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verb
Contrite  v.  In a contrite manner.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contrite" Quotes from Famous Books



... spoken not more than a dozen words to each other since sitting down to table, which was set, as usual, in the kitchen. Both were thoughtful;—one of them was contrite. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... cross-bow at dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George at a little before five was due to natural instinct on his part, or to the accidental passing of a home-made boomerang through his bedroom window, the ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... continued he, at once mollified by the contrite, submissive air of his future son-in-law: "Upon the foundation of the mince-meat of two hams of Westphalia,—or, if you cannot get them, of two hams of our habitans,—place scientifically the nicely-cut pieces of a fat turkey, leaving his head to stick out of the upper ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... mean to do that, Alice; I didn't mean to do that!" said he, dropping to his knees before her as if struck down by a stunning blow. He bowed his head in contrite humiliation. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... forth in the world again more attractive than ever; a spiritual loveliness, softened without diminishing the brilliancy of her beauty, and with every feminine grace she had added that of a meek and contrite spirit. Did she wed again? We answer, No. Many a lofty intellect and noble heart bent in homage to hers; but Florence lived only for her father—the great and good man, who was just as well as proud, and nobly won his child from her error by delicate ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... happiness seized her. She pressed the letter to her lips, and sobbed with relief. All the pent-up misery of the last few weeks were washed away in tears; the barriers of pride were broken down; she was as humble and contrite as a little child. She startled her maid by an unusual morning activity, and consulted the time-tables quite as eagerly as John. He wanted her; that was enough. She cared nothing now for the censorious tongues. Her gentle, sweet-spirited husband ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... continual study from Madame Zephyrine's apartment. So distressing did this become, that he was at last obliged to block up the spy-hole from his own side; and when he was thus secured from observation he spent a considerable portion of his time in contrite tears ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;—read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... approve of the first part, in which we set forth that such as have fallen after baptism may obtain remission of sins at whatever time, and as often as they are converted. They condemn the second part, in which we say that the parts of repentance are contrition and faith [a penitent, contrite heart, and faith, namely that I receive the forgiveness of sins through Christ]. [Hear, now, what it is that the adversaries deny.] They [without shame] deny that faith is the second part of repentance. What are we to do here, O Charles, ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... know that the rainbow is elusive, and its colours but the illumination of tears; she had never been told that earthly ethereality is necessarily ephemeral, nor that bonbons and glaces, whether of the palate or of the soul, nauseate and pall upon the taste. Dear God, forgive her, for she bent with contrite tears over her worn rosary, and glanced no more at the ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... condition is more frequently referred to, as acceptable with the Deity, than that which consists of contrition and lowliness of mind.—"Thus sayeth the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,—to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." With this state of mind is very naturally associated a sense of moral weakness,—and a constant reliance on divine ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... he has in vain looked for amidst the worldly grandeur of the rich, he remembers the declarations in the word of God. He sees with admiration that the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, dwelleth with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. lvii. 15); and although heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool, yet, when a house is to be built and a place of rest to be sought for himself, he says, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... surely come that we shall see one another. My Lord and Saviour, it is surely time for me to be taken out of this banishment and be for ever with Thee. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit away from me. Create in me a clean heart, O God.' 'A broken and a contrite heart; a broken and a contrite heart,' was her continual cry till ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte

... of a second's disconcerting thought. It was also immediately clear to him that the letter must not go, and he spoke from his bedside to the kitchen and gave orders that nothing should be mailed until he came down. A contrite voice replied. The letters were mailed: that is, the thick one on the library table. Mary had gone in last night to lock the windows, and saw it, and knew he had forgotten to leave it in the hall. He often did forget. It was stamped and sealed. And the furnace man came then. Raven thought he might, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... these things to man. He instructs and convinces his conscience; He disciplines and corrects him; He raises condemnation in us for our sins, and "His Light persuades our hearts to have true sorrow and real repentance for our sins, with a {263} broken and contrite heart and sorrowful spirit, and so we begin to hate ourselves and our sins, and doe really forsake them."[85] "There is," he maintains, in words that sound strangely like the yet unborn Quakers, "an infallible Spirit, Jesus Christ, the power of God in us, which directs, corrects, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... which (without a word said on the matter) he was known to have been leading in the past. And when the Archbishop had quite done and taken his departure, then Max rose up from his bed of sickness and went down to Sister Jenifer and, presenting to her gaze a broken and a contrite head and a rather pallid countenance, spoke as follows: "I have been having a talk with your father, O Beloved, and he tells me that I ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... made mention above, the Chamberlain of my Lord Bologna, who returned to this country a short while ago for divers purposes, hath told me thereof by word of mouth, and he saith that he himself was present when the Indulgences were granted. Every man that hath made his confession and is contrite, and hath fulfilled the conditions laid down in the letter wherein the Indulgence was granted—that is, living in common and in the