"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... How did that dis-spirited group of cowardly men ever pluck up courage to hold together at all after the Crucifixion? Why was it that they did not follow the example of John's disciples, and dissolve and disappear; and say, 'The game is up. It is no use holding together ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... are not, it's not their fault. The Professor is right. Those boys have pluck enough to pull them through, but sometimes pluck alone will not do it. A prairie fire ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... earneth wages to put them into a bag with holes." But these have the world and all things for a rightful and rich inheritance; for they hold them as dear children of Him in whose hand it and they are lying, and no power in earth or hell shall pluck them out of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... I try My fate, and say: "un peu," a soft "beaucoup," Then, lower, "passionement, pas du tout;" Quick the white petals fall, and lovingly I pluck the last, and drop with tender touch The knowing daisy, for he loves ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... of any man," she remarked calmly. "I was just wishing there was a man who would have the pluck to do it." ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... have come out alone to Holland on a mission of this description speaks volumes for your pluck and self-reliance, Miss ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so; I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches—both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past—something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... eight or nine generations, and without a cross from Europe, are as good as their ancestors. Dr. Falconer informs me that bulldogs, which have been known, when first brought into the country, to pin down even an elephant by its trunk, not only fall off after two or three generations in pluck and ferocity, but lose the under-hung character of their lower jaws; their muzzles become finer and their bodies lighter. English dogs imported into India are so valuable that probably due care has been taken to prevent their crossing with ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... repeatedly called for by her nurse, and went in and returned, and went and returned again, for she seemed as jealous of Romeo going from her, as a young girl of her bird, which she will let hop a little from her hand, and pluck it back with a silken thread; and Romeo was as loth to part as she: for the sweetest music to lovers is the sound of each other's tongues at night. But at last they parted, wishing mutually sweet sleep and rest for that night. The day was breaking when ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the visitor. "See here, little one, you've saved your husband's money for him. You're a double-handful of pluck. I haven't any idea but you know where it's hid—but I've got to be making tracks. If it wasn't for waking that Apache I'd leave Red ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... control of the victors. Captain Louis proceeded in his cutter up the Tiber and planted the British colours at Rome, becoming its governor for a brief time. The naval men had carried out, by clever strategy and pluck, an enterprise which Sir James Erskine declined to undertake because of the insurmountable difficulties he persisted in seeing. General Mack was at the head of about 30,000 Neapolitan troops, said to be the finest in Europe. This, however, did not prevent them from being ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle Heloise,' admit for a moment that 'Love of the Fancy is,' as the historian assures us, 'compatible with ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Arthur Channing to go with me, I'd be off to-morrow! But he laughs at it. He hasn't got half pluck. Only fancy, Jenkins! my coming back in a year or two with twenty thousand pounds in my pocket! Wouldn't I give you a treat, old chap! I'd pay a couple of clerks to do your work here, and carry you off somewhere, in spite ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... find earth not gray but rosy, Heaven not grim but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. Do I ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... conscience; to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies, if they do not desire them? They covet them for purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification of pride and ostentation. THEY BREAK THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book.—Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty.—Two of these brand ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... little Hilda! Thou art a ripe fruit that whispers 'Pluck me.' But those two sexless devils guard thee sleeplessly. Thou wast not angry when Iskender kissed thy mouth. Is it likely, since thou didst incite him to it by previously stroking his hand? But the rest, thy keepers. . . . Holy Mother of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... away were irreparably lost. Great and small, old and young, were carried away in the blaze of speculation. The frightened reptiles and beasts running in front to escape it were, it was thought, miserable fools who had not the pluck or sense to aid in setting speculation in Melbourne on fire. A fanciful picture on paper this? True, so was the great boom of 1887 merely a fanciful picture on paper. Had it been otherwise banks would not have failed, nor would families have been ruined wholesale, nor would trade ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... supposed, somehow," he said, with a knot of deprecation between his fine eyes, "that he would have had the pluck." ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... his green native braes of the Nith, He pluck'd the wild bracken, a frolicsome boy; He sported his limbs in the waves of the Frith; He trod the green heather in gladness and joy;— On his gallant grey steed to the hunting he rode, In his bonnet a plume, on his bosom a star; He chased the red deer to its mountain abode, And track'd the wild ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... yet, determined not to be overpowered by fear, he descended; and being come to the last stair, stooped forwards, and struck the pen-knife with his whole force into the earth. But, as he was rising in order to quit so dreadful a place, he felt something pluck him forward; the apprehension he before was in, made an easy way for surprise and terror to seize on all his faculties: he lost in one instant every thing that could support him, and fell into a swoon, with ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... shepherd and the sheep, and Satan will come out from the wood below Hillocks' farm-house ('Gude preserve us,' from Hillocks) and say, 'That word is not for you, Donald Menzies,' But I wass strong that night, and I said, 'Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand,' and he will not wait long after that, oh no, and I did not ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... Bowdoin pluck has overcome Bowdoin luck, and though they literally had to pass through fire and water, the Bowdoin men, from the Bowdoin College Scientific Expedition to Labrador have done what Oxford failed to do, and what was declared well nigh ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... an Englishman to understand Plato's comparison, if instead of concupiscible part and irascible part, we call the one steed Passion and the other Pluck. Pluck fails, and Passion runs to excess, till Pluck is formed to ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... still, in their eagerness to hear his reply, and then hurled back—"We should if they had been Englishmen." The fierce, untamed animal hesitated a moment between anger and admiration, and then the English love of fair play and pluck prevailed, and the crowd cheered him and let him ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire; Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (Mark ix, 47.[15])—It is not exactly the eye ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... His companion having performed the same exploit, the two clambered up to the projection of which we have spoken, and again dropped into the river waters; a less wonderful feat than their former, but still one requiring both pluck and skill. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... some difficulty in adopting the paradisiacal system for at least a month to come. Look at that snowdrift sweeping past the window! Are there any figs ripe, do you think? Have the pineapples been gathered to-day? Would you like a bread-fruit, or a cocoanut? Shall I run out and pluck you some roses? No, no, Mr. Coverdale; the only flower hereabouts is the one in my hair, which I got out of a greenhouse this morning. As for the garb of Eden," added she, shivering playfully, "I shall not assume it ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... York State, to order his tool, Governor Seymour, to veto the measure. As was anticipated by the aldermen, the courts pronounced that the Common Council had no power to grant franchises. Vanderbilt's franchise was, therefore, annulled. So far, there was no hitch in the plot to pluck Vanderbilt. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... Lady had heard her Petition, To Gabriel, the Angel, she strait gave Commission; She pluck'd off her Smock from her Shoulders Divine, And charg'd him to hasten to England's fair Queen. "Go to the Royal Dame, To give her the same, And bid her for ever to praise my Great Name, For I, in her favour, will work such a ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... gave me another chance, and I caught on to it. So we kept it up for about an hour and a half before the people became so far calmed down that I could go on peaceably with my speech. My audience got to like the pluck I showed. Englishmen like a man that can stand on his feet and give and take, and so for the last hour I had pretty much clear sailing. The next morning every great paper in England had the ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... comes along: a man who has no sense of the golden age, nor any power of living in the present: a man with common desires, cupidities, ambitions, just like most of the men you know. Suppose you reveal to that man the fact that if he will only pluck this gold up, and turn it into money, millions of men, driven by the invisible whip of hunger, will toil underground and overground night and day to pile up more and more gold for him until he is master of the world! You will find that the prospect ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... latter years, they have become considerably mixed, yet an appeal on either of these points will mark out the Danite from the Phoenician. From the loud boasting of the Phoenician Irishman in Ireland, when speaking of America, you would think that he would pluck out his eyes and give them for a gift if need be. Well, a few years ago, Chicago was bitterly scourged with a fire. The need and distress thus caused appealed to the nations of the earth for help. The ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... with the reckless way in which people pluck opinions like flowers—a bud here, and a leaf there. The bouquet is pretty to-day, but you must look for it to-morrow in ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets pluck'd the sweetest showers Will ne'er ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... years 1860-61." He was sent out by the English Government to ascertain the fitness of the group for the production of cotton. He was absent only thirteen months from England, and had time not only to sow the seed, but to pluck the cotton which it produced. Speaking of the missionaries to the group, he says: "It was all up-hill work; yet results have been attained to which no right-minded man can refuse admiration. According to the latest returns, the attendance on Christian worship in 1861 was 67,489, and ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... George that if he had pluck he might get through. Would he show that last virtue ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... cheek glowed; her dark eyes deepened; a look of power and purpose settled upon the sweet full lips. For this she had studied relentlessly; to this end she had looked; with this in view her four years' course had been pursued with pluck and determination. The picture of Joanna Baker, as young as herself, climbing easily to the topmost round of the ladder, had fired and stimulated her, and she had allowed it to be known that her life was dedicated to learning, ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... household was set in order against the absence of its master. He was standing within the Viminal Gate, while an attendant held his horse close by and a little apart from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak, and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave. Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her class, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and especial favour. She stood with her finger to her lips, her eyes great with the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the Buffalo (N.Y.) Commercial says: "He came here an unknown man, almost friendless, with no capital except his own manhood, which, however, included plenty of brains and pluck, indomitable perseverance, and inborn uprightness, capital enough for any man in this progressive country, if only he has good health and habits as well. He had all these great natural advantages, and one thing more, an excellent education. He had studied medicine and been regularly licensed ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Mya Toon, held out for some time longer, till a considerable force, under Sir John Cheape, was sent against his stronghold. Even then he showed much pluck, and was not dislodged till several officers and men on our side had fallen. This was just before the King of Ava knocked under and sued for peace, giving up the province of Pegu, which was accordingly attached ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the old man, reaching to pluck at Rahere's cape. "I am Rahere's man. None stone me now," and he played with the bells on the ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... "'Tis pluck y' have," said the Irishman. He turned the buggy with some difficulty, for the track was narrow, and they spun off on the return journey to Cunjee, while Norah, between the two boys, was once more ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... it came from above or below him, or whether it spoke within his own breast, the young man could not tell—"Cadmus, pluck out the dragon's teeth, and ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... spying me, should fall to weep, Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,— Well, as the chance were, this might take or else Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, And give the mankin three sound legs for one, Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, Making and marring clay at will? So He. 'Thinketh, such shows nor ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... untouch'd stands, Arm'd with her briars, how sweetly smells; But, pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands, Her sweet no longer with her dwells. But scent and beauty both are gone, And leaves fall from her, ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... that are instantaneous and by that very fact immobile of the becoming of matter. Consciousness, being in its turn formed on the intellect, sees clearly of the inner life what is already made, and only feels confusedly the making. Thus, we pluck out of duration those moments that interest us, and that we have gathered along its course. These alone we retain. And we are right in so doing, while action only is in question. But when, in speculating on the nature of the real, we go on regarding it as our practical interest requires ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... them barbarously hurled his pitchfork at me as a man throws a spear. One point of it pierced and stuck in the upper muscles of my left arm; the other pricked pretty sharply upon a rib; and the pain of this double stroke forced me to drop my sword and make a snatch at the accursed missile, to pluck it out. 'Twas the work of two seconds at most, and then with a jerk upon the wrist-knot I had the sword-hilt again in my grip; but it let three stout ruffians in upon me to finish me. And this they were setting about with a will when, as I beat up a stroke that threatened ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to this. Her fingers began to curve back like claws, and her hands assumed the same feline attitude as Mrs. Poor's. It was easy to see that the pluck of the little woman extorted a certain admiration from the very men who had fathers, sons and brothers in the cells beyond. She was not a bit more than half as big as her antagonist, but she looked game to the backbone, and the forthcoming result was not altogether to be predicted. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... pointed to some of their hostages, as much as to say "Look there!" Parties also from the mountaineers came down and pleaded with Xenophon himself, to help arrange a truce for them. This he agreed to do, bidding them to pluck up heart, and assuring them that they would meet with no mischief, if they yielded obedience to Seuthes. All their parleying, however, was, as it turned out, merely to get a closer inspection of things. This happened in the day, and in the following ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... Harwood; "that's what he is. If it wasn't for his rheumatic gout, he's a man that would be ready to fight the champion of England any day in the week. There's very few things the captain wouldn't do in the way of downright pluck; but, you see, whatever pluck a man may have, it can't help him much when he's laid by the heels with the rheumatic gout, as ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... w——, tearing off the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's Market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, "Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you." I sat down, and said I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness, I will mark this ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Harding, who was born at Comb Martin, the next parish, and who, like Jewel, went to the grammar-school at Barnstaple in his early boyhood, so that they were near neighbours and dear enemies. "As I cannot well take a hair