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Retribution   /rˌɛtrəbjˈuʃən/   Listen
Retribution

noun
1.
A justly deserved penalty.  Synonym: requital.
2.
The act of correcting for your wrongdoing.
3.
The act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done) especially in the next life.  Synonyms: payback, vengeance.  "For vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge" , "He swore vengeance on the man who betrayed him" , "The swiftness of divine retribution"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Retribution" Quotes from Famous Books



... distorted consolations of two erring and condemned souls, the righteous Churchman, with not very commendable taste, seizes upon as the moral of the book, leaving aside the terrible retribution which overtakes and blasts them so soon after their vain plan of flight and happiness. Not for a moment does Hawthorne defend their excuses ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... creeter that I wuz, a settin' in the shadow, when the sun wuz jest a gettin' ready to shine out onto Abram and reflect off onto my envious heart. Even at that very time the hand of righteous Retribution had slipped its sure noose over Bial Flamburg's neck, and wuz a walkin' him away from Ardelia, away from ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... find the consequences of his Satire thus rising up against him in a hostile shape, he was far more embarrassed in those cases where the retribution took a friendly form. Being now daily in the habit of meeting and receiving kindnesses from persons who, either in themselves, or through their relatives, had been wounded by his pen, he felt every fresh instance of courtesy from such quarters to be, (as he sometimes, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... say, harder still to feel, take the ungenerous delight; I give it to you as an alms. But remember that if I have failed, no less have you. For in that stormy heart of yours there is no sentiment more powerful than that you feel for me, and through it you will receive the retribution you have brought upon yourself. You were elated with success, and forgot too soon the character you had so well supported. You thought love blinded me, but there was no love; and during this month I have learned to know you as you are. A woman of strong passions and weak principles; hungry for ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... as he finds it, which seemed to afford an explanation of this leading psychological fact of an antecedent knowledge within us—the doctrine namely of metempsychosis, of the transmigration of souls through various forms of the bodily life, [66] under a law of moral retribution, somewhat oracularly suggested in the ancient poets, by Hesiod and Pindar, but a matter of formal consciousness with the Pythagoreans, and at last inseparably connected with the authority of Socrates, who in the Phaedo discourses at great length on that so comfortable ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... purposeful. Associations have been formed to oppose mob rule and to punish participants. Where reputable citizens are lukewarm it is largely because they have not realized that the old tradition that lynching is the proper remedy for rape cannot stand. If sudden, sharp retribution were inflicted upon absolute proof, only for this one cause, it is doubtful whether much effective opposition could be enlisted. Yet wiser men have seen defiance of law fail to stop crime, have seen ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... the warrior who combated for combat's sake, but of the hero who was vowed to conquer and to sway. From the far-distant days when Odin was driven from his territories by the romans, to the night polluted by the massacre of the hostages in Aquileia, the hour of just and terrible retribution for Gothic wrongs had been delayed through the weary lapse of years, and the warning convulsion of bitter strifes, to approach at last under him. He looked on the towering walls before him, the only ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... they never would, nor could, were fortune not in their favour. An accident it may appear; at the same time seeming a divine retribution for wrong—a very Nemesis in the path of the wicked Aguara. On returning past the spot where he had struck down Shebotha's slave, he sees the unfortunate man stretched along the ground, and, to all appearance, still insensible. Nought cares he for that, but his ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... embarrassments, brought about by a long course of secret fraud in selling wild lands, of which he had no titles, he was confined for debt in the very building in which the massacre occurred; where, as if by the retribution of Heaven for the part he once there acted, he soon died, unhonored and unlamented. And, what is still more remarkable, his remains were strangely destined to be denied even the respect of a common burial. For some exasperated creditor having attached the body, and the neighbors, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... immoral. (a) It rests on the old idea of retribution. (b) It tends to weaken the sacredness of human life. (c) It endangers the lives of innocent people. (d) Executions and the sensational newspaper accounts which follow ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... divine protection, distinctly given to England as the champion of justice, honour, and religion. I offer but the outline of this view; but to me the proof is demonstrative.