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Speculate   /spˈɛkjəlˌeɪt/   Listen
Speculate

verb
(past & past part. speculated; pres. part. speculating)
1.
To believe especially on uncertain or tentative grounds.  Synonyms: conjecture, hypothecate, hypothesise, hypothesize, suppose, theorise, theorize.
2.
Talk over conjecturally, or review in an idle or casual way and with an element of doubt or without sufficient reason to reach a conclusion.
3.
Reflect deeply on a subject.  Synonyms: chew over, contemplate, excogitate, meditate, mull, mull over, muse, ponder, reflect, ruminate, think over.  "Philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years" , "The scientist must stop to observe and start to excogitate"
4.
Invest at a risk.  Synonym: job.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Speculate" Quotes from Famous Books



... with the jovial countenance, and doubtless genial ways, had the right to stand at her dressing-table, if he chose, and speculate upon the various uses of all the daintiness that was spread before him. He had the right and cared nothing for it, while the man who did care, stood there shamefaced, all at once feeling himself an ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... appear to be so isolated, and so unconnected with their brethren of South Greenland, as to justify us in connecting them rather with the numerous ruined habitations found westward as far as Melville Island, and lead the mind to speculate upon some more northern region,—some terra incognita, yet to be visited by us,—encourages us, aye, urges us not to halt in our exploration. Humanity and science are united in the cause: where one falters, let a love for the other ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... the room, as she often had of late, and began to enumerate its possibilities in case she should desire to have it changed. Amelia never went so far as to say that change should be; she only felt that she had still a right to speculate upon it, as she had done for many years, as a form of harmless enjoyment. While every other house in the neighborhood had gone from the consistently good to the prosperously bad in the matter of refurnishing, John Porter had kept his precisely as his grandfather ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... issues of the present campaign, and upon them it may be bootless to speculate. No one may foretell the fortunes of war—I mean where victory will ultimately perch in this frightful struggle. We are environed and invaded by not less than 600,000 men in arms, and we have not in the field more than 250,000 to oppose them. But ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... should have been his a year before, and an interest in it. Only now for the first time did he take the trouble to learn the real meaning of resources and liabilities; to estimate profit and loss; to speculate upon success in the business which he found rather larger than he had suspected. He called a round-up to learn to the head how many steers and cows and calves carried the Bar L-M brand. He brought a quick look of surprise that was close to suspicion into Garth's eyes by asking casually just what ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... however, inclined to speculate or gamble even with their chances, also in stocks, business or, in fact, anything in ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro

... childhood, he felt that her attention was no longer his; that a discord had come in between their minds; that she had passed out of his power. This certainty of intuition lasted but for an instant; he had no time to wonder or to speculate as to what had affected her so adversely to his wishes before the door opened and Kinraid came in. Then Hepburn knew that she must have heard his coming footsteps, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... nothing of the precise causes which conduced to unusual Tartar activity at the dawn of Chinese true history: in the absence of any Tartar knowledge of writing, it seems impossible now that we ever can know it. Still less are we in a position to speculate profitably how far the movements on the Chinese frontier, in 800-600 B.C., may be connected with similar restlessness on the Persian and Greek frontiers, of which, again, we know nothing very illuminating or specific. It is certain ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... upon life relaxed. A week before November 11, 1890, he went to bed and stayed there. People began to speculate as to whether his unique prediction—or I should say, his decree—would be fulfilled to the ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... To speculate as to the race which built the primitive stone monuments of Brittany is almost as futile as it would be to theorize upon the date of their erection.[6] A generation ago it was usual to refer all European megalithic monuments to a 'Celtic' origin, but European ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... have the command of the story, and the artist was to illustrate him. How far these altered relations would have worked quite smoothly if Seymour had lived, and if Dickens' story had not so soon assumed the proportions of a colossal success, it is idle to speculate. Seymour died by his own hand before the second number was published, and so ceased to be in a position to assert himself. It was, however, in deference to the peculiar bent of his art that Mr. Winkle, with his disastrous sporting proclivities, made part of the first conception ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... composition. The systems which professed to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe, entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with the Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary; the disciples of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act and to suffer; and the death ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... discover the many faces of nature. See Empedocles, giving away his fortune to poor girls, that he might attack the Anthropomorphism of his day; or Democritus declining the sovereignty of Abdera, that he might have leisure to speculate on the distinction between reflection and 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 ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... Esq., of Weald Hall, Essex; and as that gentleman, by this time, must have some of his flock to dispose off, we think their introduction among cottagers, for their wool and also for their milk, a fair subject for some of our female readers to speculate on. This variety of the common goat (or, probably, it may be a distinct species) is a fine-looking animal, and would be very ornamental in a park, on a ruin, on the side of a rock, or in a churchyard. It would also be very pleasant to have a home-made Cashmere shawl. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various

