only eighteen months older than Emily; but Emily and Anne ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... personality. The Zeus in the Prometheus has little but the name in common with the Zeus in the first chorus of the Agamemnon, or in The Suppliant Maidens (ll. 86-103): and parallel reflections will give us much food for thought. But, in any case, let us realize that the Prometheus is not a human play: with the possible exception of Io, every character in it is an immortal being. It is not as a vaunt, but as a fact, that Prometheus declares, as against Zeus (l. 1053), that ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... them, provided they could be guaranteed against the calamity of meeting the unelect in the corridors or at table d'hote. But the rising waters of democracy—the intermixture of classes—had reacted adversely on Wilkins's. The fall of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico had given Wilkins's sad food for thought long, long ago, and the obvious general weakening of the monarchical principle had most considerably shaken it. Came the day when Wilkins's reluctantly decided that even it could not fight against the tendency of the whole world, and then, at one superb stroke, it had rebuilt ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... you not remark with what tact the Baron made the allusion to the delicacy which had prevented his daughter from visiting the Palais Castagna with us? And did that comedy enacted between the two men give you no food for thought?" ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... have given me food for thought," I said. "So long as Duke Charles lives, there can be no union between Burgundy and Hapsburg; but at the pace he is travelling he will surely receive his coup de grace before long, and I hope you ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... developed from the material. Other themes will reveal aspects that are both trivial and significant. When a writer undertakes to choose between the two, he should ask himself, "Are the facts worth remembering?" and, "Will they furnish food for thought?" In clarifying his purpose by such tests, he will decide not only what kind of information he desires to impart, but what material he must select, and from what point of view he ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... An activity of thoughts and ideas involves a corresponding destruction of the tissues, and these require, for their reparation, the consumption of food. Here, then, we have a physical meaning for the common expression—"food for thought." ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... princes of the Church. They loved and admired and protected Rabelais, and put no restrictions in his way. Why should we be more fastidious and severe than they were? Their high contemporary appreciation gives much food for thought. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through as- tronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, 195:18 thought passes naturally from effect back ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... value of physical mediumistic manifestations is not, as generally supposed, that of affording entertainment or food for thought for those witnessing them, but rather that of affording proof of the possibility of spirit communication, particularly when spirit identity is established through the manifestation of the phenomena. A writer says of this class of phenomena: "A good psychographic medium will usually ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... for a long time bore the marks of the clinging earth, but he outgrew it and became an able worker of the field; with him began the cultivation of the land. That he had no father gave him much food for thought, and became the great and everlasting problem of his life. In his leisure he created a whole ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... did not provide much food for thought. "Why should his name be on it especially?" ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "Food for thought" is a popular and necessary brand, but the hungry man entirely overlooks it on the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... is displayed to culminate in an immense feebleness it affords men food for thought, Hence in the ports curious people abound around these marvellous machines of war and of navigation, without being able to explain perfectly to themselves why. Every day, accordingly, from morning until night, the quays, sluices, and the jetties of the port of Toulon were covered ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... in the fashion of two ordinary acquaintances sallying out to spend the evening together. Sir Timothy's Rolls-Royce limousine was in attendance, and in a few minutes they were threading the purlieus of Covent Garden. It was here that an incident occurred which afforded Francis considerable food for thought ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to be such—could only have occurred at an unpremeditated moment. We will not follow our friend across the threshold. He has left us much food for thought, a portion of which shall lend its wisdom to a moral and be shaped into a figure. Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that by stepping aside for a moment a man exposes himself ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... books only that he gathered food for thought and for his lectures and essays. He was always on the lookout in conversation for things to be remembered. He picked up facts one would not have expected him to care for. He once corrected me in giving Flora Temple's time at Kalamazoo. I made ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... columns and lines, the numbers of the rooms being painted in at the beginning of each line. The list was not exciting. There was an advocate, or Sagfoerer, a German, and some bagmen from Copenhagen. The one and only point which suggested any food for thought was the absence of any Number 13 from the tale of the rooms, and even this was a thing which Anderson had already noticed half a dozen times in his experience of Danish hotels. He could not help wondering whether the ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... was conscious of a sudden thrill of certainty that Miss Rendall had been covertly studying him, and that now (though her eyes turned away instantly) she had some new food for thought. Instantly he asked for another cup of tea and blinked at her benignantly as their eyes met. Did he actually read in hers confirmation of his first instinctive feeling, or was it only a too quick imagination? ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... fault with Christianity on all its sides, and with all its preachers, though you have to contradict yourself in doing so. Object to this man that he is too learned and doctrinal; to that one that he is too illiterate, and gives no food for thought; to this one that he is always thundering condemnation; to that one that he is always running over with love; to this one that he is perpetually harping upon duties; to that other one that he is up in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... drag had fainted upon the receipt of a telegram, and would have fallen had she not been caught by the messenger—"a strongly built youth," it said, "who thus saved what might have been a serious accident." That was all, but it gave me food for thought, and a suspicion which Saturday confirmed in a sufficiently startling way. On that Saturday I was at luncheon in the First Avenue Hotel in Holborn, when a man came in—Tendring by name—whom I knew quite well. We exchanged greetings and sat at our luncheon, talking desultorily. ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... collection of letters on western living written by Kong Ho, a Chinese gentleman. These addressed to his homeland, refer to the Westerners in London as barbarians and many of the aids to life in our society give Kong Ho endless food for thought. These are things such as the motor car and the piano; unknown in ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... he could maintain his position fairly comfortably and he lighted his pipe and sat still to rest and consider, while the downward rush of another stone gave him food for thought. He believed he was half-way up, and after the exertions he had made, it was unthinkable that he should go back and seek another route; besides, he doubted whether he could get down without slipping. It seemed quite as perilous to go on, until he reasoned from the state ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... always interested in "Forty Years Ago." It brings back to me food for thought, especially of late, when so many old-timers have passed away. Before commenting on the Colonist's "Forty Years Ago" in Saturday's issue, I would remark that I expected mention to have been made ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... bottle of spirits, though she was not at all selfish, urging, not only her acolytes, but the presidente, his brother, and the chief guest, to partake. It was too late to suggest a visit to the idols, but the curious scene we had witnessed gave sufficient food for thought. Hurrying back to Tlacuilotepec, we ate a last excellent dinner, which had been long waiting, and at three left for Pahuatlan. Our host, who had been unremitting in his attention, refused all money. At certain indian houses which we passed upon our homeward way, we saw curious pouches made of armadillo-shells, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... have it. Then tell me if I haven't given you better food for thought than you'd find in to-day's paper—if you could get it ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... that the men had to do far more than their share, and from the first they had no chance of carrying out their intentions. Each hour, however, was an invaluable experience, and when a return was made to the ship Scott was left with much food for thought. 'In one way or another each journey had been a failure; we had little or nothing to show for our labours. The errors were patent; food, clothing, everything was [Page 73] wrong, the whole system was bad. It was clear that there would have to be a thorough ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... up to the present time affords much food for thought and speculation. His life is pre-eminently a life of success, and is a brilliant example of what can be accomplished by the aid of an indomitable will and untiring energy. Although his early advantages of education and position were of a most ordinary description, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... But between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive in the paddock. The men have but now passed over it; I was round in that very place to see the weeding was done thoroughly, and already the reptile springs behind our heels. Tuitui is a truly strange beast, and gives food for thought. I am nearly sure—I cannot yet be quite, I mean to experiment, when I am less on the hot chase of the beast—that, even at the instant he shrivels up his leaves, he strikes his prickles downward so as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good in the world to unburden his soul to some one older and more experienced than himself. It is best, too, that the House master should be the man to whom such a boy naturally turns; though if the boy should prefer to turn elsewhere, the fact should be to the House master food for thought rather than for anger. Indeed, while in one way there is far too much talk on this subject, in another there is far too little. Too much may easily be made of conventional "talks" on conventional occasions. What is rather wanted is a relationship between boy and master, created by ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell |
