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:

    It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.
    Bible: New Testament, Matthew 20:26-28.

    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)

    The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it.
    —John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)