... well as by southern men, and with the increase of information, there has been a subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the mind to receive truth. Our friends are still in a minority. It would be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be reversed. Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled to our regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our constitutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and Nebraska ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... must be something like a sense of duty in these poor creatures, that they thus of themselves, and of good-will return to the certainty of being salted and dried. This may sound very ridiculous, Eusebius, but there is matter in it to muse upon; and if we want to know man, we must speculate a little beyond him, and learn him by similities and differences. He has best knowledge of his own home and country who has wandered into a terra incognita, and studied the differences of soil and climate. And besides that every man is a world to himself, and may find ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... flatness of the day! The weariness! The sense of all being finished! She did not even allow herself to speculate as to what Hector was doing with himself. She must never let her thoughts turn that way at all if she could help it. She must devote herself to Josiah and to getting through the time. But something had gone out of her life which could ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... had lessened the sharpness of their feelings, they learned to speculate reasonably about the phenomenon, which Mr. Grant had accepted as something not to be scoffed away, not to be treated as a poor joke, but to be put aside as something ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... Alice who said, "Shut up, Pop"—and rather casually at that—and she and me went on to speculate and then to argue about which buttons we ought to push, if any and ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... says is very sensible," replied Athos; "we must speculate upon the faults of people, and not upon their virtues. Monsieur Abbe, you are ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... informants must not have known or not enforced combing taboos, while the parents of Stewart's informants must have considered them proper and so instructed their children. We can speculate, on this basis, that the taboo on hair combing and scratching was abandoned by the Washo some time in the first half of the century. Whether this can be credited to the influence of the white man or to a continuing pattern of change is a matter ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs

... mechanical, electrical, chemical, or what not. It is beside the question to point to the fact that in Nature 'new elements are making their appearance and old elements disappearing,' for though we may speculate as to the manner of formation of uranium and thorium, and though the production of radio-active matters in Nature at the present time and always seems to be a well-established fact, such phenomena have not even an analogy with those ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson

... "Physics are concerned with things which have a principle of motion in themselves; mathematics speculate on permanent, but not transcendental and self-existent things; and there is another science separate from these two, which treats of that which is immutable and transcendental, if indeed there exists such a substance, as we shall endeavor to show that there does. This ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... He then began to speculate as to just what a body would do a thousand or ten thousand miles from the earth. So high as we could go, or as deep as we could dig, this drawing power was always ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... or even in the ruin of great expectations by the collapse of fictitious values, as in the stoppage of immigration. The country has been ever since adjusting itself to a normal growth, and the recovery is just in proportion to the arrival of settlers who come to work and not to speculate. I had heard that the "boom" had left San Diego and vicinity the "deadest" region to be found anywhere. A speculator would probably so regard it. But the people have had a great accession of common-sense. ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... they came to speculate upon the part that the head chieftain was likely to take, affecting Grimcke and Long, they were all at sea. It would ever be a source of wonder that he had been transformed from a relentless enemy into the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... account. As I passed along Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally. I stared inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds, and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... place there. In fifteen years I never knew a week to pass without a murder there, rarely a Sunday. It was the wickedest, as it was the foulest, spot in all the city. In the slum the two are interchangeable terms for reasons that are clear enough for me. But I shall not speculate about it, only state the facts. The old houses fairly reeked with outrage and violence. When they were torn down, I counted seventeen deeds of blood in that place which I myself remembered, and those I had forgotten probably numbered seven ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... that's just the discomfort for him—he feels, as you said just now, kind of lonely: he feels rather abandoned and even, I think, a little betrayed. So far from being jealous he yearns for me and regrets me. The only thing he really takes seriously is to speculate and understand, to talk about the reasons and the essence of things: the people who do that are the highest. The applications, the consequences, the vulgar little effects, belong to a lower plane, for which one must doubtless be ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... energy as pronounced. I began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport, was a correct one. I began to thing there must be some other course and to speculate concerning it. And I, too, grew ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... The sun lit up her bobbed hair that shone like brass and had touched her white skin with a warm finger. Wistful and elfish, sitting like Puck on a toadstool, she might have slipped out of some mossy corner of the woods to taste the breeze and speculate about life. She wore a butter-colored sport shirt wide open at the neck and brown cord riding breeches and puttees. Slight and small boned and rather thin she could easily have passed for a delicate boy or, except for something at the back of her eyes that showed that she had not always ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... available time and strength by the work of attendance in the House of Commons. He agreed that it was extremely adverse to the growth of greatness among our public men; and he said the mass of public business increased so fast that he could not tell what it was to end in, and did not venture to speculate even for a few years upon the mode of administering public affairs. He thought the consequence was already manifest in ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... was but little. He could only speculate whether or not the duke would give up Brussels, and retire for reinforcements. If the two armies could effect a union, they would be near about the strength of the French, but then the Prussians were cut to pieces; so the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... young man throw himself in an agony of grief into his chair. I had no time, however, to speculate as to what it was which was troubling him, for his eleven colleagues had already fixed ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... artist be able to make an interesting picture of me? I had done it with the broom, and the milk wagon, and the rain spout. It was not what a thing was that made it interesting, but what I was able to draw out of it. It was exciting to speculate as to what Miss Hale was going to draw out ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... "I will not now speculate upon the effect, at home or abroad, of the adoption of your policy, nor inquire what action of the Rebel leaders has rendered something of the kind important. Your whole administration gives the highest assurance that you are moved, not so much from a desire to see all men ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... equally to be condemned on principles of public policy. It would lead to fraud, oppression, and corruption. As a sworn minister of the courts of justice, the attorney ought not to be permitted to avail himself of the knowledge he acquires in his professional character, to speculate in lawsuits. The precedent would tend to corrupt the profession, and produce lasting mischief to the community."