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Cling to   /klɪŋ tu/   Listen
Cling to

verb
1.
Hold firmly, usually with one's hands.  Synonyms: clutch, hold close, hold tight.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cling to" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rome, and he had had time to work off his first fantastic exuberance as discoverer before I met him. "Donoghue is all right," they would say of him at the Nazionale; "he has got past the brass buttons and pink swallow tail stage, even if he does cling to low collars ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... resumed Jeanne, "because I have nothing to cling to, nothing to sustain me. My mind is afflicted with feverish thoughts, my heart made desolate with bitter regrets. My will alone protects me, and in a moment of weakness it may ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... if we say that there appears to us something more amiable in the Dchiahour's misgivings than in the unpitying orthodoxy of his spiritual fathers. Be that as it may, the anecdote shows that the practices of a religion will often cling to a man long after its tenets appear to have been totally eradicated from his mind. We must add, however, that when the day of trial came, Samdadchiemba boldly confessed his faith as a Christian, and even stood a very fair chance of becoming ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... that," shouted Lermontoff. "If you want to live, cling to the hole at either of the two upper corners. The water can't rise above you then, and you ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... Indians still cling to their old customs and manner of living, and are very slow to learn or talk our language, but the younger ones are striving to live like the white people, and seem proud to adopt our style of dress and manner ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark

... that way—seems to think money 'll bite him, or something. I don't know how these pullanthrofists get along, with proud people always spurning their gifts. He's got my nan. You take my tip, Kid, and cling to your coin. Salt it down for winter. That's ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... it," said the scout-master, quickly, "though I'll take a look myself to make sure. Scratches from carnivorous animals are very dangerous on account of the poison that may cling to their claws. It's always best to be on the safe ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... suffered long and much; true it is, that many may have fallen by the way: but the remnant, however small, of that heroic band, be assured, by one who knew many of them intimately and dearly, will despair not, but, trusting in their God, their Queen, and country, they will cling to hope with life's ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... went next. Dorothy sat upon his back and locked her arms around his striped neck, for he had no mane to cling to. He made the leap straight and true as an arrow from a bow, and ere Dorothy realized it she was out of danger and standing ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... women, and the procession passed on along the road that led past Dos d'Ane. The steamy haze lay thicker here. The wind drove it past in slow coils, but its skirts seemed to cling to the heather and bracken as though reluctant to loose its hold on ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... myth scarcely appeased him. But Paul's timely demonstration, by relating the scene he had witnessed of Judge Baker's infelicitous memory, that the secret was likely to be revealed at any moment, and that if the girl continued to cling to her theory, as he feared she would, even to the parting with her fortune, they would be forced to accept it, or be placed in the hideous position of publishing her disgrace, at last convinced him. On the other hand, there was less danger of her POSITIVE imposition being ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... of us soon followed their example, notwithstanding the danger from sharks. We were all good swimmers, but no one ventured far from the boat except Morton; I found that a few strokes quite exhausted me, and I was obliged to turn and cling to the gunwale. In fact, so great was the loss of strength which we had all suffered, that we came near perishing in a very singular and almost incredible manner: After having been in the water a sufficient time, as I thought, I discovered, on trying to get into the boat ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... fall; Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal; A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:— These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er. Breathe low her name, my ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... but I was carried on a man's back, sitting on a bit of plank, with a strip of cloth fastened round my waist and across the man's forehead, my back to his back. The Dyaks are famous mountaineers, their bare feet cling to the stones, or notched trunks of trees thrown from one rock to another. I never felt unsafe on my Dyak friend's back, and he used to laugh when I proposed his setting me down and taking a rest, and ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... vicinage, environs, alentours [Fr.], suburbs, confines, banlieue^, borderland; whereabouts. bystander; neighbor, borderer^. approach &c 286; convergence &c 290; perihelion. V. be near &c adj.; adjoin, hang about, trench on; border upon, verge