observance of the rule—may gain the same in the church of his own monastery. And these conditions are that he enter ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... and amendment. The characteristic sin of a great military power would be 'violence,' and that is the specific evil from which they vow to turn. The loftiest lesson which prophets found Israel so slow to learn, 'A broken and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise,' was learned by these heathens. We need it no less. Nineveh repented on a peradventure that their repentance might avail. How pathetic that 'Who can tell?' (ver. 9) is! We know what they hoped. Their doubt might give fervour to their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... vocal choir, Let harmony your raptured souls inspire. Hark how the tuneful, solemn organs blow, Awfully strong, elaborately slow; Now to you empyrean seats above Raise meditation on the wings of love. Now falling, sinking, dying to the moan Once warbled sad by Jesse's contrite son; Breathe in each note a conscience through the sense, And call ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... women were still less reassuring, they invaded the church, walking about as if quite at home, disturbing everybody, upsetting chairs, knocking against you without begging pardon; then they knelt down with much ado, in the attitude of contrite angels, murmured interminable paternosters, and left the church more arrogant and ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... humiliating spectacle of Aristides, spanked, cuffed, and kicked, and pick him from the ditch into which he was at last ignominiously tossed, a defeated but still struggling warrior, and so bring him, as the night closes charitably around him, in contrite tears and muddy garments to his ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... put this new paragraph on the wire just about the time that Bok's actual engagement was announced. Field was now deeply contrite, and sincerely promised Bok and his fiancee to reform. "I'm through, you mooning, spooning calf, you," he wrote Bok, and his friend believed him, only to receive a telegram the next day from Mrs. Field warning him that "Gene is planning a series of telephonic ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... told all, and emotion was stilled, they sat together in silence for a time, she with her innocent head drooped upon his shoulder, and her eyes closed, lost in tender and mystic reveries; and he musing with a contrite heart. Till at last, the stir of daily life began to waken in the quiet dwelling, and without, from steeples in the frosty air, there ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... shouting dies— The Captains and the Kings depart. Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.[164-1] Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... contrite sinner's voice Returning from his ways, While angels in their songs rejoice, And cry, "Behold, ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... "No!" he exclaimed, swiftly contrite. "Nor shall I ask it. Forgive me! You never knew—you were innocent. You do right not ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... about the Frenchman, who was seated behind him and understood every invidious word, Walter, instead of being contrite, said airily that he regretted that he had not spoken French as that would probably have been beyond Mr. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... direct his sword's point against his breast; a man of better faith would have turned his eye back on his own conduct, and having read, in his misuse of prosperity, the original source of those calamities, would have remained patient and contrite under the consequences of his ambition. Napoleon belonged to the Roman school of philosophy; and it is confidently reported, especially by Baron Fain, his secretary, though it has not been universally believed, that he designed, at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... me to know my heart, and let me not be like that noisy river." What threatened to be an uncontrollable excitement became at once a quiet but deep sense of guilt. Their desires were not less intense, but more spiritual; their consciences were very tender, and their feelings contrite, ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... under the action of the inevitable lunge, or whether he lapsed into mere dabbling with the artistic side of his profession only, it would be premature to say; but at any rate it was his contrite return to architecture as a calling that sent him on the sketching excursion under notice. Feeling that something still was wanting to round off his knowledge before he could take his professional line with confidence, he was led to remember that his own native Gothic was the one form of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... time Milo looked up in impotent wrath from his inspection of the ruined meerschaum. Gavin had turned toward him and was babbling a torrent of apology for his own awkwardness. Milo was glumly silent as the contrite words beat about his ears. But Claire, shamed by her brother's ungraciousness, spoke up courteously to relieve the visitor's ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... in the confessional to a young peasant woman who looked contrite and anxious, Mrs. Tiralla repeated the prescribed prayers before the high altar, and ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... for contrition was somewhat more difficult to meet. But here too there was a way out. Complete contrition included love to God as its motive, and the truly contrite man was not always easy to find; but some of the scholastic Doctors had discovered a substitute for contrition in what they called "attrition." viz., incomplete contrition, which might have fear for a motive, and which the Sacrament of Penance could transform into contrition. When, therefore, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... neither. Ben had been very angry, unreasonably angry, she had thought at the time, and objectionably rude in his manner. He had sworn never to speak to her again. If he should keep his word, she might be very unhappy. These reflections brought on another rush of tears, and a very penitent, contrite, humble-minded young woman cried herself to sleep before Miss Laura, with a heart bursting with happiness, bade the colonel good-night at the gate, and went upstairs to lie awake in her bed in a ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... suffering brought salvation nigh Came sinners for release, a contrite band— And "Christ have ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... allegorical colossi symbolising the mundane virtues of a mighty ruler's character, crowned by the portrait of the Pope, over whom Heaven rejoiced while Cybele deplored his loss—all this pomp of power and parade of ingenuity harmonised but little with the humility of a contrite soul returning to its Maker and its Judge. The new temple, destined to supersede the old basilica, embodied an aspect of Latin