Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Contrite   Listen
noun
Contrite  n.  A contrite person.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Contrite" Quotes from Famous Books



... her 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

... eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near crying, but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to consider my situation under the cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Modestine, in the meanwhile, munched some black bread with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must make a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw away the empty bottle destined to carry milk; I threw away my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general average, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... been a brick. I've been horrid. I am always horrid nowadays." Meg's voice was contrite ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... on which all morality and all society is founded. Whosoever shall fall on that Rock in repentance and humility, confessing, bewailing, and forsaking his worldliness and sinfulness, he shall indeed be broken: but of him it is written, 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' And he shall find that Rock, even Christ, a safe standing-ground amid the slippery mire of this world's temptations, and the storms and floods of trouble ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... low, contrite tones, "some months ago I brought a wrongful accusation against you. I wronged you deeply; let me do myself the justice to say that almost immediately I was convinced of the injustice I had done you, of the utter insanity of my own behavior, but—" ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... the Divine perfections, to extol His glory, to offer sincere homage to the Sovereign of the universe, to worship and serve Him with purity of heart, to thank Him for favours received, to supplicate Him for help, to confess to Him sins committed, and to ask His pardon with contrite spirit. All these and other like acts of filial dependence and piety, find their expression in that elevated form of external worship called prayer, which, whether exercised publicly in appropriate and consecrated temples, or recited in the solitude of the domestic ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... not trust him; they could not be married at once; she must understand that!—an argument so repugnant as to cause her to shake with sobs of inarticulate anger. After this he would grow bewildered, then repentant, then contrite. In contrition—had he known it—he was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the fond visions faithful mem'ry kept, Rush'd o'er his soul; he bow'd his head and wept, Such tears as contrite sinners pour alone, When mercy pleads before the eternal throne, When naked, helpless, prostrate in the dust, The spirit owns its condemnation just, And seeks for pardon and redeeming grace, Through Him who died to save a ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... is angry when the wicked are allowed to go on unpunished; but when punished in this world, it is not for expiation of sin (for only the blood of Jesus can do that), but for the purpose of awakening and humbling the transgressor, that he may with contrite heart return to the Lord, who alone is able to deliver us from sin and from Satan's power. 'It is good,' said the Psalmist, 'that I have been afflicted: before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... inequalities of Andes[192] and Himmaleh[193] 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;[194]—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 insects. ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... spiritual life; who bewail their sins, are careful to avoid relapsing into them, endeavor to destroy their had habits, to extinguish their passions; who fast, watch, prey, chastise the flesh, mourn, and are blessed with a contrite and humble heart. In the second stage he places those who divest themselves of earthly affections, study to acquire purity of heart, and a constant habit of virtue, the true light of the soul; who {033} meditate incessantly ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... loathsome. Oh! what crowds there are! How he walks upon a sea of sinners, with their uplifted faces, like waves white with terror! How fierce his denunciation! How sweet the words of promise he speaks! 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... feebly describe the varying emotions which struggled in her bosom. At this interesting era she was preparing to encounter the freezing scorn, or the contrite glances, of either an estranged or a repentant husband; in either case her situation was replete with anticipated chagrin, for she loved him too tenderly not to participate even in the anguish of his compunction. His letter, which was coldly ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... 