hold fast

When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow bigger and bigger the ship rolled up and down, and tipped sidewise--first one way and then the other--and was jostled around so roughly that even the sailor-men had to hold fast to the ropes and railings to keep themselves from being swept away by the wind or pitched headlong into the sea.

One should hold fast one's heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one's head run away!

Freighted with eternal principles Athwart the night's void, Where cloud masses darken, And the wind blows ceaseless around, Beyond the range of conceptions Let us gain the Centre, And there hold fast without violence, Fed from an inexhaustible supply.*

Just then father lifted the rainbow again, without noticing me at all, and though I tried to seize the end of it and hold fast, it melted away entirely and I was left alone and helpless on the cold, hard earth!"

I think I can swim to the shore and pull the raft after me, if you will only hold fast to the tip of my tail."

Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good -- thy life -- thy fame -- were put in question!

"Now, Jack, be sure to hold fast to this post and then you can't fall off and get smashed."

Then the old fox came once more, and scolded him for not following his advice; otherwise no evil would have befallen him: 'Yet,' said he, 'I cannot leave you here, so lay hold of my tail and hold fast.' Then he pulled him out of the river, and said to him, as he got upon the bank, 'Your brothers have set watch to kill you, if they find you in the kingdom.' So he dressed himself as a poor man, and came secretly to the king's court, and was scarcely within the doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and princess left off weeping.

Germany is to urge other countries to hold fast until Britain brings in mass cow slaughter.

Yet why, in a culture that gleefully (even rapaciously) embraces everything from sushi pizza to Japanese baseball, does the green-tea barrier hold fast? Seeking an answer, I turned immediately to Yasuo Takahashi's essay in The Electric Geisha, "Why You Can't Have Green Tea in a Japanese Coffee Shop." I learned some history: green tea was imported from China along with Buddhism in the 7th century and became available to ordinary people in the 14th century; the first coffee shop didn't open in Japan until 1888.

Some members hold fast to the traditional view that true multiple personality disorder (MPD) is extremely rare, and that the drastic increase in its diagnosis over the past decade largely reflects a U.S.