[48] "This is not the time nor place," says Chief Justice Gibson, "to discuss the legality of contingent fees; though it be clear that if the British statutes of ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... agriculturist, who appears to be watching them. He is in the careless and ever-admitted picturesque position of leaning over a garden fence; but whether the invariables are aware of the little gentleman, and are consequently conversing in an undertone, we leave every beholder to speculate and settle for himself. Behind the worthy small farmer, and coming from the door of his residence, most cleverly introduced, is his wife (we know it to represent the wife, from the clear fact of the lady's appearance being typical of the gentleman's), who is in the act of observing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various

... remains unscanned long enough it fades into illegibility, never reinforced by the scanning process. Sensory data, coming in from the outside world as it does, is probably permanent. But the thought patterns originating within the mind itself, the processes that correlate and cross-index and speculate on and hypothesize about the sensory data, those are much more fragile. A man might glance once through a Latin primer and have every page imprinted indelibly on his recording mechanism and still be unable to make sense of the Nauta in cubito ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... would at least strike somewhere in the midst of the debris and add more or less to the wreckage. As to whether the Boche commander-in-chief had been caught napping and buried in the ruins, was a matter about which they could only speculate. ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... she, seeing through his thin disguise, had it on her tongue to tell him. But, instead, she took a few dancing steps away, and, with no such intention whatever, stood just under the mistletoe as she laughingly said, "That reminds me of what father often says: How nice it would be to speculate, if one only knew every time ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... was dead, and his neighbors, who knew that he must have yielded to the force of a sudden and new temptation, did not care to speculate upon ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... was evident. Indeed she must have been quite out of her mind to have called him Martin in that shameless fashion. The fact that the name had slipped so spontaneously from her lips and that she hastened to correct her mistake caused the man to speculate with delight as to whether she was wont to think of him by this familiar cognomen. This thought, however, was of minor importance, the flash of an instant. What chiefly disturbed Martin was the ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... "We can only speculate," he said; "but, as I have said, I have my theory. Oakley was a just man, and in punishing his old servant for the supposed robbery it is plain that he acted from principle. But he is also a proud man and would hate to confess that he had been ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... had ignominiously washed his hands of it, sealed forever his own social doom. That, it is certain, was most severe and drastic. The money paid him by the British Government was accursed as were the thirty silver pieces of Iscariot; for his passion to speculate ruined him financially some time before the end of his life, and he breathed his last amid comparative poverty and the dread ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration. His province was to look out, as far as he could, for his personal comfort. For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... There was a difficulty in procuring bait; a worm was never heard of in the burning deserts of Nubia, neither had I a net to catch small fish; I was therefore obliged to bait with pieces of hippopotamnus. Fishing in such a pool as that of the Atbara was sufficiently exciting, as it was impossible to speculate upon what creature might accept the invitation; but the Arabs who accompanied me were particular in guarding me against the position I had taken under a willow-bush close to the water, as they explained, that most probably a crocodile would take me instead of the bait; ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... the fault of the manager of the gardens; he has the will, but no funds. My idea of the object of a botanical garden is, that agricultural theories should be reduced to facts, upon which private enterprise may speculate, and by such success the government ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... could speculate on these things as if they were matters affecting none of us there. In that fourpenny doss-house he remained as aloof as a god, and in some vague way the calmness of the man in face of this infringing realism for a time ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... no humour for sport of any kind; he did not care to look out at the ships, and speculate upon what port they were bound for; he picked up no stones to send spinning at the grey gulls; did not see that the gorse was wonderfully full of flower; and did not even smell the wild thyme as he crushed it beneath his feet. There ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... Best. You have told us that all those three persons, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, Lord Cochrane, and Mr. Butt, were very large speculators; did they always speculate the same way, or on the contrary, when one bought did not ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... should inquire his business (which was a mystery) or hint at his departure. I myself often visited the room he had appropriated, and would sit for an hour watching those fathomless eyes while I tried to make head or tail of his discourse. When we were alone, my wife and I used to speculate at times on his probable profession. Was he a merchant?—an aged mariner?