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, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... to him to befit one charged with the cure of souls. He proceeded to ask questions, beginning with inquiries conventional and domestic, but verging presently on points of faith. Babcock, to whom they were directly addressed, stood the ordeal well, revealing himself as flattered, contrite, and zealous to avail himself of the blessings of the church. He admitted that lately he had been lax ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... the stronger, she whom I loved so dearly, would not she envelope me in so much love, that at last I should again find the happiness that I had lost, as if it were a calm, sunlit haven, and thus forget this horrible nightmare when I fell on my knees before her beauty, with a contrite heart and pricked by remorse, and happy to give myself to her for ever, altogether and more passionately than at the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... amused or indignant at the sense of his helplessness. It seemed so preposterous that a chit of a girl should be able to keep him prisoner, that for a moment he seriously contemplated getting out of the chair and limping back to the house. How contrite she would be when she returned to find the chair empty; how full of contrition, and anxiety about ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... fellow had not moved nor had he offered a word in defence. He knew his Uncle George—better let him blow it all out, then the two could come together. At last he said in a contrite tone—his hands upraised: ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... placing himself before the count, "How hast thou the audacity," said he, "to enter my monastery and mine house, thou that dost not hesitate to rob me of my dues?" and, taking Girard by the hair, he threw him on the ground and belabored him heavily. The count, stupefied and contrite, acknowledged his injustice, took off the toll that he had wrongfully put on, and, not content with this reparation, sent to the church of Tournus a rich carpet of golden and silken tissue. In the middle of the eleventh century, Adhemar II., viscount of Limoges, had in his city a quarrel of quite ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... 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 ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... with laughter; but the sweet singer, who saw in this utterance only the contrite soul of the ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... as contrite as a revivalist's last convert. He said he was all broken up to think I'd gotten a green watermelon. He promised the he would never carry another green watermelon if he starved for it. And he drove off—a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... sermon." To some women lamenting for him, he said, "That his condition, though he was but young, and in the budding of his hopes and labours in the ministry, was not to be mourned; for one drop of my blood, through the grace of God, may make more hearts contrite, than many years ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... poppy, with his two fingers in his snuff-box, kept silence, his head bent forward and his brows knit in a certain contrite way peculiar to him, facing the tempest with his bald spot, and looking slyly between one wink and another at the unfortunate cards. When he heard the words "ecclesiastical court" repeated by his companion, whom he held in considerable fear, it seemed to him that matters were becoming quite ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... beech-trees of Mr. Calcott's park, and as he lifted Kitty in his arms to allow her the robin-redbreast, he did not feel out of tune with the bird's sweet autumnal notes, nor with the child's merry little voice, but each refreshed his worn and contrite spirit. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a little sidelong glance, meant to be contrite, but too full of mischief to be anything but incorrigible. "Then I'm hanged if I say it again," ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... hides the stars from thee, Sense hides the heaven Waiting the contrite soul That here ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... away and straightened up. She was a very lovely picture of contrite confusion as she put up both gleaming arms and rearranged the dark hair he had rumpled. All the way to the house ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... he himself is a sinful man. And hence it comes to pass that we can still turn to the penitential Psalms, to the seventh chapter of Romans, to the Confessions of St. Augustine, or to the Grace Abounding of John Bunyan, and make their words the language of our own broken and contrite hearts. For when Bunyan and Augustine and Paul and the psalmists spoke of sin, they spoke not the thoughts of others, but their knowledge of themselves; they looked into their own hearts and wrote. That is why their words "find" us to-day. Nevertheless, paradox ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... unfavourable a medium. It may be said of him, that he 'saw GOD in clouds.' Certain we may be of his injustice to himself in the following lamentable paragraph, which it is painful to think came from the contrite heart of this great man, to whose labours the world is so much indebted: 'When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time with some disorders of body, and disturbances of the mind, very near to madness, which I hope He that ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... father and mother. And it was not helping Louis; it was harming him, for your uncle and I knew better than you what was best to be done. Now," concluded Aunt Elizabeth, "because you were brave enough to come and confess your fault, and because you are really contrite, I shall not punish you beyond forbidding you ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard

... told amid contrite tears and shame as Andy proved to her that Dewey was after her three thousand dollars, and would have escaped with it only for his ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... 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 ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... dear father! Pardon me! Thy love, Generous and wise as tender, shames my power To merit or repay. Fie o my lips! Look if they be not blistered. Let them smooth With contrite kisses the last frown away. We must be young to-night—no wrinkles then! Genius must show immortal ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... Nina. It seemed to him that life was doing considerably better than he deserved by him, and he felt very humble and contrite. He felt in his pocket for the square jeweler's box that ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... honour and power; for Thou hast made all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created; and Thy pleasure is, Peace on Earth, and Goodwill toward men. Thou art the High and Holy One, who inhabitest eternity. Yet Thou dwellest with him that is of a contrite spirit, to revive the heart of the feeble, and to comfort the heart of the contrite. We adore the glory of Thy power; we adore the glory of Thy wisdom: but most of all we adore the glory of Thy justice, the glory of Thy condescension, the ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... (I felt a little contrite, as I was sincerely sorry to have offended him), "I've passed forty myself in some measurements, so youth no longer has ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... it impossible, with every effort of his heart and brain aiding his good wishes, to sit with unclosed eyes and ears through a dull sermon in the dog-days; how many an expectant, longing heir has yielded to the drowsy influence when endeavouring to look contrite under the severe correction of a lecture on extravagance from his uncle. Who has not felt the irresistible tendency to "drop off" in the half hour before dinner at a stupid country-house? I need not catalogue the thousand other situations in life infinitely more "sleep-compelling" ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... the extraordinary 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 efforts on his part to make right ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... as I did? I knew it wasn't right and I felt awfully about it—but then, Harry and I couldn't have managed otherwise, and it takes years and years to save a thousand dollars!" she looked so sweet and pitiful and contrite as she said this that I forgave her everything and hugged her till she choked. It seemed a shame to spoil her happiness with reproaches, and I couldn't but think how I'd have felt myself if it had been Mor— Not that ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... 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 ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... priest, who came from St. Mary's, at York, and then made Colchester 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 cast down. ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... changed; the hour 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, with this difference: she would certainly ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... led him back to camp. As he drew near, Gloria promptly turned her back and studied her nails; she had had encounters with men before now and had not yet gauged the profundity of this man's emotion. She counted fully on bringing him to a full and contrite sense of his crime before she condescended so much as to look at him. But when she flashed him a quick, furtive glance she saw that he had his back upon her, and that he gave neither hint of softening ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... conventional, feeble editions of their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you cannot find one original, independent, individualized gentleman like your Prince! Go to bed, miss, and pray to Heaven that he may be YOUR Prince indeed. Ask to have a contrite and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in particular for having sent you such a friend as Kate Van Corlear." Yet, after an imposing dramatic exit, she reappeared the next moment as a straight white flash, kissed Carry between ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... deep in the mire of evil living and evil 'abits, nevertheless, oh God, we, knowing Thy loving 'eart towards Thy sinful servants, do pray Thee that Thou wilt give us Thy blessing before we leave this Thy 'ouse this night; a new contrite 'eart is what we beg of Thee, that we may go out into this evil world taught by Thee to search out our ways and improve our thoughts, caring for nothing but Thee, following in Thy footsteps and making ready for Thy immediate ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... goes by the name Ha-Sallach, "penitential poet," on account of his many religious songs, bewailing in elegiac measure the hollowness of life, and the vanity of earthly possessions, and in ardent words advocating humility, repentance, and a contrite heart. The peculiarity of Jewish humor is that it returns to ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... performed in a manner correspondent in all respects to the contrite and humiliated frame of mind to which the noble culprit had been wrought. It was no longer the brave, the gallant, the haughty earl of Essex, the favorite of the queen, the admiration of the ladies, the darling of the soldiery, the idol of the people;—no longer even the undaunted prisoner, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... say that her rig-out which Jevons had admired so much, the khaki tunic and breeches, made us terribly conspicuous) had come down in a contrite mood. I heard her telling Jevons that he must be kind to me, for I had had an awful time with her and I ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... Wistaria Terrace. There was no place for her in this world, she said to herself; and sent a tender reproach in her own mind to the father who had given her up for her good. Then she felt contrite about Lady Anne. How good the old lady was to her, and how she stood up for her, would stand up for her, even to the terrible Lady Drummond! Still, it was not her world; it never would be. She thought, with sudden childish tears filling her eyes, that the next time Lady Anne ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... wanton Mother bred him, And there out of her protection Dayly to receiue correction; Then her Pasport shall be made, And to Cyprus Isle conuayd, And at Paphos in her Shryne, Where she hath been held diuine, For her offences found contrite, 280 There to ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... understand," Peter took her up in contrite tones. "I'll ask nothing more. In the morning we will talk the other matter over. I must have a little time. For the present, I want you to keep the revolver, and—here is the cameo. Forgive me for being ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... 'subject to warp and bias,' the intelligent compositor made it 'wasps and bees,' and Denison, being very sleepy when he read the proof, let it go. And Dr Stanton, good and generous man, laughed heartily when Denison, with a contrite and broken heart called on him, and asked for ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... all right afterwards. I suppose she told her people that of course he was mad. So he is, in a way; but it's quite nice madness. I won't say that Jimmy never goes too far—but nobody could be nicer about it afterwards than Jimmy—no one. He's awfully sorry, and contrite, and all that. Most people like him amazingly. I suppose he's told you about our father? He loves all the stories there are about him ..." and so on. Vera Nugent was ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... who was more satisfied with this adventure than her woman, and seeing how contrite her husband was, allowed herself to be gained-over, but not without making ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... think it wise nor necessary to say very much to Bert about his disobedience. If ever there was a contrite, humbled boy, it was he. He had learned a lesson that he would be long in forgetting. As for his tempter, Charlie Chisholm, he did not turn up until the next morning, having lost himself completely in his endeavour to get ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... was eleven people came including the minister, and after they had talked about the neighbors a spell, and Ma had showed the women a new tidy she had worked for the heathen, with a motto on it which Pa had taught her: 'A contrite heart beats a bob-tailed flush,'—and Pa had talked to the men about a religious silver mine he was selling stock in, which he advised them as a friend to buy for the glory of the church, they all went ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... 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