Christianity which had very little indeed in common with the piety of the primitive Church. S. Peter's, as we see it now, represents the majesty ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... suggested some acts of contrition. The poor Prince repeated distinctly several words suggested to him, and confusedly answered others, struck his breast, squeezed the Cure's hand, appeared penetrated with the best sentiments, and received with a contrite and willing air the absolution ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... continual dropping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.' For Heaven's sake, my child, do not become a contentious woman. See also Prov. viii. If only you had read your Bible regularly every day, prayed humbly for a contrite heart, and obeyed your parents, as you have always been taught to do, we should never have had all this dreadful trouble with you; but you show yourself wanting in respect in every way and in all right and proper feeling, and really ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... the pretensions of those who would cast all things in one mould. From those made perfect, from the saints whose links with earth are almost severed, whose sight begins to pierce gross matter through, it may accept prostration and endless contrite tears, knowing that to these, upon the very verge of illumination, the forms of slavery have lost their vileness. But to those who are still of earth and can but conceive God's fatherhood according to earthly similitudes, it will not ordain a prone obeisance. Such it will ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Have mercy upon me, O God; according to thy loving kindness, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Purge me with hyssop and I shall ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... anxiety, but also, we may well suppose, not altogether free from the condemnation of a guilty conscience. But Jacob was a man who had faith in God's promises, even if he did not always obey His commands. And when he lay down to sleep under the open sky, in a state of mind, sad, forlorn, fearful and contrite, God was watching over him, and when he awoke from the wondrous vision there vouchsafed to him, he perceived that God was in the place, and he found that he himself, also, was a new man. Now he could not only believe intellectually what God had said, but he could and ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark

... with such an expression of contrite timidity, that Albinia felt sure that the poor little Frenchwoman had recovered from her brief intoxication, and wanted to apologize and be comforted, so she ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... imprisonment, having won the confidence of the religious sisters in charge of the convicts, is appointed head of one of the workshops. Marie Boyer is so contrite, exemplary in her behaviour that she is released after fifteen years' imprisonment. In some ways, perhaps, these malleable types of women, "soft paste" as one authority has described them, "effacees" in the words of another, are the most dangerous material of all for the commission of crime, their ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... not with fear; take from them now The sense of reckoning, lest the opposed numbers Pluck their hearts from them!—Not to-day, O Lord, O, not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown! I Richard's body have interred new;(C) And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears, Than from it issu'd forced drops of blood: Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood: ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... nor do these many men right by his labour without great authority—yet may he do these things being not in wealth indeed. As where he taketh his wealth for no wealth and his riches for no riches, and in heart setteth by neither one, but secretly liveth in a contrite heart and a penitential life, as many times did the prophet David, being a great king, so that worldly wealth was no wealth to him. And therefore worldly wealth is not of necessity the cause of these good deeds, since he may do them (and he doth them best, indeed) to whom the thing that worldly ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... animal called man is so unexpected and unlikely that any analysis of Mr. Taynton's character may seem almost grotesque. It is a fact nevertheless that his was a nature capable of great things, it is also a fact that he had long ago been deeply and bitterly contrite for the original dishonesty of using the money of his client. But by aid of those strange perversities of nature, he had by this time honestly and sincerely got to regard all their subsequent employments of it merely as ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... disapprovingly hinted, the affection given appeared to trench on exaggeration, the affection returned was of kindred quality, fervid, self-realized, absorbing, and absorbed. Comparing it with his own humorously tolerant filial attitude, Tom felt at once contrite and injured. The contrast was glaring. But then, as he hastened to add—though whether in extenuation of his own, or of his father's, shortcomings remained open to question—wasn't the contrast between the slightly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... just come to her in her room where she sat toiling, and had confessed with a childlike, contrite innocence the ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... of forty or thereabouts, with a yellow face, very long and disproportionately large for the frail, sickly body it surmounted, and dressed in an unpretending black gown. She wore a sad, submissive look. Her grey eyes bespoke a contrite and fearful heart, the cheeks were pendulous and the loose chin almost touched the bosom. Jean scrutinized the poor, pitiful face, but could recall no memory in connection with it. He ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... at the two faces and into their benumbed consciousness something vital struggled to life. It brought a gleam to Lans's eyes; a groan of surrender to Sandy's lips! The contrite voice ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... made his way as far as Dublin. There, passing a merry and philanthropic time with new and old familiars, he gambled away, and gave away, and lost his money, and all too soon had none for further travels. He returned with shame upon his brow, completely contrite. The kindly Contarine possessed that fine courage, the fortitude of forgiveness. It was springtime in the poet's heart. This was his era of heroic hope, immortal dreaming, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland

... their sins, and their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who atoned for them, and in whom we have the forgiveness of sin by the redemption through His blood. This is the Scriptural doctrine of penitence,—that sorrowful, contrite, and believing attitude of the heart which is the characteristic of true Christians throughout their lives. Through penitence we become absolved in the sight of God from all guilt and punishment of our sins, and the minister, by announcing this fact, is to convey to the penitent the assurance ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... with Marion's telegram in my hand and a falsely contrite expression on my face. 'I'm so awfully sorry, Gladys, but a most unforeseen thing has happened,' I said. 'Marion is coming to-day, and she'll have to take your room. Isn't it ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... of that kind are useless now. I am truly sorry, Bernard, for the evil that I have done to you; and I ask your pardon with a contrite heart. ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... coloured to the roots of his hair. He thought that Esperance had not heard, but he met her contrite glance, full of gratitude. With Genevieve's help she washed the little fellow, who was very docile, sniffing with pleasure the "good smell" of these ladies. Bathed, combed, in his new clothes, he ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... take a people's thanks That Thine avenging sword has spared our ranks— That Thou hast parted from our lips the cup And forced our neighbors' lips to drink it up. Father of Mercies, with a heart contrite We thank Thee that Thou goest south to smite, And sparest San Francisco's loins, to crack Thy lash on Hermosillo's bleeding back— That o'er our homes Thine awful angel spread His wings in vain, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... is common to every sin is not a special sin. Now negligence is common to every sin, because he who sins neglects that which withdraws him from sin, and he who perseveres in sin neglects to be contrite for his sin. Therefore negligence is not a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... broken heart and contrite sigh, A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry; Thy pardoning grace is rich and free: O ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... it is like the forgiveness of sins. The boy finds his uncle still alive. In revulsion from himself, he takes the old man into his arms. The uncle has already begun to be ashamed of his terrible words, and has prayed for a contrite heart. The radiant Annabel is shown in the early dawn rising and hurrying to her lover in spite of her pride. She will bravely take back her last night's final word. She cannot live without him. The uncle makes amends to the girl. The three are in the inconsistent but very human mood of sweet ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... first understood. She knew that Bansemer's one woman had found him at last. Her heart leaped with hatred for one brief instant, then turned soft and contrite. If she had learned to care for the big American herself during the hard days when he had been so tender, she also had learned that her worship was hopeless. She had felt his yearning love for another; now she was looking upon that other. While the attendants were bending over ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... things had happened in allegory; that the kingdom of God did not consist in the flesh, but in the spirit; that the enemies of men were not the Babylonians, but the passions; that God delighted not in temples made with hands, but in a pure and contrite heart; that the circumcision of the body was unprofitable, but that of the heart was needed; that Moses had not given them the bread from ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... guest, Must now divest Thyself of worldly thought and care That once were thine. 86 Thou thy body's eyes must close And in fetters sure be tied Fierce appetite, Treacherous guides, infernal foes: Thy ways are those That are a safe support and guide For the contrite. ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... betrothal. And for once in her life, so bottled and so sealed, she looked, as if through the magic crystal of her mother's words, absolutely, helplessly foolish. It is difficult for a genie in a bottle to look contrite or stricken with anything deeper than astonishment; nor is it practicable in such a situation to fall upon one's knees,—if a genie were to feel such an impulse of self-abasement. It was perhaps a comfort to all concerned, including a new-comer, that ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... speak of our death-beds, Mrs. Godber,—peace, as I humbly presume to hope, the peace of christian charity and mutual forgiveness. Frail creatures that we are! the best will need forgiveness; the guiltiest, I trust, who brings a contrite heart, will not ask it in vain." Then, after a pause, he added solemnly—"You also, Mrs. Godber, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... not know that you were to suffer," she replied. "Jackson, without such terrible punishment as he brought upon himself, might eventually have become contrite, and have restored you to your friends as well as enabled you to obtain your grandfather's property. God frequently performs marvellous things with such humble instruments; for he hath said, 'there ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... everlasting joy; and this heat draws the heart of man to God, and makes him hate his sin. Penance is the tree of life to them that receive it. In penance or contrition man shall understand four things: what is contrition; what are the causes that move a man to contrition; how he should be contrite; and what contrition availeth to the soul. Contrition is the heavy and grievous sorrow that a man receiveth in his heart for his sins, with earnest purpose to confess and do penance, and never more ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... Then they were contrite, for Lorry almost never had anything, and their attentions and inquiries had to be endured most of the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... time the old Lavretsky could not forgive his son for his marriage. If, at the end of six months, Ivan Petrovich had appeared before him with contrite mien, and had fallen at his feet, the old man would, perhaps, have pardoned the offender—after having soundly abused him, and given him a tap with his crutch by way of frightening him. But Ivan Petrovich went ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... pardon," he said in contrite tones for his seeming awkwardness, and as he said it two darting fingers and the thumb of his right hand found and invaded the little slit of the stranger's waistcoat pocket, whisking out the check which ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... same occasion, addressed a letter to Burghley and Walsingham, expressing himself as became a crushed and contrite man, never more to raise his drooping head again, but warmly and manfully urging upon the attention of the English government—for the honour and interest of the Queen herself—"the miserable state of the poor soldiers." The necessity of immediate remittances in order to keep them from starving, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... danger and begging them, finally, to confess, since