—a tinker, tailor, beggarman, thief? We could never decide, and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... is he? I don't remember him since we went down to Armstrong's. Yes, I do though!' she paused, 'but I can't think of it. Crying would be worse. What a queer thing fainting is! I used to speculate what it ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... will believe my tales of what I have seen in the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has been, in that our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which your learned men speculate unceasingly, and ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... tions of men, are not so void of reason, as their practised conclusions. Some have held that snow is black, that the earth moves, that the soul is air, fire, water; but all this is philosophy: and there is no delirium, if we do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice. To that subterraneous idol, and god of the earth, I do confess I am an atheist. I cannot persuade myself to honour that the world adores; whatsoever virtue its prepared substance may have within my body, it hath no influence nor ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... confident trust—and expectation of goodness that children have, who may have suffered punishment, but who come later on and smile on the chastiser. It is this quality which gives the tales their extraordinary charm. I know no other literature which has it to the same degree. I do not like to speculate on the absence of this spirit in our later literature, which was written under other influences. It cannot be because there was a less spiritual life in the apostles than in the bards. We cannot compare Cuculain, ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... francs for myself and paid my return journey, would that have ruined her? A pretty girl like her oughtn't to be hard up for money. I know very well that in our calling there are some people who are hardly honest, who speculate and ask for commissions, and then put out nurslings at cheap rates and rob both the parents and the nurse. It's really not right to treat these dear little things as if they were goods—poultry or vegetables. When folks do that I can understand that ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... men found out that there was in Wall Street a broker who didn't speculate himself, who didn't drink to excess, who was absolutely honest, and who never opened his mouth when it was better shut, they began to patronize that man's firm. In short, the moment Jarrocks Bell's qualities were discovered, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... darling girl, let's be happy again! It shall be right as—well, as rain, you know—now. We'll have you with a child on your knee in no time,—hey?" He seemed to think that marriage alone could work this boon. Again—as before with Vicky—Sanchia had not the heart to gainsay him. She allowed him to speculate as he would; and her mother, returning, found the pair, one on the other's knee, with the future cut ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... matter what age she was, or of what nation? What did anything matter since she was his? And at that thought his heart began to beat again and cause him to speculate as ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... to have foreseen the doubts that would arise in those people's minds," he thought. Then his attention being attracted by a stone of peculiar shape, which he could see clearly lying at the bottom, he began to speculate as to the depth of water in that spot. But very soon, with a start of wonder at this extraordinary instance of ill-timed detachment, he returned to his train of thought. "I ought to have told very circumstantial lies from the first," he said to himself, with a mortal distaste of the mere idea ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... brought to bear on him to make him avail himself of his father's purse. The thought of his father gave him now—as it had given him throughout all this time of trial—an uncontrollable emotion, but he would not let his mind speculate about the grief and attitude of his family, forcibly interposing a veil between himself and them. Tired out at length, he let his reverie merge into mere uncritical perception. He was conscious of afternoon sunshine, of a great stretch of sky, with a continent of white cloud containing big blue ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... vast possibilities. It involves the physical attractiveness of every woman in History and permits one to speculate wildly as to what might have happened if Cleopatra had weighed forty pounds heavier, if Elizabeth had been a gaunt and wiry creature, or if Joan of Arc had been so bulky that she could not have ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... provision must be insisted on for her,' said Miss Headworth. 'It is no use, however, to speculate on the future. We cannot guess how Mr. Mark Egremont's communication will be received, or whether any wish will be expressed for your mother's rejoining your father. In such a case the terms must be distinctly understood, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the funds which my solicitor had sent me, amounted to two millions of francs. With this sum I went to a well-known and trustworthy stockbroker, and instructed him to speculate with the whole amount in French Government bonds ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... woods I felt I'd got into another world. Wanted to stop forever and began to hate the cities; the feeling wasn't new, but I hadn't got it really strong till then. Sometimes at night, when the loons were calling on the lake and my packers were asleep, I'd lie by the fire and speculate what civilization was worth and if a man might not do better to cut loose and live by his gun and traps. Well, of course, it was a crank notion, and I wasn't all a fool. I stopped longer than I meant, but I pulled out and ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... included the powder-bag; then I must save that beautiful lace collar; and my hair was tumbling down, so in went the tucking-comb and hair-pins with the rest; until, if there had been any one to speculate, they would have wondered a long while at the singular appearance of a girl who is considered as very slight, usually. By this time, Miriam, alarmed for me, returned to find me, though urged by Dr. Castleton ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... It was enough to her to find that he followed her Master. Being in the light she understood the light, and had no need of system, either true or false, to explain it to her. She lived by the word proceeding out of the mouth of God. When life begins to speculate upon itself, I suspect it has begun to die. And seldom has there been a fitter soul, one clearer from evil, from folly, from human device—a purer cistern for such water of life as rose in the heart of Janet Grant to pour itself into, than ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... tendency extended only to misbelievers, schismatics, or at least men of other tongues. Otherwise such vigorous annexers of other men's lands might have found more than one chance at home, in days of confusion, of enlarging the estate of Hauteville. In short we may speculate on many matters; we can only say what we have seen and what we have not. And at the last moment a frightful thought comes upon us. We have with us one book of Gally Knight's, but it is only the Norman book. But he ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... delight which I felt when examining volcanic islands, and I can remember even particular rocks which I struck, and the smell of the hot, black, scoriaceous cliffs; but of those HOT smells