... this scene might well be a matter of dispute, for while it represents the guilty Claudius miserable and contrite, even in the height of his success, it also portrays the anticipated revenge of Hamlet in so fearful a light, that he stands there, not the human instrument of divine retribution, but with all the diabolical cravings of Satan himself. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... observed Themistocles, sarcastically. "I had expected it. Well, I can imagine many motives for coming,—to betray our hopes to the Persians, or even because Athena has put some contrite manhood in your heart. You know, of course, that the resolution we passed recalling the exiles did ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... the 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, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... night suspended over their heads, filling their souls with the terrors of an eternal death! Sometimes the terror-stricken consciences of those honest and pious women tell them that they were not sufficiently contrite; at another time, they reproach them for not having spoken sufficiently plain on some things ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... "He's so contrite and so sweet, after one of his passions!" she said. "And yet, well, maybe it's his age, but he's so sort of casual about his temper. To-night, for instance, after he'd said the Lord's Prayer, he added, 'And please ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... 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? She ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... over, Wilson and his friends advanced to the doorway; when the former, assuming a severe expression, pronounced our perverseness infatuation in the extreme. Nor was there any hope left: our last chance for pardon was gone. Even were we to become contrite and crave permission to return to duty, it ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... of the P.-M.-Gen. in the G.P.O. Deputation of contrite Employes listening to the eloquent speech of ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... had charged too much for work done, or how often the gospodarze had refused to come to terms with the squire about rights of grazing or wood-gathering in the forests, and he felt contrite. Good Lord! how beautifully the squire had spoken to them: 'Let us help each other and live peaceably like ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... report. He had tried this primitive trick so often that its very staleness infuriated the king, who invariably sent officers to seize the trembling accomplice and lock her up in a dismal cell as a hostage for the scribe's appearance. At dusk the poor fellow would emerge, contrite and terrified, and prostrate himself at the gate of the palace. Then his Majesty (who, having spies posted in every quarter of the town, knew as well as P'hra-Alack himself what the illness or the absence signified) ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... of my contrite fervor appeared upon a rock to bide; Yet see how by a crystal goblet it hath been shattered in ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... law of 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 ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... Here comes another: gentle words, my Queen, Let him take from thee now, and swiftly follow Contrite, and let the beauty of thy grief Bend pleading against ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... always eluded, were the perpetual, but ineffectual, attempts of all governments to restrain what, perhaps, cannot be restrained—criminal folly! And to punish a man for having ruined himself would usually be to punish a most contrite penitent. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... 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 heart. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... was correctly contrite, but Susan felt underneath the confidence that he would be forgiven—the confidence of the egotist giddied by a triumph. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... see," Jimmie began, in a contrite tone, "I thought of something, after you left, that I wanted to say to Frank, and I knew he'd have asked for me if he'd 'a' thought of it, ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... of his doubts and fears, his anxiety for the future and his regrets for the past, there came such a rich and abounding blessing, such an abundant answer to all his prayers, that for a season the Watchman was overwhelmed with contrite joy. For, after nearly a year of dissension, the congregations of Glenoro and the Tenth concession of Oro at last made choice of a minister, a choice which won the unanimous approval of both churches and suited ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... no pleasure in sacrifice, No delight in gifts of burnt-offering. The sacrifices pleasing to thee Are a broken and a contrite spirit. ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... all very 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 ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... power gone with unpleasant suddenness. He then got into a quarrel with General Cadwalader on account of his attacks on the commander-in-chief. The quarrel ended in a duel. Conway was badly wounded, and thinking himself dying, wrote a contrite note of apology to Washington, then recovered, left the country, and disappeared from the ken of history. Thus domestic malice and the "bitter party" in Congress failed and perished. They had dashed themselves in vain against the strong man who held firmly both soldiers ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... be angry," said Shakro in a contrite voice, touching my shoulder lightly. "Were you praying?' I didn't know it, for I never ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... forgive me for 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 taken, As if they to Thee were rendered. Count it, Father, as sufficient Chastening, ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... went with me to see an ordinary melodrama at the Queen's Theatre, Dublin, and he delighted to see how the members of the company could by the vehemence of their movements and the resources of their voices hold your attention on a play where everything was commonplace. He enjoyed seeing the contrite villain of the piece come up from the bottom of the gulch, hurled there by the adventuress, and flash his sweating blood-stained face up against the footlights; and, though he told us he had but a few short moments to live, roar his contrition with ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... 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 ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... Pisgah 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