upon; stand by, approximate, tread on the heels of, cling to, clasp, hug; huddle; hang upon the skirts of, hover over; burn. touch &c 199; bring near, draw near &c 286; converge &c 290; crowd &c 72; place side by side &c adv.. Adj. near, nigh; close at hand, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... evening halt that, in a cave on the mountain-side, Estelle and Victorine could cling to each other in a close embrace with sobs of joy; and while Estelle eagerly produced clothes from her little store of gifts, the poor femme de chambre wept for joy to feel indeed that she was free, and shed a fresh shower of tears of joy at the ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hundreds of them.... Are you going to let her go? Her lips are red with the red of youth. Every smile is an invocation to life. Who could resist her smiles? Can you, James? No, you will not let her go. And her hands, James.... Look! Hands made to clasp and cling to yours. Imagine her little feet trudging happily about your home.... Look at her shoulders ... shaped for a resting-place for a little head.... You were right, James, we should ask nothing of our girls but to marry the men they love and be happy ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco

... that we are linked to all free peoples not merely by a noble idea but by a simple need. No free people can for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any safety in economic solitude. For all our own material might, even we need markets in the world for the surpluses of our farms and our factories. Equally, we need for these same farms and factories vital materials ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... a trifle bewildered. It was hardly possible for him to cling to the refrigerator, much less quell a mutiny. One who has sailed the lakes well knows how rapidly they can be lashed to fury by a storm, and the wind was now spinning the tops of the waves into a blinding spray. Although the Maria ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... foe, swung round with a vengeance. The indignation against the perpetrators of this cruel assassination had no bounds. It was not confined to Britain. The civilised world was shocked. The willing tool of the Government got the worst of it, and the perfidy will cling to his name throughout eternity. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... mention but the most obvious illustration, autocratic kingship has been replaced by a parliamentary government based upon a thoroughgoing political democracy. None the less, transitions have been regularly so gradual, deference to tradition so habitual, and the disposition to cling to ancient names and forms, even when the spirit had changed, so deep-seated, that the constitutional history of England presents elements of continuity which cannot be paralleled in ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... lesson of modesty to which they have hitherto been strangers. Far better for our beloved Chaldea if the superstitious brood had been left in their own country. May the gods grant that every Hebrew office-holder may so cling to his imaginary god as to walk straight from office into sure destruction. My motto is 'Chaldeans for Chaldea!' Personally, I have no hostility toward these young men. Nay! But, O my country! my country! it is for thee my heart bleeds! Sons! ye shall do well to be on ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... said in quite his old manner when we used to discuss Presidential elections and peanuts and other features of life in my republic. "That is a fact of some interest—but I see you cling to one little Americanism, Miss Wick. Do you remember"—he actually looked arch—"once assuring me that you intended to ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... over her deck. There was no rest for her and no rest for us. She tossed, she pitched, she stood on her head, she sat on her tail, she rolled, she groaned, and we had to hold on while on deck and cling to our bunks when below, in a constant effort of ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... altogether discarded by birds as superfluous. The germ, or bud, must be there, for the Dorking fowl has produced a fifth toe under some influence of the poultry-yard, but no natural bird has more than four. Except in swifts, which never perch, but cling to rocks and walls, one is turned backwards, and, by a cunning contrivance, the act of bending the leg draws them all automatically together. So a hen closes its toes at every step it takes, as if it grasped something, and, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... worth while to try to understand what are the charms that have grown with her growth. There was a day when in herself Oxford was unlovely to behold, and when romance had not begun to cling to her like some beautiful diaphanous robe. It is possible to imagine a low-lying cluster of wooden houses forming narrow streets, and occupying the land between the Cherwell and the Isis, nearly a thousand years ago. In those days no doubt it was reckoned a town of some importance, ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... nothing of the nun's existence—he was in the country beyond all creeds—but later a white coifed face came and went across his visions, and at last, spent and broken, he woke to see a very quiet young woman in black moving about his room. He was too weak to speak: too weak almost to cling to life any more. In his despair he thought that it was not worth clinging to; but the