from your lying beard, so I wish I could pluck malice from your blasphemous heart," says Harding to Jewel, in that savage personal invective that religious controversialists have permitted themselves in all ages. Jewel does not seem ever to have answered in this unworthy strain, and the singular purity of his ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... to join them," I should have written, "formed an alliance with these nations against us," because we determined that, with Heaven on our side, we should prevent a junction of the fleets. So brave Scotch Duncan shut the Dutch up in the Texel like a lot of rats. They had not the pluck to come out and fight him. Well, Duncan would have blown them sky-high, as he eventually did. There was a French fleet at Brest, and the Spaniards farther south, and had they all got together—but then they didn't. You know the position of a game of draughts ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... level, if you understand me. Give Lady Calmady a great part and she will play it nobly. Let this come upon her from a mean, wet-nurse, hospital-ward sort of level, and it may break her. What we have to do is to keep up her pluck. Remember we are only at the beginning of this business yet. In all probability there are many years ahead. Therefore this announcement must come to Lady Calmady from an educated person, from an equal, from somebody who can see all round it. Mrs. Ormiston ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to the pluck and determination of the British soldiers during the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son of an American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile red-skins in that very Huron country which has been ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... innocently eating a polony in the front shop, I and Boroughbridge retired with the boy into the back parlour, where Mrs. Boroughbridge was playing cribbage. She put up the cards and boxes, took out a chopper and a napkin, and we cut the little boy's little throat (which he bore with great pluck and resolution), and made him into sausage-meat by the aid of Purkis's excellent sausage-machine. The little girl at first could not understand her brother's absence, but, under the pretence of taking her to see Mr. ...
— English Satires • Various
... not even now when I speak to him I love, but has belonged to others? Others, ages dead, have wooed other men with my eyes; other men have heard the pleadings of the same voice that now sounds in your ears. The hands of the dead are in my bosom; they move me, they pluck me, they guide me; I am a puppet at their command; and I but re-inform features and attributes that have long been laid aside from evil in the quiet of the grave. Is it me you love, friend? or the race that made me? The girl who does not ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has spoken so well that I have little to add. I agree with him, and if you want an example of what girls can do, why, look at Jill. She's young, I know, but a first-rate scholar for her age. As for pluck, she is as brave as a boy, and almost as smart at running, rowing, and so on. Of course, she can't play ball—no girl can; their arms are not made right to throw—but she can catch remarkably well. I'll say that for her. Now, if she and Mabel—and—and—some others I could ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... stupidity. If all this were done away with, intellectual superiority could take the leading place in society which is its due—a place now occupied, though people do not like to confess it, by excellence of physique, mere fighting pluck, in fact; and the natural effect of such a change would be that the best kind of people would have one reason the less for withdrawing from society. This would pave the way for the introduction of real courtesy and genuinely good society, such as undoubtedly existed in Athens, Corinth ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... led to a fiasco which had made them the laughing-stock of Scotland Yard. Harborne felt in his breast pocket, where there reposed a copy of the warrant for the arrest of Severac Bablon. And before he withdrew his hand his mind was made up. He was a man of indomitable pluck. ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... plantains, orchids, cacti, and in short all the parasites which formed a little forest beneath the large one, many marvelous insects were they tempted to pluck as though they had been genuine blossoms—nestors with blue wings like shimmering watered silk, leilu butterflies reflexed with gold and striped with fringes of green, agrippina moths, ten inches long, with leaves for ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... the men scarcely left the house except to care for the beasts, and came back on the run, their faces rasped with the cold and shining-wet with snow-crystals melted by the heat of the house. Chapdelaine would pluck the icicles from his moustache, slowly draw off his sheepskin-lined coat and settle himself by the stove with a satisfied sigh. "The pump is not frozen?" he asks. "Is there plenty ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... if some one had dealt her a physical blow, and it required all her pluck and poise to enable her to take her share of the general conversation before wending ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... could not last forever. With each maneuver he was losing altitude. Serrated roof-tops were already a scant fifteen hundred feet beneath him, gaunt gray fingers that reached up to pluck him from the sky. ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... of the family will enjoy this spirited chronicle of a young girl's resourcefulness and pluck, and the secret of the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... I like a man with a will of his own, and the pluck to speak out. A 'bluster,' as you call it, clears the air, and is quite a healthful influence; but this other!