... vile, vile; I know it!" cried Lebedeff, beating his breast with a contrite air. "But will not the general be too hospitable ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... dear, under the influence of great resentment against you, but Mayence never allows resentment or any other feeling to stand in the way of his own interests. If you wrote him a contrite letter regretting your defiance of him, and expressing your willingness to bow to his wishes, I am very sure he would welcome the communication as a happy solution of the quandary in ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... worked myself up into a proper heat, and pleaded all I knew with the man. I implored him to put mercy before justice for once, and assured him that 'twould pay him a thousandfold to let me off. I was contrite, and allowed that no doubt my views on the subject of game might be altogether mistaken. I took his word for it that he was right and I was wrong. In fact, I never talked so clever in all my life afore; but at the end it was that the ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... every sin. Backsliding children, we come to Thee as suppliants, Seeking Thee day by day with humble, urgent prayers. Account them unto us as blood and fat of offerings, Like sacrificial steers and rams accept our contrite words. O that our sins might be sunk in abysmal depths, And Thy brooding infinite mercy bring us ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... this government Rome assumed an air of exemplary behavior which struck foreigners with mute astonishment. Cardinals were compelled to preach in their basilicas. The Pope himself, who was vain of his eloquence, preached. Gravity of manners, external signs of piety, a composed and contrite face, ostentation of orthodoxy by frequent confession and attendance at the Mass, became fashionable; and the Court adopted for its motto the Si non caste tamen caute of the Counter-Reformation.[28] Aretino, with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... be looked to, by God himself cared for, and watched over, that no distress, temptation, or affliction may overcome them and destroy them—"To this man will I look," saith God, "even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word." It is the same in substance with that in the same prophet in chapter 57: "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... sanity, and heard from that lady a truthful report of all that had passed in her presence. He went frequently to Janet's cottage, and took all her home thrusts and all her scornful words in a manner so humble, so contrite, and so heart-broken, that the kind old woman began finally to forgive and comfort him. And the outcome of all these interviews and conversations Madame had to bear. Her son, in his great sorrow, threw off entirely the yoke of her control. He found his own authority and rather ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... of all those papers, and I did not dare to tell him that I had not chosen them myself, because he would then have accused me of laziness and extravagance and a whole host of unpleasant things, so I accepted his rebukes with a contrite spirit and wrote and told him, quite truthfully, that I read very serious papers nearly every week. But when you have been fairly caught buying a host of sporting and theatrical literature, it isn't much good trying to persuade ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... Divine mercy in past extremities; and doubtless she relied upon those promises for the future which induced in Mordecai a confident hope of deliverance. She remembered that Jehovah—the God of Israel—hears the prayers of the humble and the contrite. She appointed a solemn fast of three days, in which the Jews of Shushan should humble themselves and remember her before ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... a contrite heart can never appeal to your benevolence in vain, and, therefore, I presume to approach you in this season of delight, with the language of sorrow, requesting that you will espouse the cause of an ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... shade of suspicion even over Brutus's "god-like stroke," as Pope has exalted it. In Felton, a man acting from mixed and confused motives, the political martyr is entirely lost in the contrite penitent; he was, however, considered in his own day as a being almost beyond humanity. Mrs. Macaulay has called him a "lunatic," because the duke had not been assassinated on the right principle. His motives appeared even inconceivable ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... out through the 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 ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... forgotten those words," said Eleanor—"'Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? ... to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.' You will ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... wish I could believe that this final repentance of the resilient captain were sincere—but I cannot. Nor did Boston people believe it either, though that noble and generous-minded man, Winthrop, thought he saw at the time of confession evidences of a truly contrite heart. The Puritans sternly and eagerly cast out the gay captain to the Dutch when he became an Antinomian, and he came to live and fight and gallant in a town on the western end of Long Island, where he perhaps found a ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... this contrite mood, she began a determined assault against his resolution. For an hour she devoted her whole heart and soul to the task of overcoming his prejudices, fears and objections, meeting his protestations firmly and logically, unconscious of the fact that her very enthusiasm was ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... mourned for the cruel grief and suffering, such would have been his joy that the humble, penitent, obedient heart had been won at last. Above all, he would have rejoiced that the words that most soothed that wounded spirit were,—'A broken and contrite heart, O God, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... enforced retirement. Declining to walk to the place of detention he was placed on a stretcher, but the stretcher bearers were so inexperienced then that after a journey of about 200 yards he elected to march. On his release, the offender, very contrite and desiring to make the amende honourable, approached the warrant officer and explained that the statement previously made in regard to his figure ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... so far aware of his own weakness, as to admit to himself that he would have taken her back to him if she had answered his last letter in a contrite spirit and with affectionate words. He would have endeavoured to forgive if not to forget, and would have allowed himself to fall into the loving intimacy of domestic life,—but that she was cold and indifferent, ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... than this. A sudden wild 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 awaited her return. All else melted ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... 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 the stranger had but a moment before, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... We're so sorry. How do you do, Jimmy? It's awfully nice you can be with us." Mrs. Farwell was so contrite and charming that Bobbie's momentary huff disappeared as it always did before ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... found the farmer's pulse steadier, and saw in him a greater composure of mind. Learoyd spent long hours over his Bible, and it seemed at last as though his religious conversion was to be fully accomplished. Conviction of sin had been followed by contrite repentance, and soon, Mary hoped, he would attain that peace of mind which the sinner experiences when he knows that his ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman

... fall on, thou minister of vengeance; for I am a heavy sinner, and I dare not fight with thee.' How could I then attack him? A strange truce was agreed on between us. He is half as my vassal, and yet I solemnly forgave him in my own name and in that of my friends. He was contrite, and yet no tear was in his eye, no gentle word on his lips. He is only kept under by the power with which I am endued by having right on my side, and it is on that tenure that Biorn is my vassal. I know not, lady, whether you can bear ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... morning he was not only contrite, but badly frightened, yet when he undertook to make his peace he found her ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... as white as snow; and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool."(442) If they are as numerous as the sands on the seashore, they shall be blotted out, provided they come to you with contrite hearts. The sentence of mercy which you shall pronounce on earth I will ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... made her heart beat faster, and she never entered a ball-room without a sense of happy expectancy. Poor lady! she never left but she carried home heart-sickness, weariness, and a discontent of which she purged her soul, on her knees, before lying down to sleep. She had a contrite spirit; she knew that her lot was a fortunate one; but she envied her maid Polly her good looks at times. With Polly's face, she might have dancing to her heart's content. Usually she dropped some tears on her pillow after a ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 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

... His mission, so Christ announces, that His mission is specially directed to these, comp. e.g., Matt. v. 4; xi. 28. In order to be able to fulfil this mission. He must be able to draw from the fulness of God, who looketh to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, chap. lxvi. 2, and who alone understands to heal the broken in heart, and to bind up their wounds, Ps. cxlvii. 3.—In the words: "He wakeneth, &c." we are told in what manner the Lord gives to His Servant the disciple's tongue. To waken [Pg 252] the ear is equivalent ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... the penitent confessions with which his heart must have been full, and how hard it would have been to have met for the first time, and not to have poured them out! With most loving insight, then, into the painful embarrassment, and dread of unsympathising standers-by, which must have troubled the contrite Apostle, the Lord is careful to give him the opportunity of weeping his fill on His own bosom, unrestrained by any thought of others, and will let him sob out his contrition to His own ear alone. Then the meeting in the upper chamber will be one of pure joy to Peter, as to all the rest. The ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... prayer one night at Portiuncula when Jesus and the Virgin appeared to him with a retinue of angels. He made bold to ask an unheard-of privilege, that of plenary indulgence of all sins for all those who, having confessed and being contrite, should visit this chapel. Jesus granted this at his mother's request, on the sole condition that his vicar the pope would ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... him; he felt a little contrite, too—he remembered how her voice had suddenly dragged and fallen flat at his abrupt farewell.... She was disappointed in his reception of her offers of peace—she had been incapable of appreciating the attitude his sophistication was bound to take up ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... contrite cry. "It shall be as you say. Yet, though I should hate, I could not bear, to grieve you, I must confess that the height ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... take comfort a little before I go whence I shall not return even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death.(2) What dost Thou so much require of a guilty and miserable sinner, as that he be contrite, and humble himself for his sins? In true contrition and humiliation of heart is begotten the hope of pardon, the troubled conscience is reconciled, lost grace is recovered, a man is preserved from the wrath to come, and God and the penitent ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... 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 ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland

... the Saviour. It is upon his shoulder 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

... town thought he shammed his emotion the night he came to the church merely to mock them and their revivalist. But we in the office knew that Mehronay's Easter sermon had come as the offering of a contrite heart. It is in so many scrapbooks in the town that it should be reprinted here that the town may know that Mehronay wrote it. ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... 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 were so sore a-draining I had to put a rotten sweet ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the 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 forth tears ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... girl!" He was horribly disturbed and contrite. He patted her arm, awkwardly. She shook free of his hand, childishly. "Don't cry, dear. I'm sorry. It's just that I care ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... principally sick of the family evil, despondency; the sun is gone out utterly; and the breath of the people of this city lies about as a sort of damp, unwholesome fog, in which we go walking with bowed hearts. If I understand what is a contrite spirit, I have one; it is to feel that you are a small jar, or rather, as I feel myself, a very large jar, of pottery work rather mal reussi, and to make every allowance for the potter (I beg pardon; Potter with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... God the tears you are shedding came from a contrite and repentant heart," said the mother, with a tremor in her voice. "But they are only rebellious and passing drops, and I know that your ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... mean it, Liza.' He was so contrite, he could not humble himself enough. 'I 'ad another bloomin' row with the missus ter-night, an' then when I didn't find you 'ere, an' I kept witin' an' witin'—well, I fair downright lost my 'air. An' I 'ad two or three pints of four ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham

... inequalities of Andes and Himmaleh 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 ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... course," Leonard answered. He felt suddenly contrite. He noticed for the first time in his life that his father looked old and little, almost wizened, and there was something deferential in his manner toward his big son that smote Leonard. It was as if he were saying, ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway

... of these newspapers sent representatives to lodge in the village, many of them with photographic cameras. All this hateful notoriety I had brought upon myself, and did my best to bear like the humble, contrite Christian which I hope I may say I have become. We found no trace of our dear one, and never have to this day. Bran, too, had completely vanished. I have not cared to keep a ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett



Words linked to "Contrite" :   contriteness, penitent, remorseful, repentant



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com