Ransom

Ransom

Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.

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Famous quotes containing the word ransom:

    Where have I seen before, against the wind,
    These bright virgins, robed and bare of bonnet,

    Flowing with music of their strange quick tongue
    And adventuring with delicate paces by the stream,—
    Myself a child, old suddenly at the scream
    From one of the white throats which it hid among?
    —John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)

    Great lovers lie in Hell, the stubborn ones
    Infatuate of the flesh upon the bones;
    Stuprate, they rend each other when they kiss,
    The pieces kiss again, no end to this.
    —John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)

    And the chieftain’s head, with grinning sockets, and varnished—
    Is it hung on the sky with a hideous epitaphy?
    No, the woman keeps the trophy.
    —John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)