they did not know what was to happen that night. The fruit that proceeded from that sermon was large, for, his audience becoming terrified and contrite, many of them confessed, and others proposed to do the same by having their entangled consciences examined as soon as possible. After a few hours, what is described above was experienced, whereby all thought that the good preacher ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... if I upset her," said the general, swelling and loftily contrite. "I don t know why it is that people never seem to be able to act natural with me." He hated those who did, regarding them as sodden, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... cleverly done, especially the contrite confessions concerning interviews with Father Jerome and his brother-conspirators. He acknowledged that men had had some cause to suspect him. "But," exclaimed he, "a man should not be written down a criminal because some ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... and the shouting dies— The Captains and the Kings depart— Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... recollection of them fills her heart with sorrow. She discloses the object of her mission, will guide him to his new master, who, they say, is going to die, and feels very bad about it. He was a desperate man on his plantation, and has become the more contrite at death's call. "I hope God ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... pale faces, many with tears streaming from their eyes, walked the young men and the old. Mothers, with joy in their hearts and a prayer on their lips, saw their sons fall prostrate before the penitent bench. Soon the contrite had to kneel wherever they could. The ringing salvation march filled the air, mingled with cries ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... hypocrite and the no-thing the infidel.' (Q.) 'Tell me of various kinds of hearts.' (A.) 'There is the whole [or perfect] heart, which is that of [Abraham] the Friend [of God], the sick heart, that of the infidel, the contrite heart, that of the pious, fearful ones, the heart consecrated to God, that of our Lord Mohammed (whom God bless and preserve) and the enlightened [or enlightening] heart, that of those who follow him. The hearts of the learned are of three kinds, to wit, those that are in love with this world, with ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button-hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... that in Macon there were no readily available foodstuffs to be eaten all day as in the store—caused Austin to return. He was roundly berated by his mistress, but finally forgiven by the worried woman who needed his help around the store more than she needed the contrite promises and effusive declarations that he would 'behave alright for ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... to trample on a flower, because its form makes a kind of blossoming in our own fancy which we call beauty; but we laugh at pangs we endured in childhood and feel no tremor at the incalculable sufferings of all mankind beyond our horizon, because no imitable image is involved to start a contrite thrill in our own bosom. The same cruelty appears in aesthetic pleasures, in lust, war, and ambition; in the illusions of desire and memory; in the unsympathetic quality of theory everywhere, which regards ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... was late, and the poor man of genius went away contrite for having seemed curious, and for wounding the sensitive heart of that rare woman who had so strangely suffered. As for her, she had passed her life in amusing herself with men, and was another Don Juan in female attire, ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... seemed to be in the least affected by their meeting it would have been easy to him to be a contrite man at once; any sign of shame on her part would have filled him with desire to take all the blame upon himself. Had she cut him dead, he would have begun to respect her. But she smiled disdainfully only, and stood ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... which by its isolated position in the then almost inaccessible ravines had escaped the early innovations introduced by the church of Rome; albeit not altogether, for they admitted confession by contrite prayer to God and the mention aloud of their sins to a priest, the power of priests to bind and to loose, that sins were of two classes, mortal and venial, and the efficacy of fasts and penance. At the Reformation all these were swept away, and the doctrines and church polity ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... so nicely and looked so innocently guilty and so contrite, that her look lost its touch ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... splintered, shattered, shivered; disconnected, discontinuous, interrupted; impaired, shattered; subdued, humbled, contrite, penitent, crushed, trained, subjugated, tractable; violated. Antonyms: inviolate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... display of his napoleons as he paid. He did not invite her, but she followed him to his hotel again, and here, as if with terrible ennui, he threw himself upon his bed and feigned to sleep, while she crouched at his table and wrote him a contrite letter. It was sweetly and simply worded, and asked that he should let her return to him for his few remaining days in Paris. If he could not grant so much, might she speak to him in the street; come to see him sometimes, if only to be reviled; love him, though she could not hope to be loved? ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... of the blessed Calixtus, renowned Pope and Martyr. Whoever shall have entered it contrite and after confession, shall obtain full remission of all his sins, through the glorious merits of 174,000 martyr saints, whose bodies are buried here in peace, together with forty-six blessed pontiffs, who all came out of great tribulation, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... expression. There was no longer the glance of proud defiance in the eye—the flash of wounded pride upon the cheek, or curl of scorn upon the lip. All was subdued and quiet, and seemed to whisper of a peaceful, contrite heart. Still he studiously avoided the eye of Charley Quirk, and also seemed to wish to appear oblivious of the presence of the flint-eyed being sitting stiffly at the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... jolly day to that contrite youth. He never believed it would all be got over so easily. He had dreaded all sorts of scenes and lectures and humiliations, but here he was, by a single word, passed back straight into friendship, and no ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... there was more splashing, then a violent agitation, and the trickle and drip of water, and a second and a third violent agitation of the liquid contents of what appeared to be a porcelain bowl—the whole indicating that the occupant of the chamber was washing her face in haste with a contrite determination to make a