woman was at least a woman and alive. The touch of her fingers in his as she gave him the medicine was warm. She ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... anxiety. As Colonel Carmichael expressed it, it would have been safer to have stirred up a hornet's nest than to attempt any vital reform in the native quarters; and he was firmly convinced that the inhabitants of the Bazaar would cling to their dirt and squalor with the same tenacity with which they clung to their religion. When the first batch of native workers, under the direction of a European overseer, set out on the task of constructing new and sanitary quarters half a mile outside Marut, he announced that it was no more ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... no further interest in Lovelace Ellsworth, now that he lay unconscious and dying, for what could be gained by kindness to him now? It was better to cling to Mrs. Ellsworth, for she would inherit all her step-son's money by his failure to marry, and perhaps they might come in for a share ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... remain unchanged. About the side he chooses to take in a contest for dominion, they ask no questions, and feel no responsibility. God has placed their destinies in dependence upon his; and to him they cling to the last. In Malwa, Bhopal, and other parts of Central India, the Muhammadan rule could be established over that of the Rajput chief only by the annihilation of the entire race of their followers.[4] In no part of the world has the devotion of soldiers to their immediate chief been more ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... the illusions which cling to the element of time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, in speaking of military men, said,—"What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards! When our journal is published, many statues must come down." I have often detected the like deception in the cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... rude, and the inside is adorned and enriched; life becomes more private than it used to be; existence less patriarchal and more refined; those who still cling to old customs complain that the rich man dines in a chamber with a chimney, and leaves the large hall which was made for men to take their meals in together.[438] The walls of these chambers with chimneys are painted ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... e'er did fix its lightly-fibred sprays To the rude rock, ah! wouldst thou cling to me? Rough and storm-worn I am; yet love me as Thou truly dost, I will love thee again With true and honest heart, though all unmeet To be the mate of such ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... fault," he had said. "They could have lived without me. The trouble is I could not have lived without them. I am a defeated man, was intended from the first to be a defeated man and I needed something to cling to, something with which to justify my defeat. I realize that now. I am a dependent. I shall never try to sing now because I am one who has at least one merit. I know defeat. I ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson

... satisfied. She would cling to her little dream of "orders" and "kinds" to the last, but she always did it in an unobtrusive way. She had felt all her life long, rather all their lives, that they were made for one another. Less practically clear-eyed ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... continued for nearly a minute, while the two looked fixedly into each other's eyes. The pledge had been made and into each heart stole the warm, irradiating glow that God gives to all the children of men when they break loose from evil and cling to that which ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... other. But this philosophy, though seductive, is of no wholesome nor useful character; it is the philosophy of feelings, not principles—of the heart, not head. So with Godolphin: he was too refined in his moralising to cling to what was moral. The simply good and the simply bad he left for us plain folks to discover. He was unattracted by the doctrines of right and wrong which serve for all men; but he had some obscure and shadowy ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... reconstruction. It is a blessed word: we cling to it, we live by it. So many buildings have tumbled about our ears, so many foundations were nothing but running sand; a whole galaxy of truths turned out to be lies. Now we must prepare that which is solid and indestructible. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... which are produced by a state of prosperity and peace. These tend to unnerve a nation; to destroy its pride of character; to render it patient of insult; deaf to the calls of honor and of justice; and cause it to cling to peace, like the sluggard to his pillow, at the expense of every valuable duty and consideration. Such supineness ensures the very evil from which it shrinks. One right yielded up produces the usurpation of a second; ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... Advocate had an interview with the Prince. There had been no open rupture between them, and Barneveld was most anxious to avoid a quarrel with one to whose interests and honour he had always been devoted. He did not cling to power nor office. On the contrary, he had repeatedly importuned the States to accept his resignation, hoping that perhaps these unhappy dissensions might be quieted by his removal from the scene. He now told the Prince that the misunderstanding between them arising from these religious disputes ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... loveliest flowers the closest cling to earth, And they first feel the sun: so violets blue; So the soft star-like primrose—drenched in dew— The happiest of Spring's happy, fragrant birth. Spring Showers. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... outright. The distance was too great; there was nothing to break her fall. There was no use whatever in getting outside the house if she was going to be too disabled to go farther. She must try to find something she could turn into a sort of rope to cling to. Her eyes sought rapidly about and fell upon the long red curtains. The stuff seemed thick and strong; she could perhaps tear them up into strips, knot the lengths together and so make something that would serve for part of the distance, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... father leads the way, followed by the eldest child, and all the others in rotation, with the wife bringing up the rear; she keeps a maternal eye upon the little mite, who with great gusto and terrific yells manages somehow to cling to the plough and to do his or her share with the rest. Is it to be wondered at that work progresses fast under these conditions? There is but one idea prevalent in the family, namely, that time and ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... appetite comes by eating even with ministers. The ambitious doctor began to desire both the honors and luster of royalty. Charming's best friend did not once think of dethroning him; nations sometimes have foolish prejudices and cling to old habits, but nothing was easier than to frighten a sick prince and send him afar off in search of a cure that would be long coming, while in his absence the doctor would reign ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... what remote and uncertain contingencies I am obliged to connect my great hope; you observe how anxiously I cling to feeble possibilities to attain a priceless boon. Was that promise ever fulfilled, and could it have been? My eternally unlucky star almost forbids me to believe it. The question, however, I owed to myself, and all I ask for ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... man!" exclaimed David. "But at least he is not dead, and while there is life there is hope! I am not a murderer, and there is a possibility of my making atonement! How I cling to that idea, Mantel! In a single hour I have enjoyed more happiness than I thought a whole lifetime could contain. But even in this indescribable happiness there is a strange element of unrest, for it seems ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... his garrison. The French had ammunition enough to last for a month, and cannon enough to keep two hundred men busy; and ran from one gun to another, keeping up pretences but doing little damage in their hurry. Their lucky opening shots had impressed Amherst, and he was one to cling to a notion of his enemy's strength. He solemnly effected a new landing at six hundred yards' distance, opened his lines across the north-western corner of the fort, kept his men entrenching for two days and two nights, brought up thirty guns, and, ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... thought it worth while to show off, and that was nearly every passer-by, he drew the brilliant handkerchief from his pocket, raised it carefully to his face, and let it fall again. He derived the greatest satisfaction from feeling the rough surface of the silk cling to the hard skin on the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... the lady, "Votre nom, madame, votre nom!"(190) trying to disengage the Consul from her importunity, in which they succeeded, but not with much ease, as she seemed purposing to cling to him till she got his personal answer. He faintly smiled as he passed on, but looked harassed and worn; while she, turning to me, with an exulting face and voice, exclaimed, "Je l'aurai! je l'aurai!" meaning what ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... was made, the ship would not answer her helm. An anxious gaze was cast at the dark shore, on which the roar of the breakers could be distinctly heard. All they could now do was to cling to the bulwarks until the fatal crash came, and after that, how long the stout ship would hold together it was impossible to say. Much would depend upon the ground on which she was thrown. If on rocks projecting from the shore, ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... is trying to take the diamonds from the woman and she won't let him. Her wits are evidently gone—frightened away by the horrors of the night—or she wouldn't try to cling to what has branded her at once as ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... wall of rock and the water. It was a remarkably difficult traverse. In places they had to hoist the leader up to some slippery shelf he could not reach unassisted and to which he dragged his companions up in turn; in others deep pools barred their way, and in skirting them they were forced to cling to any indifferent handhold on the rock's fissured side. As they toiled on, badly hampered by their loads, the same thought was in the minds of two of the men—a wonder as to how Gladwyne's exhausted ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... thoughts that occupied my mind in returning to the camp. Hitherto, even when placed in the most difficult or desperate circumstances I was cheered by hope, but now I had