you do not seem to have had much. I do quite envy you. How I should like to be with you, and speculate on the deep ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... as the stockfish was highly salted, and the ale reasonably powerful, the jaws of the brethren were too anxiously employed to admit of their making much use of their ears; nor do we read of any of the fraternity, who was tempted to speculate upon the mysterious hints of their Superior, except Father Diggory, who was severely afflicted by the toothache, so that he could only eat on ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... will be the result of the arrangement that we have made. I decline to speculate or prophesy on that point. It would be indecent and improper. I cannot even tell in this country at the next election how large the Liberal majority will be. Still less would I recommend hon. gentlemen here to forecast the results of contests in which they ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... the Urabunna or the Ikula have folktales in common with the Victorian area, or,—which is perhaps more important, though we do not seem to hear of any communication on this line,—how far there is a stock of folktales common to the Darling district and the central area, it is obviously idle to speculate as to how it comes that an Eaglehawk myth is told in both areas. The physical anthropology of the Australian natives is at present a little-worked field, in which, singularly enough, the French have done ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas

... instead of the aesthetic views of antiquity and the purely scientific tendency of the modern era, a distinctively religious spirit. Faith prescribes the objects and the limitations of knowledge; everything is referred to the hereafter, thought becomes prayer. Men speculate concerning the attributes of God, on the number and rank of the angels, on the immortality of man—all purely transcendental subjects. Side by side with these, it is true, the world receives loving attention, but always as the lower story merely,[1] above which, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... flatter him, and those men are very susceptible to flattery. Also he will be led to speculate favourably upon the stylishness and extent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... their senses, had become perfectly convinced that the universe was under the dominion of Chance; and that the only orthodox belief in such a world was stark Atheism. As there will always be men who will speculate upon chance itself, there were not wanting philosophers who concocted admirable theories of all this disorder, but not one of them dreamed of the true. They all agreed, however, that the state of things admitted of no remedy from any gods, celestial or infernal; for if a divine artificer had existed, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... if she took that, or any other pecuniary matter, seriously in hand, she would carry it through; and, between jest and earnest, we were wont to speculate whether, in the end, it might not prove cheaper to our firm if Mr. Craven were to farm that place, and pay Miss Blake's niece an annuity of ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... with most South African affairs, the matter was not thoroughly understood, against the supposed intended annexation of Zululand for the benefit of "greedy colonists." It was argued that colonists were anxious for the annexation in order that they might get the land to speculate with, and doubtless this was, in individual instances, true. I fully agree with those who think that it would be unwise to throw open Zululand to the European settler, not on account of the Zulus, who would benefit by the change, but because the result would be a state of affairs ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... of light literature, not void of "detective stories," had at this moment primed Louise with its influence to the extent of inducing her to scent a mystery in the history of Captain Wegg. The plain folks around Millville might speculate listlessly upon the "queer doin's" at the farm, and never get anywhere near the truth. Indeed, the strange occurrences she had just heard were nearly forgotten in the community, and soon would be forgotten altogether—unless the quick ear of a young ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... came as a shock to Ethne. She did not guess the correct answer; she was not, indeed, sufficiently mistress of herself to speculate upon any answer, but she dreaded it, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... doubted. Americans might well find great satisfaction in this disposition of the mother country to regard her continental colonies so highly and to think their trade of so much moment to her; all of which, nevertheless, doubtless inclined them sometimes to speculate on the delicate question whether, in case they were so important to the mother country, they were not perhaps more important to her ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... that he was much sought after to survey, fix, and mark the boundaries of farms, and to plot and lay off the town of Petersburg. His accuracy must have been attained with some difficulty, for when he began to survey his chain was a grape-vine. He did not speculate in the land he surveyed. Had he done so the rapid advance in the value of real estate would have made it easy for him to make good investments. But he was not in the least like one of his own appointees when President,—a surveyor-general of a Western territory, who ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... this account. But before our time expired, my old master wanted money; so he sold my brother, and then mortgaged my sister, a dear girl about fourteen years of age, and myself, then about sixteen, to one of the banks, to get money to speculate in cotton. This we knew nothing of at the moment; but time rolled on, the money became due, my master was unable to meet his payments; so the bank had us placed upon the auction stand and sold to ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... Brussels hospital, with a velvet mask over his face, so that none might recognise him. The PRINCE was visited in hospital by a tall man, also heavily masked, but not so heavily as to conceal a pair of soaring moustaches, freshly waxed. None dared speculate as to Who this Visitor might be. The hush was tremendous. The Visitor silently pinned on the patient a specimen of the Iron Cross ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various