thorough success of the ablution. And there was silence, broken by gasps and stifled sobs—doubtless a vigorous rubbing was in course; and then the door was flung open from within, and Peggy Lacey dashed resolutely in ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... gentleman, after a silence of a few moments, 'in that corner of the churchyard of which I have before spoken, there lies buried a man who was in my employment for three years after this event, and who was truly contrite, penitent, and humbled, if ever man was. No one save myself knew in that man's lifetime who he was, or whence he came—it was John Edmunds, the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... repeated Mr. Agnew, putting aside his Wife, who woulde have interceded for me,—"her Teares have noe Effect on me now—they proceed, not from a contrite Heart, they are the Tears of a Child that cannot brook to be chidden for the Waywardnesse in ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... untoward—which I thought had ruined at once my chance of successful persuasion—proved my best help. Difficult of management so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... sir, you amaze me at your words; Think with your self, sir, what a thing it were To cause a recluse to remove her vow: A maimed, contrite, and repentant soul, Ever mortified with fasting and with prayer, Whose thoughts, even as her eyes, are fixd on heaven, To draw a virgin, thus devour'd with zeal, Back to the world: O impious deed! Nor by the Canon Law can it ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare

... at a gulp of most of the water designed for his matutinal ablutions. Ten minutes later he took his sextant under his arm and departed for a pawnshop in lower Market Street. From the pawnshop he returned to Scab Johnny's with eight dollars in his pocket, routed out the contrite McGuffey, and carried the latter off to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... spite of everything. He came down the next morning in a contrite mood and thoroughly shamefaced. His mother was not up; she was unwell, for she had not slept a wink. He heard this before he went to her. He opened her door timidly. There she lay, the ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... inciting cause of trouble, and with the help of Yankee wit succeeded in removing it. The fact was that the ivory hook of the parasol had caught in the chain gear, and when the first attempt at drawing water was made, the little offering of a contrite heart was jerked up, bent, its strong ribs jammed into the well side, and entangled with a twig root. It is needless to say that no sleight-of-hand performer, however expert, unless aided by the powers of darkness, could have accomplished this feat; but a luckless child in the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... should not have left a well-broken terrain to go and attack, in a vast open space, an enemy who squadrons greatly outnumbered our own, nor, during a rain-storm, have put a river at his back. This contrite admission disarmed the critics, and everyone buckled to in order to help save the army, which retreated towards the Elbe ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... And when the heart casts its pride away the light enters. For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Into His hands let ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... not our life like their life? Do we not come and go as they? Out of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through selfish, stormy youth, and contrite tears—just not too late; through manhood not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we return from Whence we came; to the Bosom of God once more—to go forth again, it may be, with fresh knowledge, and fresh powers, to nobler ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... brought it to his side, so that, in confessing her blacker vices, she might be able to whisper them in his very ear. She kneeled on her little footstool, put her hands across her breast, and in this lowly attitude murmured softly after this fashion, with a contrite voice:— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... her temper" seemingly, and was even kind to the humble and contrite Danny, who became painfully particular with his "Thanky, Alice"—and afterwards offensive with his unnecessarily frequent threats to smash the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... forgetting All thy loving care towards me, Evil child and disobedient, And for setting up an idol All of earth within thy temple. And receive from hands unworthy As a sacrifice accepted On Thine altar, Lord a bruised Contrite heart that ever suffers Daily pangs of disappointment Even than death itself more bitter. Take the one love of a lifetime, All the hopeless love and passion Dedicated to another Who with me Thy place had ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... for your own sake, as well as the sake of others. Do not lose these precious moments. Be true! be true at last! at last! Then let it be with you as God shall order. Do not carry this sin to the eternal judgment. Blessed, a thousand times blessed, will be the outpouring of a contrite ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... top Arnaud gathers his men around him, and beneath the roof of heaven and amidst the walls of surrounding mountain slopes, glistening with the brightness of the rising sun, pours out the psalm of glad thanksgiving, and offers the prayer of the contrite heart. ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... but that he might have in the latter end of life; and in the Marriage he has the red bonnet on, which shortens his face. On the door he is represented in the character he ought to have possessed, a pious, contrite look, not the truer resemblance which Shakspeare drew— "He dies, and makes no sign!"—but Annibal Caracci himself could not paint like our Raphael poet! Pray don't venture yourself in any more electioneering ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... hand and heart tremble? Upon thee the promise smiles. "To this man will I look," says God, "even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word;" Isa. ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... had not drunk too much, I should have stopped playing when I saw I was losing," went on Cedric in a contrite tone; "but they plied me with liquor, and I got reckless, and then I knew no more till I found myself in ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... it was that Jesus was at all times ready to take upon Himself the burden of our sins, provided we came to Him with a humble and contrite spirit, and begged His help. This doctrine was new to me; I had often been at church, but had never heard it preached before, at least so distinctly. When he said that all men might be saved, I shook, for I expected ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... glance at her material husband, pushed her sister aside, arose and fled. After her sped the contrite Destyn; a distant door shut noisily; all the elements had gathered for the happy, first quarrel of the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... even when attuned to the expression of religious sentiment, and accompanied by the language of Divine worship, is to "lead the soul almost insensibly to substitute a pleasing emotion which ends in self, for those spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, even a broken and contrite heart, and that communion with the Father and the Son which results from loving ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends

... cheek; and his one front tooth seemed sometimes in his upper, sometimes in his lower jaw. His skull-cap and his gabardine might have been heirlooms from the Patriarch Jacob; and his poor hands seemed made for clawing. But there was a humble and contrite spirit in his sad eyes. The history of his race was written in them; but it was modern history that one read in their ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... marrying a relative of the royal princess, thus enhancing the ties that bound him to the throne, and throwing to the winds his Perdita whose charms had once held him in folly's chains. Did he regret the step? Has ravening aspiration any compunction; any contrite visitings of nature? What did the player expect; that he would violate precedence; overthrow the fashionable maxims of good George IV; become a slave to a tragi-comic performer and cast his high destiny ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... tumult and the shouting dies— The captains and the kings depart— Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, A humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... first spirit of bravado and fight-to-the-last-ditch had died to a sullen stubbornness. Nobody had much, to say. Terry was very contrite as well he might be. A judge of the Supreme Court, who had no business being in San Francisco at all, sworn to uphold the law, had stepped out from his jurisdiction to commit as lawless and idiotic a deed of passion as could have been imagined! Whatever chances ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... one thousand two hundred and seventy-one, after the coming of our blessed Saviour, by Hierome Cornille, priest, canon of the chapter of the cathedral of St. Maurice, grand penitentiary, of all acknowledging himself unworthy, who, finding his last hour to be come, and contrite of his sins, evil doings, forfeits, bad deeds, and wickednesses, has desired his avowal to be published to serve the preconisation of the truth, the glory of God, the justice of the tribunal, and to be an alleviation to him of his punishment, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... the key of the house is laid (Isa 22:22). Christ only has the key, no MAN openeth or shutteth (Rev 1:18, 3:7). All that man can do, as to binding or loosening, is to warn the hardened and to invite the contrite. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... find faults there, and that, in an unwise hour, I engaged to do so. Meantime, the days go by (the whitethroat is come and sings now) and as I would not have you 'look down on me from your white heights' as promise breaker, evader, or forgetter, if I could help: and as, if I am very candid and contrite, you may find it in your heart to write to me again—who knows?—I shall say at once that the said faults cannot be lost, must be somewhere, and shall be faithfully brought you back whenever they turn up,—as people tell one ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... liege, your lord, I crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where The corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled, Was lying yet. We offered first a prayer To Pluto and the goddess of cross-ways, With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire. Then laved with lustral waves the mangled corse, Laid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre, And to his memory piled a mighty mound Of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock, The bridal chamber of the maid and Death, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... shrug of the shoulders. The visitation of a parent's sins upon children was not a subject for discussion in that household, as Phil realized with a poignancy born of her morning's adventure. Kirkwood was instantly contrite as he saw tears in Phil's eyes. He would not for worlds have wounded her. It was impossible for him to know how in her new sensitiveness this careless speech, which a day earlier would have passed unheeded, aroused all her instincts of defense. She ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... be angry," said Shakro in a contrite voice, touching my shoulder lightly. "Were you praying?' I didn't know it, for ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... trembled under his. How could she resist him when his strong, firm clasp was upon her; when he was looking into her eyes pleadingly, even tenderly; when his breath was on her cheek, and his voice murmured in her ear? She sat before him, contrite, conquered, strangely happy; conscious of nothing save a wish that she might die then and there, with her hands in his. She was afraid to speak and break the spell. He had said that he cared for her, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... his fortunes, when he plaintively besought God, 'Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle'—could say in the same breath, 'Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto Thee.' God works on our souls that we may have the consciousness of sin, and He wills that we should come with broken and contrite hearts, and like the king of Israel wail out our confessions and supplications—'Have mercy upon me, O God! according to Thy loving-kindness.' But, like him, we should even in our lowliest abasement, when our hearts are bruised, be able to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... his personality as boy and man is worth at least a casual consideration. He was fifteen now, and had developed characteristics which in a greater or less degree were to go with him through life. Of a kindly, loving disposition, like all of the Clemens children, quick of temper, but always contrite, or forgiving, he was never without the fond regard of those who knew him best. His weaknesses were manifold, but, on the whole, of a negative kind. Honorable and truthful, he had no tendency to bad habits or unworthy pursuits; indeed, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... doorway and reached the passerby on the sidewalk! During that winter he pronounced all his most famous sermons—on "The Faithful Saying," on "The City with Foundations," on "Awake, Thou that Sleepest!" and on "The Broken and Contrite Heart." It was after hearing this latter most original and pathetic discourse that an eminent man exclaimed, "No such preaching as that has been heard in this land since the days of Dr. John M. Mason." I enjoy the perusal of the rich, ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... cried Dexie, unable to keep