—Well, Miss Harding, you have given the casting vote. When are ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... June 13, '02. DEAR JOE,—I am lost in reverence and admiration! It is now twenty-four hours that I have been trying to cool down and contemplate with quiet blood this extraordinary spectacle of energy, industry, perseverance, pluck, analytical genius, penetration, this irruption of thunders and fiery splendors from a fair and flowery mountain that nobody had supposed was a sleeping volcano, but I seem to be as excited as ever. Yesterday ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... own accounts of his exploits—I can conceive no greater exercise in folly—one would conclude that he never failed, that he always held the strings by which his puppets were constrained to dance, and that he could pluck them from their games and shut them within his black box whenever he grew wearied of their fruitless sport. He trumpets his successes, but he never speaks of his failures—he buries them so deeply that he forgets ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... not to walk but to swim over the leaves and to bathe in their bright colour. Her head was shaded with a straw hat, from her brow there waved two pink ribbons and some tresses of bright, loose hair; in her hands she held a basket, and her eyes were lowered; her right hand was raised as if to pluck something: as a little girl when bathing tries to catch the fishes that sport with her tiny feet, so she at every instant bent down with her hands and her basket to gather the cucumbers against which she brushed with her foot, or of which ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... boundless enjoyment in the possession of a young, scarce-budded soul! It is like a floweret which exhales its best perfume at the kiss of the first ray of the sun. You should pluck the flower at that moment, and, breathing its fragrance to the full, cast it upon the road: perchance someone will pick it up! I feel within me that insatiate hunger which devours everything it meets upon the way; I look upon the sufferings and joys of others only ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... evolution. evulsion^, avulsion^; wrench; expression, squeezing; extirpation, extermination; ejection &c 297; export &c (egress) 295. extractor, corkscrew, forceps, pliers. V. extract, draw; take out, draw out, pull out, tear out, pluck out, pick out, get out; wring from, wrench; extort; root up, weed up, grub up, rake up, root out, weed out, grub out, rake out; eradicate; pull up by the roots, pluck up by the roots; averruncate^; unroot^; uproot, pull up, extirpate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... lasting respect and gratitude of those who come after them. An account of their labours has been written by Mrs Isabel Thorne, and is called a "Sketch of the Foundation and Development of the London School of Medicine for Women."[1] It reads like a romance and shows the absolute determination and pluck which were needed by the women in order to gain their point. As one learns of the rebuffs and indignities which they endured, it reminds one of the struggle which is at the present time going on for the parliamentary vote. There is one thing which makes one inclined ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... well in her new station. After marriage she found Albert to be just the man she had known him to be in other years. He was kind to a fault; free-hearted and generous; ready always to answer the call of friendship; and prone to pluck the flowers that bloom to-day, regardless of what may be ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... not occur to me then, nor did it, I think, occur to anyone else, what an amazing bit of physical and moral courage it was. No one, then or after, had the slightest feeling of admiration for his pluck. "Did you ever see such a brute as P— looked?" was the only sort ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him: Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any Summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you; you pattern of all those. Yet seem'd it Winter still, and, you away, As with your ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... What pluck and dauntless courage possessed the "gallant little cripple" of Twickenham! When all the dunces of England were aiming their poisonous barbs at him, he said, "I had rather die at once, than live in fear of those rascals." A vast deal that has been written about him is untrue. No ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Of such, in the early days of the eighteenth century, was Dicky of Kingswood. Had he lived a hundred or a hundred and fifty years earlier, Dicky would no doubt have been a first-class reiver, one of the "tail" of some noted Border chieftain, for he lacked neither pluck nor strength. But in his own day he preferred the suaviter in modo to the fortiter in re; his cunning, indeed, was not unworthy of the hero of that ancient Norse tale, "The Master Thief," and in ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... trouble," was a remark of Abe Lincoln inspired by the reflections of the hour. "We tried to allay it in the special session of July. Our efforts have done no good. The ail is too deep seated. We must first minister to a mind diseased and pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow. You were right about it, Samson. We have been dreaming. Some one must invent a new system. Wildcat money will do no good. These big financial problems are beyond my knowledge. I don't know how to think in those terms. Next session ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... dwelling! Today I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;—the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... consoling a reflection is this to the distressed soul, "Christ never lost a cause." "Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." "They shall never perish; nor shall any pluck them out of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... averse to the match, but his face fell on hearing of the difference of clan. Observing his agitation, Kanto Babu observed gently, "I don't see why a matter, which is not even mentioned in our Shastras (holy books), should cause one moment's hesitation. Pluck up your courage, man, and all ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... division just brought up now scrambled over the top, but No Man's Land had been largely stripped of dangers. Victory sparkled in the air; safety