—In every instance in which France aimed an especial blow at England, that blow was retorted by an especial retribution; while her assaults on the continental kingdoms were made with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... that a person who has deteriorated, who has become selfish, who has become mean, who has lost all taste for high and fine and sweet things, and is unconscious of them, is having meted out to him the worst conceivable retribution. If a man is mean and knows it, if a man is selfish and is conscious of it, if a man is unjust and is stung by the reflection, there is a little hope for him, there is life there, there is moral vitality, there is a chance for him to recuperate, to climb up into something higher and finer; ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... be carefully applied to the case of all other creatures, because, as we formerly remarked, the righteousness of the Creator ought to appear in everything." And again, "The inequality of circumstances preserves the justice of a retribution ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... schemers in office beware The swift retribution that waits upon crime, When the lion, RESISTANCE, shall leap from his lair, With a fury ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... own, The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone. Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed: See here what Elgin won, and what he lost! Another name with his pollutes my shrine: Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine! 120 Some retribution still might Pallas claim, When Venus half avenged ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... Mtanga, 'in the world beyond the grave, is represented as assigning to spirits their proper places,' whether for ethical reasons or not we are not informed.[6] Santos (1586) says 'they acknowledge a God who, both in this world and the next, measures retribution for the good or evil done ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... the first and primary duty. In fact, he considers it the foundation of all; and teaches that ancestors are to be worshipped after death, and their slightest command obeyed throughout life. He advocates subjection to superiors, and contentment with our lot, but appears to have no idea of retribution beyond this life; and although in his works the existence of a superior power is admitted, and he even says, in one instance, "Imperial Heaven has no kindred to serve, and will only assist Virtue," yet a favorite maxim of his, "Respect the gods, but keep them at a distance," ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... behold thy lost youth all aghast? Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow? Then turn from blotted archives of the past, And find the future's ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... soon come, now; the second would shortly follow, and then he and Fannie could go out on the veranda and settle all doubts. With certainty established in that quarter, whether it should bring rapture or despair, he hoped to command the magnanimity to hold over a terrified victim the lash of retribution, and then to pronounce upon him, untouched, at last, the sentence of exile. He spoke aloud, and looking up quickly to see if anyone had heard, beheld his image in a mirror. He knew it instantly, both by its frown and by ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. How extravagant soever the fees of counselors-at-law may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... would accompany you all the way, and we might stop at the houses of some of my friends. Still I must go a little way with you. Wait a moment; I will send for my horse: it is a poor animal—the only one those thieving French have left me. But a day of retribution is coming, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... risking the displeasure of the Turks by singing any Eussian songs. So far as my comprehension goes, the stories are chiefly of intrigue and love affairs among pashas, and would quickly bring the righteous retribution of the Lord Chamberlain down about his ears, were he telling them to an English audience. I have no small difficulty in getting the bicycle up the narrow and crooked stairway into my sleeping apartment; there is no fastening of any kind on the door, and the proprietor seems determined ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... a fight with another girl about suffrage—I don't know which side she was on, Beulah, I am merely giving you the facts as they came to me—and the other girl was so unpleasant about it that she has been visited by just retribution in the form of the mumps, and had to be sent home ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... less than half an hour, Shane had taken Alvord Hendricks into custody, and in due time that arch criminal received the retribution of justice. ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... cares) has suffered {dire} punishment; but what was the offence and what the retribution, I will inform you. The report of the iniquity of the age had reached my ears; wishing to find this not to be the truth, I descended from the top of Olympus, and, a God in a human shape, I surveyed the earth. 'Twere an endless task to enumerate how great ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... 