no longer even that frail solace to cling to, there was no mistaking the nature of the country, by which we were surrounded on every side, and no room ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... take the place intact. That, indeed, has been the Italian policy throughout the war: to do as little unnecessary damage as possible. Now the Austrians, who look down on their lost city from the heights to the eastward, refrain from destroying it, as they easily could do, because they cling to the hope that they may get it back again. So, though the bridge-heads are shelled constantly, and though considerable damage has been inflicted on the suburbs, no serious harm has been done to the city itself. By this ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... and it still retains traces of fire; but, standing awhile, this soon subsides. Now pour it along the deck, and it is a stream of flame; caused by its renewed agitation. Empty the bucket, and for a space sparkles cling to it tenaciously; ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... accusing Milton of personal vanity: his character was too enormous, if we may be allowed so to say, for a fault so petty. But a little tinge of excessive self-respect will cling to those who can admire themselves. Ugly men are and ought to be ashamed of their existence; Milton ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... generator was once more humming smoothly—working on the atmosphere of Venus! In a moment the power units were again operating, and now as they sucked a plentitude of power from the surrounding air, they produced a force that made the men cling to their holds with almost frantic force. Around them the rapidly increasing density of the air made the whine grow to a roar; the temperature within the ship rose slowly, warmed by friction with the air, despite the ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... it was the symbol of His humility, so is it the symbol of our humanity in relation to Him. It suggests to us that uttermost of Christian virtues, the virtue of entire abandonment to the will of God. This is a most difficult virtue to acquire. We cling to self. We are devoted to our own wills. We rely on our own judgment and wisdom. We are impatient of all that gets in the way of our self-determination. We have in these last days made a veritable religion out of devotion to self, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... a silent people, the people of the hills. You will have heard that they are a stubborn people. They are a stubborn people, for they cling to their rocky soil and to the hillside homes that their hands have made just as do the hardy trees of the hills. You cannot uproot them by the stroke of ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... vision and turned away from Israel; for at the time of his first public appearance war was raging between the sister nations, and when his activity was at its acme all was over with the northern kingdom and all hope had to cling to the remnant,— the fallen tabernacle of David. As regards the cultus, certainly, matters may have been somewhat less satisfactory in Israel than in Judah, at least in the last century before the Assyrian captivity, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... verse in the Book of Proverbs that often comes into my mind; it is spoken of a reprobate, whose delights indeed are not those that the soul should pursue; but the temper in which he is made to cling to the pleasure which he mistakes for joy, is the temper, I am sure, in which one should approach life. He cries, "They have stricken me, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake? I will ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... furnished with the means and implements for profitable husbandry, their life of entire dependence upon Government rations from day to day is no longer defensible. Their inclination, long fostered by a defective system of control, is to cling to the habits and customs of their ancestors and struggle with persistence against the change of life which their altered circumstances press upon them. But barbarism and civilization can not live together. It is impossible that such incongruous conditions should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... of the chief practical lessons which expositors ancient and modern have drawn from the parable, under this view of its meaning, is extremely incongruous, and even grotesque. Churchmen cling to it as a sheet anchor in controversy with Nonconformists. If this notion were adopted only by mediaeval monks and modern Romanists, I would reckon it unworthy of notice; but it is received and uttered again as genuine at this day by grave and learned Protestant ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... with all her splendor, Amethyst was wretched—wretched, because lonely; wretched, because her loving heart had nothing to cling to. Her splendid mansion was a convent; no male person even entered it, except Franklin Fox, (who counted for nothing,) and the duchess's family, her kinsman old Lord Humpington, his friend old Sir John Fogey, and her ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... drawing near and speaking to him, the impression God made on him? Let us be still to gaze on the Divine mystery of Christ our holiness: His Presence, waited for and worshipped, will work the faith. That is, the Spirit that proceeds from Him into those who cling to Him, ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... pink that