smiled at Jeb; with these fellows carrying the battle ever away from him, performing the unbelievable in pluck and endurance, he did not so much mind the thought of going for the wounded! But the uplift was transient—it fled in ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... leaned on some one." Rose had regained control of herself quickly. She stood straight and lissom, mistress of her emotions, but her clear cheeks were colorless. "I'm worried, Kirby, dreadfully. Esther hasn't the pluck to ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... very elements had been moved with pity, there burst over the darkened forest a terrific hurricane of hail and rain. This put out the fires and drove all the tormentors away but a few impish children, who stayed to pluck nails from the hands and feet of the captives and shoot arrows with barbed points at the naked bodies. Every iniquity that cruelty could invent, these children practised on the captives. Red-hot spears were brought from the lodge fires and thrust ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... are almost without beard on the chin, like the Tungouses, and other nations of the Mongol race. They pluck out the few hairs which appear; but independently of that practice, most of the natives would be nearly beardless.* (* Physiologists would never have entertained any difference of opinion respecting ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... his bright face about, "this is the bird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... "But for his pluck and promptitude she must have been drowned. A moment's hesitation on his part, and nothing could have ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... Western Lake. 'Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus. It was the same spirit which moved the Empress Komio, one of our most renowned Nara sovereigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my hand will defile thee, O flower! Standing in the meadows as thou art, I offer thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... yourself on a point like that," said he, quickly, "for, you know, we are not well acquainted. I like your pluck, and I offer you what is given to ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... of all and utter naught? What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite To odorous hot lendings of the heart? What wind—but all the winds are yet afar, And e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites, That fleet before them, like their elfin locks, Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet To pluck the robe of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... after the "glorious" sad days of July, Alencon discovered that the chevalier's nightly winnings amounted to about one hundred and fifty francs every three months; and that the clever old nobleman had had the pluck to send to himself his annuity in order not to appear in the eyes of a community, which loves the main chance, to be entirely without resources. Many of his friends (he was by that time dead, you will please remark) have contested ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... he was captured, Sir Michael Lavory's pluck entirely deserted him, and he told us where to find his niece. She was in a secret chamber under a tower in the ruins. She had been caught that night at the end of the terrace by Sir Michael's accomplices, had been rendered unconscious by chloroform, ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... a dog's chance of getting away or of doing anything; but I must say we all admired them for their pluck. They had got into line abreast, and soon, when we were within about 5,000 yards, our leading craft hoisted some signal. We had no time to look it up in the book, but took it to be a signal asking if they would surrender. But not a bit of it. They were patrol boats, and ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... enough to make up the coroner's inquest. And so resolute these rude fellows are, that if any man resist or dispute it with them, they drag him in by main force, not regarding what condition he is of. Nay, I have been told they will not stick to stop a coach, and pluck the men ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... Seed in a Field well dunged and prepared, this Seed after putrefaction, sprouts forth of the Earth by the operation and furtherance of the Elements, and sets before our Eyes the Matter of Flax together with its Seed which it brings with it augmented; this Flax is pluck'd up, and separated from its Seed; but this Flax cannot be used and prepared for any work profitably, except it be first putrefied and rotted in water, whereby the Body is opened, and gains an ingress of its doing good; after this putrefaction and opening, ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... it was only Mrs. Sykes who had stepped around the house corner to pluck some flowers from the bed beneath the window. As he did not answer, the voice continued, "That boy Burk has gone fishing. I told you you'd regret putting that new suit on to him, brass buttons and all! Not that I want to say anything against the lad and his ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... is stranger to a Dalberg, and least of all in the presence of the Dalberg King," he said. Then the smile came again. "But, by the Lord, sir, I admire your pluck—to kiss the Princess Royal of Valeria before ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... as he guessed well enough. So a woman who has lived two thousand years must be hideous and wrinkled, must she? The stamp of youth and loveliness must long have fled from her; of that you, the wise man, are sure. Very well. Now you tempt me to do what I had determined I would not do and you shall pluck the fruit of that tree of curiosity which grows so fast within you. Look, Allan, and say whether I am old and hideous, even though I have lived two thousand years upon the earth ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... bold King Arthur sleepeth sound, So sleep his knights who gave that Round Old Table such eclat! Oh Time has pluck'd the plumy brow! And none engage at turneys now But those who go ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... the vine-stock grapes we pluck; Horns grow on the buck; Wine is juicy, the wooden table, Like wooden vines, to give wine is able. An eye for nature's depths receive! Here is a miracle, only believe! Now draw the plugs and drink ...