up the quarrel under such contrite circumstances. "I have been provoking you on purpose to make you scold me; but I didn't mean a word of the unkind things I said to you. I only wanted to keep you awake;" and thus confessing to one another, they calmed down into a state that was ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... shoulders. "The people are like a flock of sheep," said he; "they want a leader, never mind who. Only the leader must be there at the right hour; and if God has bestowed upon him the gift of eloquence, he can lead them either into the church to contrite prayer, or to the slaughterfield to bloody combat. The people are a flock ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... child, by thinking so," answered the general; "He will in no wise cast out those who come to Him, and He desires all to come just as they are, with humble and contrite spirits; but not under the idea that they can first put away their sins, and merit His love by any good deeds or penances they may perform. Such acts as are pleasing in His sight must spring from loving obedience to Him; all He does is of free grace; we can merit nothing, because we owe Him ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... the centre of his wanderings, spent twenty years organising the revolt, and three times was excommunicated and imprisoned by the Archbishop of Canterbury for teaching social "errors, schisms, and scandals," but was in no wise contrite or ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... with contrite heart allow'd, His shape and beauty made him proud: In diet was perhaps too nice, But gluttony was ne'er his vice: In every turn of life content, And meekly took what fortune sent: Inquire through all the parish round, A better neighbor ne'er was found; His vigilance might some ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... buy her a new bicycle, the accident would never have occurred. But had she shown any gratitude? None. It was true that he had vaguely authorized her to return half of the money replaced by the contrite Julian; but no date for doing so had been fixed, and assuredly she had no pretext whatever for dealing with all of it. That she should go to Julian Maldon with either the half or the whole of the money without previously informing him and obtaining the ratification of his permission ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... they reached home she was contrite and spiritless. She was Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name? Was she not more truly Mrs Alexander d'Urberville? Could intensity of love justify what might be considered in upright souls as culpable reticence? She knew not what was expected of women in such cases; ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined. 'No—don't kiss me: it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,' continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those—those detestable creatures won't bring coals to the fire. It's ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... guarantees of citizens. In desperation many fled over the border into New York and Connecticut, and joined bands of similar refugees which were camped there. Others, weaker spirited, or bound by ties they could not or would not break, remained at home, seeking to propitiate their masters by a contrite and circumspect demeanor, or sullenly enduring whatever was put upon them. A large number prepared to emigrate to homes in the West as soon ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... find it written that we are to confess our sins to man, but always to God. 'A broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, Thou wilt not despise.' In the Epistle of James (chapter verse 16), he says, 'Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed'; that is to ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... very giving mends them; not so desperate as not to be accepted but that the very accepting dignifies them. This is a melting heart,[161] and a troubled heart, and a wounded heart, and a broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the powerful working of thy piercing Spirit such a heart I have. Thy Samuel spake unto all the house of thy Israel, and said, If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, prepare your hearts unto the Lord.[162] ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... emaciated, almost transparent hands. "Pray now, my child, for grace and strength," he exhorted. "Offer up the little temporal suffering that may yet be yours in atonement for your error, and so that your heart be truly contrite and penitent, you shall deserve salvation from that Divine Mercy which is boundless. You shall have my prayers, my son. I can do no ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... God has never rent the "stony heart" and made it "contrite," that is, bruised it small, you may, by receiving the Gospel on some temporary, superficial softness of nature, obtain your religion more easily and quickly than others who have been more deeply exercised; but you may perhaps not be able to hold it so fast ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... political, social sympathy is so spontaneous and sincere—as to carry a very large measure indeed of quiet reproach. The perfect tone is enough to sweeten and lubricate a medicine such as no traveller since Hippocrates has administered to contrite natives. Facts, not comments, convey the lesson; and I know no better illustration of a recent saying: "Si un livre porte un enseignement, ce doit etre malgre son auteur, par la force meme des ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... the shouting dies— The captains and the kings depart— Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, A humble and a contrite heart. God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... seen him, as I saw him first, You would have loved him just as much as I. He came to church each day, with contrite mien, Kneeled, on both knees, right opposite my place, And drew the eyes of all the congregation, To watch the fervour of his prayers to heaven; With deep-drawn sighs and great ejaculations, He humbly ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... you don't stop that I'll give you a coffin before your time, keg of nails—you. Sorrow and prayer at the throne of grace that she may have a contrite heart"—he clutched the funeral bill tighter in his fingers—"is what we must feel for her. The day the Sieur died and it all came out, I wept. Bedtime come I had to sop my eyes with elder-water. The day o' the burial mine eyes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... he says, in a contrite tone; "I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I lost my temper most absurdly and must apologize to you for it now. It was ridiculous of me to suppose you would ever come again to the river; but one hopes ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown



Words linked to "Contrite" :   ruthful, rueful, penitent, repentant



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