day—unforgettable pink, with a broad, black patent-leather belt, shimmering reflections dancing upon its surface. How beautiful she was! How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose privilege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... imply a fundamental symmetry between utility and cost. If, then, cost in the last analysis is derived from utility, does not this make nonsense of the symmetry between demand and supply, or, if we cling to this last symmetry as a demonstrable truth, must we not refuse to admit that cost can ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... to cling to that obsolete idea of moral guilt, according to which every individual is supposed to have the free choice to abandon virtue and give himself up to crime? The positive school of criminology maintains, on the contrary, that it is not the criminal who wills; in order to be a criminal it is ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri

... wise and the learned, I am still something raised above the ignorant mob, that though much of my mental substance has been wasted, I have enough left to appear respectably in the world, and that I have at least preserved that taste for literary pursuits which I cling to as the greatest of blessings and the best security against the tedium and vacuity which are the indispensable concomitants of an idle youth ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... "But, if I break off the shingles around the peak of the roof, here at the very end, you will have a better chance to climb out, then, because you will have the exposed crosspieces to cling to." ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... no attempt to justify himself, but he muttered some few hoarse words, and continued to cling to the treasure. ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... course the men did not understand him. Soon the front end of the ship began to go down and down, faster and faster—till the boat looked almost as though it were standing on its head; and the pirates had to cling to the rails and the masts and the ropes and anything to keep from sliding off. Then the sea rushed roaring in and through all the windows and the doors. And at last the ship plunged right down to the ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... with a deep breath, as he watched the great globe slowly ascend into the sky. The distant branches of the trees were delicately etched against its glowing surface, and seemed to cling to it like tendrils, slipping further and further down as the sun leisurely disentangled itself, and at last stood in its incomparable grandeur full above ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man; but perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called morality in the writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the character of d'Artagnan, that we must look for that spirit of morality, which is one of the chief ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hand, the question arises whether President Wilson would continue to cling to that standpoint if certain modifications and mutual guarantees could be brought about which under certain circumstances would render American ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... your choice. As you know well, I have loved you from a babe and I love you yet, though you have scorned me for this man's sake. Take your choice, I say; cling to me and trust me, giving the Deliverer to the priests, and I will save you. Cling to him, and I will bring shame and death upon you all, for my love ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... They cling to the ground beneath the high mountain, exposed to the sun, surrounded by decaying refuse, and their sodden appearance impresses one with the same feeling as would the half-rotten trunk of ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... and did her utmost to oust Miss Granger from her position of authority in the giving out of stores and the ordering of grocery. This, however, was impossible. Sophia clung to her grocer's book as some unpopular monarch tottering on his insecure throne might cling to his sceptre. If she could not sit in the post of honour at her father's dinner-table, as she had sat so long, it was something to reign supreme in the store-room; if she found herself a secondary person in the drawing-room, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... hunters. Should the jaguar also attack them, their destruction might be accounted as certain; for the great cat would either strike them down from their unstable porch, or claw them to death if they continued to cling to it. Of course, to fall down among the peccaries would be death, equally certain ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... through war or peace felt the touch of a meaner ambition, that knew no aim save that of guarding the freedom of his fellow-countrymen, and no personal longing save that of returning to his own fireside when their freedom was secured. It was almost unconsciously that men learned to cling to Washington with a trust and faith such as few other men have won, and to regard him with a reverence which still hushes us in presence of his memory. But even America hardly recognised his real greatness while he lived. It was ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... cling to the hope of reach- ing land, I knew not what it was to have one sanguine thought. For me there was neither continent nor island; the world was one fluid sphere, uniform, monotonous, as in