— Faust • Goethe
... incapacitated him for further service in the infantry, he enlisted in the cavalry. By reason of his familiarity with the topography of the country about Harper's Ferry and the lower portion of the Valley, together with his indomitable pluck and steady nerve, he was often employed as a scout, and in this capacity frequently visited his home near Charlestown. The residence, situated, as it was, a quarter of a mile from and overlooking the town, ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... execution of judgment. All this while they kept their gates shut with locks, bolts, and bars, as fast as they could; their guards, also, were doubled, and their watch made as strong as they could. Diabolus also did pluck up what heart he could to encourage ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... came unto the Man with a quick leaping, and stopt not to pluck the Diskos from my hip; and surely I did be very strong, and mine anger and rage to make me monstrous; for I caught the two upper arms of the Man, and brought them backward in an instant, so fierce and savage, and so ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Unwilling. It went much against the grain with him, i.e. it was much against his inclination, or against his pluck. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... breezy, frank, boyish air about the "Reminiscences" of our great Baritone, CHARLES SANTLEY, which is as a tonic—a tonic sol-fa—to the reader a-weary of the many Reminiscences of these latter days. SANTLEY, who seems to have made his way by stolid pluck, and without very much luck, may be considered as the musical Mark Tapley, ready to look always on the sunny side. With a few rare exceptions, he appears to have taken life ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... freshness that I cannot adequately recall them. Wherefore let them rest untold. I recollect nothing so well as the aspect of some fringed gentians, which we saw growing by the roadside, and which were so beautiful that I longed to turn back and pluck them. After an arduous journey, we arrived safe home in the afternoon of the second day,—the first time that I ever came home in my life; for I never had a home before. On Saturday of the same week, my friend D. R—— came to see us, and stayed till Tuesday morning. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... that American plan should serve all the purposes, and give all the satisfaction for which they claim to follow the hounds: the keen pleasure of a gallop across country, the excitement of its danger, the pluck and pride of taking a bad fence, and equally, too, the pleasure of watching the hounds cleverly at work with their mysterious gift of scent. All the same, I suspect there are few sportsmen who would not vote it a tame substitute. Without something being ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... on in the school-room, Mr Root was active in the field, endeavouring, with the aid of the men-servants, to pluck as much fuel from the burning pile as possible. The attempt was nearly vain. He singed his clothes, and burnt his hands, lost his hat in the excitement and turmoil, and sadly discomposed his powdered ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... day of your sickness and death. Now I hope you clearly understand me. I have spoken plainly—exactly what I think, and what I mean to act upon. You know now the sort of person you have to deal with. Good morning,"—and thereupon I marched out, amazed at my own pluck, and heartily glad that I had said what I wished, and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the wisdom of Johnson he speaks winged words." The children were all in the cottage now, and the door was shut. "I want you never to let on who told you. Let them think it was your own unaided pluck and far-sightedness." ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... the world to-night? Juno in her court presides, Mirth and melody invite, Fashion points, and pleasure guides; Haste away then, seize the hour, Shun the thorn and pluck the flower. Youth, in all its spring-time blooming, Age the guise of youth assuming, Wit through all its circles gleaming, Glittering wealth and beauty beaming; Belles and matrons, maids and madams, All ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the flower!" said the old woman, "but place yourself here, and when Death comes,—I expect him every moment,—do not let him pluck the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the others. Then he will be afraid! he is responsible for them to Our Lord, and no one dares to pluck them up before ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... dreadful cities, who are like motherless men who have never known a mother's love and have never had a home on earth. And you are like one who has come upon a cornfield, ripe for the harvest with you alone to reap it. And viewing it you pluck an ear of corn, and rub the grains out in the palm of your hand, and toss them up, laughing and playing with them like a child, pretending you are thinking of nothing, yet all the time thinking—thinking of the task before you. And presently you will take to the reaping and ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... rejoice with him, and, better still, to expect him out by the very first packet. His parents had yielded to his request. It had been the voyage to Newcastle that had turned the scale. There was nothing like pluck, he said; 'But,' he added, 'between you and me, Murdoch, I would not take another voyage in a Newcastle collier, not to win all the honour and glory of Livingstone, Stanley, Gordon-Cumming, and Colonel Frederick Burnaby put in ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... envisaged the delectable outcome, the scheme of procedure was as yet entirely without form and substance. It was as though he looked through a tunnel under a hill. At the far end he beheld the sunlight, but all this side of it was utter darkness. Seeking to pluck inspiration out of the air, his roving