... To speculate upon those phases of aboriginal life and character which go to establish the antiquity of the race and its profound unprogressiveness, is no part of the present purpose, which is merely to relate commonplace incidents and the humours of to-day. Much of that ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... that portion of the building wherein Frobisher was confined, and he told himself that it would require but little more of their attention before the walls became so shattered that the shot would come plunging right into the cell. He began to speculate on what would then happen first—whether he would be blown to pieces or smashed into shapelessness, or whether an opening would be made by which he might be enabled to escape. If only a shot would strike directly upon the iron bars of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... materials of his imagination, and had done it so vividly as to frighten himself. The fright had in some measure cooled his intention, and had been now replaced by a new element in his thoughts, by the apprehension for the future if the deed were accomplished. He began to speculate upon what would happen afterwards, wondering whether by any means the murder could be discovered, and if in that case it could ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... in those unreflecting times." "There certainly was something very extraordinary about the man, which, amidst the feodal and knightly habits in which young persons of his high rank were then bred, prompted him to speculate, however unhappily, on any metaphysical subject. Now, whether this abominable persuasion were the cause or the effect of his actual guilt,—whether he had reasoned himself into materialism in order to drown the voice of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... passed and I heard nothing more of the matter. During this time I had leisure to think over what I had heard from time to time about Joseph Pulitzer, and to speculate, with the aid of some imaginative friends, upon the probable advantages and disadvantages of the position for which ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland

... give you some counsel, I would tell you to go back to the chateau now, with no parti pris, and seek her immediately, and get her to tell you the whole truth yourself. Of what good for you and me to speculate, since we neither of us know all the facts?—or even, if our suppositions are correct——" Then, as Lord Fordyce hesitated, he continued: "The time has passed for reticence. There should be ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... Howard,' she told him hotly. 'But here's one thing you don't have to speculate upon. I am not going to leave my father in the hands of that Murray woman to do as she pleases with. She can have whatever I don't want,' and he knew she meant Alan Howard, 'but I am not going to give her the satisfaction of ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... practically unknowable to us—this being so, it will be seen that states very much nearer to us than the End must be utterly beyond the powers not only of our understanding but also of our imagination, even when strained to its utmost. This being so, why should we attempt to speculate about The End? Instead, why not say ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... early ages of this world there was far more laughter than is to be heard now, and that aeons hence laughter will be obsolete, and smiles universal—every one, always, mildly, slightly, smiling. But it is less useful to speculate as to mankind's past and future than to observe men. And you will have observed with me in the club-room that young men at most times look solemn, whereas old men or men of middle age mostly smile; and also that those young men do often laugh loud ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... of an inexperienced young man." And this mobility is a special talent entrusted to his care; a sort of indestructible virginity; a magic armour, with which he can pass unhurt through great dangers and come unbedaubed out of the miriest passages. Let him voyage, speculate, see all that he can, do all that he may; his soul has as many lives as a cat; he will live in all weathers, and never be a halfpenny the worse. Those who go to the devil in youth, with anything like a fair ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... discontent are amongst the very strongest traits of modern society. Very often they are only manifestations of irritated vanity. It is in the nature of things that classes of men and forms of property shall go through endless vicissitudes of advantage and disadvantage. Nobody can foresee these and speculate upon them with success. When it is proposed to "reorganize society" on any socialistic theory, or on no theory, it should be noticed that such an enterprise involves a blind speculation on the vicissitudes of classes and forms of property in the future. "Wealth, whether ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... the eighties was a most speculative time all over Australia and New Zealand. I was glad that leaving the English and Scottish Bank enabled my brother to go into political and official life, but it also allowed him to speculate far beyond what he could have done if he had been manager of a bank. Everybody speculated—in mines, in land, and in leases. I was earning by my pen a very decent income, and I spent it, sometimes wisely ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... episode T. began to speculate about sexual matters and to observe the coupling of dogs with newly acquired interest. At 10 years he often lay awake, listening to a woman of 25 singing to a piano accompaniment. The woman's voice ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... went downstairs whistling with an affected ease, and a gaiety which, he by no means felt, Undy Scott leant back in his chair, and began to speculate whether his new purchase was worth the purchase-money. 'He's a sharp fellow; certainly, in some things, and may do well yet; but he's uncommonly green. That, however, will wear off. I should not be surprised if he told Neverbend the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... could I ask for more? I was satisfied and filled. But, by and by, my dream of life was disturbed—my sleep broken. Natural questions began to propose themselves for my solution, such, I suppose, as, sooner or later, spring up in every bosom. I began to speculate about myself—about the very self that had been so long, so busy, about everything else beside itself. I wished to know something of myself—of my origin, my nature, my present condition, my ultimate fate. It seemed to me I was too rare and curious a piece of work to go to ruin, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... and under every circumstance, to understand, and that it is to be understood as literal as it can be and make good sense; and that in every case where the language is figurative, we must let the Bible explain its own figures. We are in no case allowed to speculate on the Scriptures, and suppose things which are not clearly expressed, nor reject things which are plainly taught. I believe all of the prophecies are revealed to try our faith, and to give us hope, without which we could ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... Prejudice—that she considered herself overpaid for the labour she had bestowed upon it, absolutely nothing seems to have been preserved by her descendants respecting her first printed effort. In the absence of particulars some of her critics have fallen to speculate upon the reason which made her select it, and not Pride and Prejudice, for her debut; and they have, perhaps naturally, found in the fact a fresh confirmation of that traditional blindness of authors to their own best work, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Burgoyne I think must have nettled him. I have long with Pain suspected a perfidious Design. This Resolution must have crossd it. It will cause much Speculation in Europe. No Matter. The Powers there seem more inclind to speculate than to espouse the Rights of Man. Let them speculate. Our Business is to secure America against the Arts & the Arms of a treacherous Enemy. The former we have more to apprehend from ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... this case. A conditional fee that I was to make out of my case was offered me by the plaintiff in the first instance, but of course I could not speculate in justice." ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... to detract from the praise due to Sinclair Lewis for the remarkable accuracy with which he reports details in his "Main Street," it is interesting to speculate on how other books might have read had their authors had Mr. Lewis's flair for minutiae and their publishers enough ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... merely steep fields where the plough was useless and the hoe must be used. She must tell Samson: Samson, whom she held in an artless exaltation of hero-worship; Samson, who was so "smart" that he thought about things beyond her understanding; Samson, who could not only read and write, but speculate on ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... interest. These were, the vessels from St. Michael's, on their way to Baltimore. It was a source of much amusement to view the flowing sails and complicated rigging, as the little crafts dashed by, and to speculate upon Baltimore, as to the kind and quality of the place. With so many sources of interest around me, the reader may be prepared to learn that I began to think very highly of Col. L.'s plantation. It was just a place to my boyish taste. There were fish to be caught in the creek, if one ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... of our wintering on the land whereon we had been thrown was settled for us. But, after all, the situation was not changed for those among the nine (now only remaining of the twenty-three) who should not have drawn the lot of departure. Who could speculate upon the chances of the whole nine? Might not all of them have drawn the lot of "stay"? And, when every chance was fully weighed, was that of those who had left us the best? To this question there could be ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... Sunday morning, and when we reach the town all good Catholics have been to high mass, and are parading the narrow thoroughfare dressed in fashionable attire. Crowds gather around us and speculate as to the particular crime we are guilty of; and, to tell the truth, our appearance is by no means respectable. Have we shot the commandant? Undermined the Morro? Poisoned the garrison? Have we headed a negro conspiracy, or joined a gang of pirates? Friends whom we recognise ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... they saw one of the rams, who had been backing himself for a rush, suddenly disappear over the edge of the cliff! They thought he had tumbled over—as his legs were the last of him they had seen—but they had no time to speculate upon the matter, as both pulled trigger at the moment. Two of the animals were laid prostrate by their fire; while the rest bounded off, ran out to a point of the table, and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... it would look like when finished. He made a great pretence of deferring to Sweater's opinion, and assured him that he did not care how much trouble he took as long as he—Sweater—was pleased. In fact, it was no trouble at all: it was a pleasure. As the work neared completion, Crass began to speculate upon the probable amount of the donation he would receive as the reward of nine weeks of cringing, fawning, abject servility. He thought it quite possible that he might get a quid: it would not be too much, considering all the trouble ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... was his astonishment, he was left no time to indulge in it, or speculate how his old "crammer" came to be there. For close behind the Dictator's carriage followed another, holding one who had yet more interest for him than ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... while since, of my personating Oscar to her. I personated him, on the occasion I have just mentioned, for the first time. You were present and heard me. Did you care to speculate on the motives which made me impose myself on her ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... 1822, Scrope had completed his masterly work The Geology and Extinct Volcanoes of Central France, and had despatched it to England. It would be idle to speculate now as to what might have been the effect of that work—so full of the results of accurate observation, and so suggestive in its reasoning—had it been published at that time. It is quite possible that much of the credit now justly assigned to Lyell, would have belonged to his friend. ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... is a light south-westerly wind. It seems rather as though the great gales of the Westerlies must begin in these latitudes with such mild disturbances as we have just experienced. I think it is the first time I have known rain beyond the Antarctic circle—it is interesting to speculate on its effect in ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... wilds; making themselves a nuisance to business men in the cities. The matter had, however, a more serious aspect. Prescott had spent some time on the useless search and he could not continue it throughout the winter. It would be futile to speculate on the movements of men so erratic as those he had followed. He could not neglect his farm, and he had a heavy crop to haul in and sell: this was a duty that ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... vagary life had become for her, it was so whimsical, and the mystery of her secret which was so solely hers. Alicia knew, of course; but that was much as if she had written it down on a sheet of perfect notepaper and locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did not speculate about it, and the whole soul of it was tangled now in a speculation. There had been a time filled with the knowledge and the joy of this new depth in her, like a buoyant sea, and she had been content to float in it, imagining desirable things. Stanhope's waiting contract made a limit to the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... denied. Nor can they properly be called unjust. The right of property in their slaves the people of North Carolina regarded as settled by the Constitution of the State and that of the United States. Theorists might speculate whether African slavery was consistent with the American Declaration of Independence as they pleased, but the right of property in slaves was undisputably recognized and secured in the fundamental laws of the land. As to the moral question involved, if any such there was, ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... hundred miles' journey, to have the child baptized. It was generally known amongst all the natives of the region that the enterprise was on foot, and "Minchumina John," hoping to meet us in the Kantishna, and missing us, had followed our trail thus far. It was interesting to speculate how much further he would have penetrated: Walter thought as far as the glacier, but I think he would have followed as far as the dogs could go or until ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... speculate whether the "nephesh" of the animals, or the "living self" of the man, is an entity separate from the body, and capable of existing per se—of its own inherent nature—apart from it. We do not know that animal forms are the ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... and sixty thousand francs a-year is the least a Parisian can live upon. It is not only that all prices have fabulously increased, but that the dearer things become, the better people live. When I first came out, the world speculated upon me; now, in order to keep my standing, I am forced to speculate on the world. Hitherto I have not lost; Duplessis let me into a few good things this year, worth one hundred thousand francs or so. Croesus consulted the Delphic Oracle. Duplessis was not alive in the time of Croesus, or ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... padlocked well was opened, what delight to watch the women drawing water, or even to help tug at the chain that turned the axle. And on the bridge that led from the Old Ghetto to the New, where the canal, though the view was brief, disappeared round two corners, how absorbing to stand and speculate on what might be coming round either corner, and which would yield a vision first! Perhaps there would come along a sandolo rowed by a man standing at the back, his two oars crossed gracefully; perhaps a floating raft with barefooted boys bestriding ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... racking pains I had come to the stage of querulous self-pity. 'Twas monstrous, this burying a man alive, ill, fettered, uncared-for, to live or die in utter solitude as might happen. I could not remotely guess to whom I owed this dismal fate, and was too petulant to speculate upon it. But the meddler, friend or foe, who had bereft me of my chance to die whilst I was fit and ready, came in for a Turkish cursing—the curse that calls down in all the Osmanli variants the same pangs in duplicate ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... even remotely jocose out of them. Then surely it was a concise order—though a very strange one. He was the last man in the world whose deliberate command I should care to disobey. Possibly some chemical experiment was afoot; possibly——Well, it was no business of mine to speculate upon why he wanted it. I must get it. There was nearly an hour before I should catch the train at Victoria. I took a taxi, and having ascertained the address from the telephone book, I made for the Oxygen Tube Supply Company in ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... needed one. It was against reason. It had taken me completely off my balance. I took a chair and joined the others in the contemplation of the blue dot on the ceiling. We could speculate and conjecture; but there was not one of us deep enough even to start a theory. Plainly it was what should not be. We had been taught physics and science; we had been drilled to fundamentals. If this thing could be, then the foundations upon which we ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... yet presumed to speculate concerning the nature of my God, the Lord of heaven and earth; I confess that I have never said that He is consubstantial with us. Up to the present day I have not said that the body of our Lord and God was consubstantial with us; I ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... even the priest ridiculed what he preached to the people—that the notions of the few and the many were never united. But, in this new faith, it seemed to him that philosopher, priest, and people, the expounders of the religion and its followers, were alike accordant: they did not speculate and debate upon immortality, they spoke of as a thing certain and assured; the magnificence of the promise dazzled him—its consolations soothed. For the Christian faith made its early converts among sinners! ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... don't let us plunge from philology into ethnology. I prefer to speculate upon Mr. Thomas Burroughs. Who is he? and what does ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... that Butler be tarred and feathered and receive thirty-nine lashes." A majority said "Aye," though a number of voices said "No." The moderator said, "The affirmative has it; Butler has to be tarred and feathered and whipped." I began to speculate how that sort of thing would work as far north as the latitude of Kansas. There was a good deal of whispering about the house. I saw dark, threatening and ominous looks in the crowd. The moderator again came forward, and, in an altered voice, said: "It ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... returned to the sickroom, to speculate on the probability of soon meeting her guardian. Who can tell how dreary were the days and nights that followed? Mrs. Hoyt took the fever, and mother and children moaned together. On the morning of the fourth day the eldest child, a girl of eight years, died, with Beulah's ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... declaring that "the negro can develop no inventive faculties or genius for the arts." For although the elephant may be taught to plow, or the dog to carry your market-basket by his teeth, you cannot teach them to shave notes, to speculate in gold, or even to vote; whereas, the experience of all political parties shows that men may be taught to vote, even when they do not ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... celibate, it strikes me you take a remarkable interest in matrimony," said Mark. "Or is it merely a base desire to speculate upon the tribulations of your fellow-beings, and congratulate yourself upon your escape ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... To speculate upon my title and my rank in order to make a wealthy marriage? To quit my nomad's tent for a fixed residence other than that where the Prerolles have succeeded one another from generation to generation? Never! Of all our ancient prejudices, that is the only one I cherish. Besides, I am free at present ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... ruin to thousands. Fluctuation, however, in the paper value of the measure of all values (gold) is detrimental to the interests of trade. It makes the man of business an involuntary gambler, for in all sales where future payment is to be made both parties speculate as to what will be the value of the currency to be paid and received. I earnestly recommend to you, then, such legislation as will insure a gradual return to specie payments and put an immediate stop to fluctuations in the value ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... metaphysic of some kind, since it attained the power of thought, or rather of reflection; but it has never been able to keep this sphere of thought and cognition pure from all admixture of foreign elements. The idea of a science of this kind is as old as speculation itself; and what mind does not speculate—either in the scholastic or in the popular fashion? At the same time, it must be admitted that even thinkers by profession have been unable clearly to explain the distinction between the two elements of our cognition—the one completely a priori, the other a posteriori; and ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant



Words linked to "Speculate" :   reason, question, explicate, formulate, wonder, invest, venture, study, anticipate, guess, commit, premeditate, develop, say, speculation, place, bethink, construct, reconstruct, cerebrate, pretend, theologise, muse, introspect, theologize, cogitate, speculative, think, puzzle, hazard, speculator, expect, put, bull, consider, retrace



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