the most primitive period of its formation. Nevertheless it must ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... hard work in the solitude of that night to keep from giving way to despair, and to cling to the hope that those in the boat had not attempted the daring feat performed with the canoe, but had turned back to the yacht to get her under weigh and come in chase. For always there came the thought that by morning the canoe would be out of sight, and he and Ned still ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... then, about Arab men," Maieddine answered, "and fortunate is thy teacher. It is little to say that we would sacrifice our lives for the women we love, because for us life is not that great treasure it is to the Roumis, who cling to it desperately. We would do far more than give our lives for the beloved woman, we Arabs. We would give our heads, which is the greatest sacrifice a man of ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Bella—ah! you needn't smile,—you don't indeed. She is the most perversely obstinate girl I ever met with. Last night, when I mentioned to her that you had been speaking of yourself as a mere wreck, she said in a low, easy-going, meek tone, 'Jeff, I mean to cling to that wreck as long as it will float, and devote my life to repairing it.' Now, when Bella says anything in a low, easy-going, and especially in a meek tone, it is utterly useless to oppose her: she has made up her mind, drawn her sword ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... for nearly four days, until picked up by a trawler, we were continually soaked and lashed by seas, and with nothing to eat or drink. We had nothing to cling to, and so to keep from being washed overboard we got upon the same pontoon and hugged our arms about each other's bodies for the whole time. We suffered from thirst. I had a craving for canned peaches. Twice ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... does ought that calls for pardon; the one is afflicted in sufferings lest it should be uplifted in good things, the other is steeped in such fulness of grace as to be free from all evil that so, without temptation to pride, it may cling to the Supreme Good; the one distinguishes between good and evil, the other sees naught save what is good; the one therefore is good—yet still in miseries, the other is better—and in Blessedness ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... Champs Elysees, and burst into tears. It had hardly come upon him as a surprise, for he had felt that, conspicuous as he had made himself, the chances of Arnold making his escape were small indeed, especially as Minette would cling to the Commune until the very end. Still it never struck him as being possible that he himself might witness the end. He had thought that the same obscurity that hung over the fate of most of the other ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... that it was as futile, as chimerical as a lover's desire, a poet's dream. Ah! yes, since he had been mistaken, since he had merely dreamed, since he had found there neither the Deity nor the priest that he had desired for the happiness of mankind, why should he obstinately cling to the illusion of an awakening which was impossible! 'Twere better to fling his book on the ground like a dead leaf, better to deny it, better to cut it away like a dead limb that could serve ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... again. The latter sat with his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that countenance—a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... I am talking of early recollections, I don't know why I shouldn't mention some others that still cling to me,—not that you will attach any very particular meaning to these same images so full of significance to me, but that you will find something parallel to them in your own memory. You remember, perhaps, what I said one day about smells. There were certain SOUNDS also which had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... of your head, Glory.... But God's will is his will!" he added, quivering and trembling. The compulsion of a great passion was drawing him, but he struggled hard against it. "And then this success—you cling to it nevertheless!" he cried, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... wanderings, was at last deposited near Shechem. There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests, not on Christian, but on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot, render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should have been preserved from generation to generation ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... answered, "I, your servant, am instructed to attempt to destroy the idol Harmac, by means of the explosives which we have brought with us from England. First, I would ask you if you still cling to ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... Duke of Hereward, her second husband, and of her divorce from him, they knew nothing. But she was known to her father-confessor, to her news-agent, and later to her son, as Valerie de la Motte Scott, for though no longer entitled to bear the latter name, she had tacitly allowed it to cling to her. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... like it at all, but he was wise enough to deplore it only on her account; and indeed her light alpaca was soon drenched, and began to cling to her. But the spirited girl only laughed at his condolences, as she hurried on. "Why, it is only warm water," said she; "this is no more than a bath in the summer sea. Bathing is getting wet through in blue flannel. Well, I am ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... Valderrama cried in surprise. "The men of the sierra? Those brave men who've not yet done what those chickens down in Aguascalientes and Zacatecas have done all the time? Our own brothers, who weather storms, who cling to the rocks like moss itself? I ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela

... into the traditions of the family, this Andre. For him, Bonne Maman's age of twenty years, her triumphant grace, were obscured by a surname full of respect and the attributes of a Providence which seemed to cling to her. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... by forming on the port tack, the contrary to that on which the British were, and standing southerly towards Dominica. The effect of this was to bring his ships into the calms and baffling winds which cling to the shore-line, thus depriving them of their power of manoeuvre. His object probably was to confine the engagement to a mere pass-by on opposite tacks, by which in all previous instances the French had thwarted the decisive action that Rodney sought. Nevertheless, the blunder was evident ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... when he finds himself raised above the lower and less purified strata of the atmosphere, into the regions of more radiant light and brightness. It is thus that the physical, no less than the moral, vision becomes elevated above the impurities that cling to this nether world, attaining a portion of that spotless and sublime perception as we ascend, by which we are nearly assimilated to the truths of creation; a poetical type of the greater and purer enjoyment we feel, as morally receding from earth we ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... sorrow shall he taste, and great joy. He shall throw away a sceptre for a woman's kiss, and yet gain a greater sceptre. Olaf, whom we curse, shall be Olaf the Blessed. Yet in the end shall we prevail against his flesh and that of those who cling to him preaching that which is upon the sword but not with the sword, among whom thou shalt be numbered, woman—thou, and another, who hast ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... as the lad thought, to cling to it imploringly, but the next moment he held it to his forehead, and it was snatched away in horror, for the man had evidently been cut ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... and that they must ultimately lapse into two; this, Lord Londonderry reported to Mr Disraeli, who told it to Lord Stanley; and Mr Disraeli wrote to Lord Londonderry, stating that if certain advantages and reliefs were given to the landed interests, he should not cling to Protection; in short, much what he said in his speech—and that he was quite prepared to give up the lead in the House of Commons to Sir J. Graham. Sir James answered that he never meant anything by what he had said, and that he had no wish ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... so twined round our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it; 'tis our first love; 'tis part of religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... Pennington sat by Marjorie, holding her hand in his, and speaking to her occasionally. Francis looked at him, and spoke to him courteously. Pennington smiled at him, and stayed where he was. Marjorie, Mrs. O'Mara said, seemed to cling to him, and his presence did her good. And—she broke it as gently as she could—though the patient was on the road to getting well now, she was disturbed by his coming in and out. She ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... 1: The very fact that we wish to cling to God in a spiritual fellowship pertains to reverence for God: and consequently the act of any virtue assumes the character of a sacrifice through being done in order that we may cling ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... astonishing to find how tenaciously the fibres cling to the seed when an attempt is made to separate them. At first much loss was occasioned because of the brutal methods employed, and now even with very much more perfect machinery a good deal of the cotton fibre is injured in ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... the sacred hall of fame, Cling to thy simple life, On Hope's high banner, Beaubien, ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... "Mysticism" was found—it was explained to mean deliberately shutting the eyes to all external things.[5] We shall see in the sequel how this later Neoplatonism passed almost entire into Christianity, and, while forming the basis of mediaeval Mysticism, caused a false association to cling to the word even ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... overgrown with thistles and tall, stalky wild flowers, is the paradise of the goldfinches, summer or winter. Here they congregate in happy companies while the sunshine and goldenrod are as bright as their feathers, and cling to the swaying slender stems that furnish an abundant harvest, daintily. lunching upon the fluffy seeds of thistle blossoms, pecking at the mullein-stalks, and swinging airily among the asters and Michaelmas daisies; or, when snow covers the same field ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan



Words linked to "Cling to" :   hold close, take hold, snuggle, draw close, nest, clutch, nuzzle, hold, nestle, cuddle



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