eye fell upon the dappled rump of Mittie May as she stood in her stall placidly munching provender, and with that, bang! inspiration hit him ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... a direct assault, because she possessed the weaknesses, as well as the pluck, of a woman. She could control the language of her lips, but not their quivering; she could meet his eye with steady assurance but she could not keep the pallor from her cheeks or subdue the evidences of her heart's turmoil. Her pitiful glance acknowledged her defeat, which she already ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... you? Will these men of Iceland decide to return home or to remain here?" said Hake, seating himself on a bank of wild-flowers, which he began to pluck and ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... of action and of prayer, Who feels this sin a national disgrace; A man who has the strength to do and dare The pluck and courage of the ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... wealth, that while from high The moons of summer kiss'd its green-gloss'd locks; And round its knees the merry West Wind danc'd; And round its ring, compacted emerald; The south wind crept on moccasins of flame; And the fed fingers of th' impatient sun Pluck'd at its outmost fringes—its dim veins Beat with no life—its deep and dusky heart, In a deep trance of shadow, felt no throb To such soft wooing answer: thro' its dream Brown rivers of deep waters sunless stole; Small creeks sprang from ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... and cheek; In that enamell'd pansy by, There thou shalt have her curious eye; In bloom of peach and rose's bud, There waves the streamer of her blood. —'Tis true, said I; and thereupon I went to pluck them one by one, To make of parts an union; But on a sudden all were gone. At which I stopp'd; Said Love, these be The true resemblances of thee; For as these flowers, thy joys must die; And in the turning of an eye; And all thy hopes ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... stood under one of the apple trees, upon which Lois had been mounting to pluck her fruit. On the ground below stood two large baskets, full now of the ruddy apples, shining and beautiful. Beside them, on the dry turf, sat Lois with her hands in her lap; and Mrs. Barclay wondered at ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... the world. While they were settling this point Juliet was repeatedly called for by her nurse, and went in and returned, and went and returned again, for she seemed as jealous of Romeo going from her as a young girl of her bird, which she will let hop a little from her hand and pluck it back with a silken thread; and Romeo was as loath to part as she, for the sweetest music to lovers is the sound of each other's tongues at night. But at last they parted, wishing mutually sweet sleep ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was enchanted. "This is like a dream," her voice murmured in Blades' earplug. "The whole universe, on every side of us. I could almost reach out and pluck ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... hole in it through which she squeezed from side to side, to keep up communications, at the cost of many rents and scratches; but Lady Agnes walked straight and stiff, never turning her head, never stopping to pluck the least little daisy of consolation. It was in this manner she wished to signify that she had accepted her wrongs. She draped herself in them as in a Roman mantle and had never looked so proud and wasted and handsome as now that her eyes ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the courage and the pluck of two American boys like Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph; and, judging from the scowls that disfigured their faces and the ugly light that flashed into their eyes, at the sight of Bud's actions, in their disappointment, they would show them no mercy. They would get ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... sure," continued the knight; "there is nae saying what his choice may be. There is both pluck and a spirit o' contradiction in the callant, and I wouldna be in the least surprised if he preferred the wuddy. I ken, had I been in his place, what my choice ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... o'er his corpse were placed, Which, pluck'd before their time, 10 Bestrew'd the boy, like him to waste And wither in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... cause of liberty in the Provinces. A committee of the States had an interview with the Queen's envoy at the Hague; implored her Majesty through him not to abandon their cause; expressed unlimited regret for the course which had been pursued, and avowed a determination "to pluck their heads out of the collar," so soon as the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... nations, as among individuals, implies faith and risk-taking, not recklessness, indeed, but dangerous living, a willingness and a desire to take a hand in the largest game of life and continually to "pluck out of the nettle, danger, safety"; but this safety itself only as a momentary resting-place in the unceasing urge of nations to use their nationality, not for the achievement of some selfish separate perfection, but for the ever advancing realization ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... we will consult for the safety of the State, while your name marks the year. You overtop Sovereigns in your good fortune, since you wear the highest honours, and yet have not the annoyances of ruling. Wherefore pluck up spirit and confidence. It becometh Consuls to be generous. Do not be anxious about your private fortune, you who have elected to win the public favour by your gifts. It is for this cause [because the Consul has to spend lavishly ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... want to have good teeth to crack this nut, Master Guy—good teeth and strong; and methinks that those who come to pluck the feathers may well go back without their own. We have a rare store of shafts ready, and they will find that their cross-bowmen are of little use against picked English archers, even though there be but twenty-five of us ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty |
