What is stake?

Famous quotes containing the word stake:

    Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.
    Ann Oakley (b. 1944)

    Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Some days your hat’s off to the full-time mothers for being able to endure the relentless routine and incessant policing seven days a week instead of two. But on other days, merely the image of this woman crafting a brontosaurus out of sugar paste and sheet cake for her two-year-old’s birthday drives a stake through your heart.
    Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)