'Devastation's' best bower-anchor to her snout, had I been allowed to follow out my wishes), stood gloating over the havoc she had caused. Then, in my wrath, I had hastily loaded a carbine with a handful of salt, and prematurely converted a portion of my enemy's flank into bacon; but even this just act of retribution was not to be accomplished without further loss to myself, for on receipt of my hint to move on, her sowship dashed straight ahead, and brought down a whole panel of my fence about her ears, owing to which the village cows, which I ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... he had begun to carry an aggrieved air—an air which suggested that he pitied himself, that he considered that he had been unfairly dealt with, that he was entitled to assume the attitude of an innocent, injured victim of some blindly-dealt retribution. What did that mean? The only explanation which his wife could find for this symptomatic manifestation had its origin in the unhappy episode of which the memory was always on the threshold of her solitary thoughts, and, perhaps, of his. She began to feel, with a certain compunction, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... it ever had any, had vanished under the rasp of his tortures. Even Alec, who, with others of the assembly, held down his head from sympathetic shame, could not help remembering how the master had made Annie Anderson stand upon the form, and believing for the time in a general retribution in kind. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... contracted for the same objects, and were in the main the same. Indeed, a great part of the particular debts of the states had arisen from assumptions by them on account of the union; and it was most equitable that there should be the same measure of retribution for all. There were many reasons, some of which were stated, for believing this would not be the case, unless the state debts should be ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Eleonore rode in that spring noon-day at the East Gate of Oxford, the reaping-time was not yet. The headstrong giddiness was a little toned down, but the terrible retribution had ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... The punishments of this life are medicinal rather than retributive. For retribution is reserved to the Divine judgment which is pronounced against sinners "according to truth" (Rom. 2:2). Wherefore, according to the judgment of the present life the death punishment is inflicted, not for every mortal sin, but only for such as inflict an irreparable ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... secret we plighted our troth, and exchanged those rings, and hoped and believed that by showing a bold front to our destiny we should subdue it to our will. The commencement was sinful, it has met with a dire retribution, Jules's letters announced his speedy return. He had sold everything in his own country, had given up all his mercantile affairs, through which he had greatly increased an already considerable fortune, and now ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... vanish. As the carriage vanished, so vanished the Prince from the scene of my adventures. It was but recently that I read of his marriage to the daughter of a millionaire money lender; and, unlike the villain in the drama, pursues the even tenor of his way, seemingly forgotten by retribution, which often ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... tools of Divine wrath," returned Preaux. "Look at the profaned sanctuaries and outraged convents on which these proud English have waxen fat, and say whether a heavy retribution be not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the teacher's part, we can have no sympathy for the sentimentality which assumes that the dignity of humanity is affected by a blow given to a child. It is wrong thus to confound self-conscious humanity with child-humanity, for to the average child himself a blow is the most natural form of retribution, and that in which all other efforts at influence at last end. The fully grown man ought, certainly, not to be flogged, for this kind of punishment places him on a level with the child; or, where it is barbarously inflicted, reduces him to the level of the brute, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... that if I could but procure money sufficient to pay Mr. Branghton, and make a journey to Scotland, I should soon be able to, by the public papers, to discover whom I had injured, and to make private retribution. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... Fatherland? It calls on spirits pale with wonder, In desperation's words of thunder, To rise and burst its chain asunder. On retribution's vengeful hand, On this calls ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various

... can safely declare, there is not a human being in the universe, whose prosperity I should not rejoice in, and to whose happiness I would not contribute to the utmost limit of my power: and may my offences be no more remembered in the day of general retribution, than as from my soul I forgive every offence or injury received from a ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... past tense for the future: implying that the hour of retribution is so certain, that it may be ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... after having spent thirty or forty days in Attica, retired for want of provisions. AEgina was also invaded, and the inhabitants were expelled and sent to the Peloponnesus. Megara was soon after invaded by an army under Pericles himself, and its territory was devastated—a retribution well deserved, for both Megara and AEgina had been ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... prophecy, Thorolf seeks refuge from a snowstorm in a wintry cave and there is forewarned of his impending death by Woden himself. He is surprised by the allies and slain. But no sooner is their purpose accomplished than Helga, his protectress, appears on the scene and smilingly assures them of retribution awaiting them. Her information that Kolbein is on the road to recovery strikes the nobles with dismay. Broddi immediately decides on assuming the aggressive; but on Brand's suggestion they choose first to cleanse ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... accompanied by the 'Retribution' and by the 'Lee' gunboat; and it was arranged that the Admiral ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... filled with pride, thou hast, before this, slain many Rishis living in the woods, and insulted the very gods. Thou hast slain also many great kings and many weeping women. For those transgressions of thine, retribution is about to overtake thee! I will slay thee with thy counsellors. Fight and show thy courage![59] O wanderer of the night, behold the power of my bow, although I am but a man! Release Sita, the daughter of Janaka! If thou dost not release ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Conscious of the injustice and wrong they are every hour{214} perpetrating, and knowing what they themselves would do if made the victims of such wrongs, they are looking out for the first signs of the dread retribution of justice. They watch, therefore, with skilled and practiced eyes, and have learned to read, with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slaves, through his sable face. These uneasy sinners are quick to inquire into the matter, where the slave is concerned. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... let fall during our intimacy I can state that this neglect was painful to him. But it was a just—perhaps too just—retribution for the fatality with which Rossini, doubtless in spite of himself, served as a weapon against Beethoven. The first encounter was at Vienna where the success of Tancred crushed forever the dramatic ambitions of the author of Fidelio; later, at ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... should be early in our repentance. If Providence had showered his blessings upon us in unparalleled abundance, we should show ourselves grateful for them by rendering them subservient to the purposes for which they were intended. There would be a day of retribution, wherein we should have to give an account of all those talents, faculties, and opportunities, with which we had been intrusted. Let it not then appear, that our superior power had been employed to oppress our fellow-creatures, and our superior ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... taxation and expenditure. Furthermore, he sought to cut loose from the discredited past of his party, and in paying high tribute to the patriotism of the South, he expressed the hope that its acceptance of the results of the war might end forever the retribution visited upon it by the standing ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... could scarcely be devised, than the ancient quarantine regulations; for they certainly would convert every house proscribed by their mark, into a den and focus of the most concentrated pestilential contagion, ensuring fearful retribution upon those who had thus so blindly shut them up. The mark alone, besides being equivalent to a sentence of death upon all the inmates, would effect all this—the sick would be left to die unassisted, unpurified, uncleansed amidst their accumulated contagion, and the ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... Thus I enter, and thus I go." Twenty-four hours after that peroration he awaited his doom, an object of ruthless execration. And visitors are still occasionally shown in the Hotel des Archives the table on which was endured his short but terrible retribution. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... in the world by Christianity has been largely counteracted by the pestilent doctrine on which all the Churches have insisted, that honest disbelief in their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offence, indeed a sin of the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future retribution as murder and robbery. If we could only see, in one view, the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the violations of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from this source ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... done her a wrong by suspecting the doctor, and was very kind to her that day. Poor 'Lina, we say it again, for hard, and wicked, and treacherous, and unfilial, as she had ever been, she had need for pity on this her wedding day. Retribution, terrible and crushing, was at hand, hurrying on in the carriage bringing Anna Richards to Spring Bank, and on the fleet-footed steed bearing the convict swiftly up the ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... violated a natural law and is suffering for it. Knowledge is inseparable from love in the scheme of life. Aprile too has sinned, but in the opposite manner; he has refused to know. He has loved blindly and immoderately, and retribution has overtaken him also: for he is dying. If the one existence has lacked sustaining warmth, the other has burned itself away. Aprile's "Love" is not however restricted to the personal sense of the word; it means the passion for beauty, the impulse to possess and to create it; everything which ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... loose tradition of her wrongs into history and ballad; and though justice, repentance, or retribution may make her cease to need vengeance, she will immortally remember her bondage, her struggles, her glories, and her disasters. Till her suffering ceases that remembrance will rouse her passions and nerve her arm. May she not forgive till she is no ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... pretty certain, however, that the recantation of Mirabeau, from avowed democracy to aristocracy and royalty, through the medium of enriching himself by a 'salva regina', made his friends prepare for him that just retribution, which ended in a 'de profundis'. At a period when all his vices were called to aid one virtuous action, his thread of vicious life was shortened, and he; no doubt, became the victim of his insatiable avarice. That he was poisoned is not to be disproved; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... of retribution was, however, not so far off as Felix imagined. Cunning people may go on cleverly in their devices for some time; but although they may escape once, twice, perhaps ninety-nine times, what does that signify?—for the hundredth time they come to shame, and lose all their character. Grown ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... David more did not Ahitophel, Spurring them on maliciously to strife. For parting those so closely knit, my brain Parted, alas! I carry from its source, That in this trunk inhabits. Thus the law Of retribution fiercely works in me." ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... thoroughly she is going to pay an awful price for the luxury she is experiencing while she pampers herself with the service of the Japanese, just as the South has pampered herself for generations with the service of the Negroes. When the Negroes learn what there is to know, then the day of retribution will be at hand. And this is not croaking, Katy. It is the truest gospel that was ever preached. Keep your eyes wide open for Japs. Keep your doors locked, and if you see one prowling around the garage and don't know what he is after, go to the telephone and ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... chance. The gods connive at them. They are ruled, like tragic characters, by necessity and blindness; but the blindness, instead of leading to tragic ruin, leads only to being caught as in some harmless game of blind-man's-buff. There is retribution, but Falstaff is only pinched by the fairies. Comedy of intrigue and comedy of character lead to no real catastrophe. The end of it on the stage is not death but matrimony; and "home well pleased ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... it the other way. Suppose you believe, be it never so dimly or feebly, in some kind of Judgment that is to be;—that you admit even the faint contingency of retribution, and can imagine, with vivacity enough to fear, that in this life, at all events, if not in another—there may be for you a Visitation of God, and a questioning—What hast thou done? The picture, if it is a good one, should have a deeper interest, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... age of 33, in sight almost of the famous dungeon of Perote, where he had long been a prisoner. There was something like retribution in the fact that more than one other Texan, who, like himself, had been confined there, contributed to raise above its battlements the colors of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... protect the Waelsung!" At this first intimation of rebellion in his child,—this incipient treachery of his own will,—Wotan becomes stern, lays down his command irrevocably, with threats of crushing retribution if this child of his shall dare to palter with his expressed will. "Keep a watch over yourself! Hold yourself in strong constraint! Put forth all your valour in the fight!... Have well in mind what I command: Siegmund is to fall! ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... another ending, and Nell Lawson have met with a just retribution. But, as is the case of many other women—and men—with natures such as hers, she did not. For when old Channing lay dying she nursed him tenderly to the last, and perhaps because of this, or for that he could never understand why blue-eyed ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... Sofia and Vienna, and in Berlin and St. Petersburg to a lesser degree. What retribution would Austria demand? The Austrian press openly avowed that the plot on the archduke's life had been hatched in official circles in Serbia, and the Austrian Government made no attempt to suppress these statements. One hour after the tragedy had taken place ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... know what you think, General," retorted Barclay, bitterly. "I know your idea; you think it's retribution." ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... journals, that it is of the German free thinking class of philosophical histories. It embraces dissertations on Intellectual Religion, Ancient Cosmogony, the Metaphysical Idea of God, the Moral Notion of God, the Theory of Mediation, Hebrew Theory of Retribution and Immortality, the Messianic Theory prevailing in the days of Jesus, Christian Forms and Reforms, and Speculative Christianity. And these dissertations are written with an eloquence and power unexampled in a ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... good people forgive they betray his justice. For punishment is not retribution only, but the acknowledgment and recompense of those fighting ones that brave hunger and cold in a garret, Madame, yet do ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... the little community, and when finally Emily said to me; "I guess you done about right shirking off Beck, teacher. I guess she ain't no better than she ought to be:" in spite of what I felt to be my own unblemished conscience in the matter and the justice of the retribution which was overtaking Rebecca, I went often to my little room and cried bitterly for her, as well as ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... had followed the course of these proceedings with a beating heart; for too plainly had he read in the dark and threatening manner both of men and women, that the retribution about to be wreaked upon himself would be terrible indeed. Much as he clung to life, and bitterly as he mourned his early cutting off from the affections hitherto identified with his existence, his wretchedness ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... to the throne of his father, rescued his kingdom from the hands of the English, and died through abstinence from food, self-imposed from fear of poison. Far more wise and more pious is it to leave such speculations, and to refer all to that day of final retribution, when the righteousness of the supreme Ruler of man's destinies shall be made as clear as the light, and his just dealing as ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... would be a grass widow, a subject for all the vulgar jest and loathsome wit of the community. Country people know how to sting and annoy in a thousand ways. However, the possibility of this sort of retribution was put entirely away by the baby's illness. By the time Jack had recovered, the young mother was worn to a lifeless machine, compelled to accept what came to her. Her youth, her health, her strength were ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... indignant and relieved to realize that thereafter they were to move in scenes in which his hateful shadow would not form an essentially component part, subsequently Kirkwood fell a prey to prophetic terrors. It was not alone fear of retribution that had induced Hobbs to relinquish his persecution—or so Kirkwood became convinced; if the mate's calculation had allowed for them the least fraction of a chance to escape apprehension on the farther shores of the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... your own; alternate feed Each at the other's cost; but if it seem Wisest in your account and best, to eat Voracious thus the patrimonial goods Of one man, rend'ring no account of all,[5] Bite to the roots; but know that I will cry Ceaseless to the eternal Gods, in hope That Jove, for retribution of the wrong, Shall doom you, where ye have intruded, there To bleed, and of your blood ask no account.[5] 480 He ended, and each gnaw'd his lip, aghast At his undaunted hardiness of speech. Then thus Antinoues spake, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... beings, such as plants—and the difference of these classes depends on the individual Selfs being joined to various bodies capacitating them to experience the results of their works, each in that one of the fourteen worlds—beginning with the world of Brahma—which is the suitable place for retribution. For in themselves, apart from bodies, the individual Selfs are not distinguished as men, gods, and so on. In the same way the story of the devas and Asuras approaching Prajapati with fuel in their hands, staying with him as pupils for thirty-two ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... others. We have, for several stories, laughed amain at tricks that have been played upon folk and whereof no vengeance is recorded to have been taken; but I purpose now to cause you have some compassion of a just retribution wreaked upon a townswoman of ours, on whose head her own cheat recoiled and was retorted well nigh unto death; and the hearing of this will not be without profit unto you, for that henceforward you will the better keep yourselves from making mock of ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... floating down the creek—I could see in the moonlight. 'Serves you right, you old skinflint,' I said to myself. 'But it's none of your business.' So I turned about and went back to the road. Couldn't help feeling kinda glad about it." He paused and drew a deep, painful breath. "I guess it's all just retribution. Shouldn't have enjoyed a man's misfortune. I missed the edge of the road, slipped, and fell across the big eight by eight that ties the bridge to the bank, and that's all I remember. Old Burrus pulled me out of ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... Lemuria may well have provided the raw material for such an eschatology, while those at the root of the Parentalia could not have done this. Dr. Westermarck has recently shown that primitive religions do spontaneously generate the idea of moral retribution after death, e.g. the notion that the souls of bad people may reappear as evil spirits or obnoxious animals.[860] We have no proof whatever of the existence of such notions at Rome; but I contend that the permanence of this ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... the house had returned, and all the familia and freedmen bustled about their various tasks with the unusual promptitude and diligence which is the outcome of a healthy fear of retribution for slackness. Lentulus went into the atrium, and there had an angry conference with the local land-steward, over some accounts which the latter presented. In fact, so ill was the humour of the noble ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... the cargoes of ships that have been robbed by those desperate men who have been and still are the terror of the sea; but why they left this place so suddenly is difficult to divine, unless, perhaps, retribution fell upon them when they were out at sea on some of their marauding expeditions. Evidently a lady has lived here, too; perhaps they took her with them on their last voyage, and she also may have been lost, so I think we may feel we are not doing wrong ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul

... and they preferred to beg by force, like the "gentlemen of the road." So they bided their time, till Ferdinand the Catholic passed away to his account, and then, in defiance of the Penon, and reckless of all the pains and penalties of Spanish retribution, they threw up their allegiance, and ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... from appropriation). In the state of nature everyone has the right to defend himself against attack and to revenge himself on the evil-doer; but in the political community, founded by contract, personal revenge is replaced by punishment decreed by the civil power. The aim of punishment is not retribution, but reformation and deterrence. It belongs to God alone to punish because of sin committed, the state can punish only to prevent it. (The antithesis quia peccatum ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... And now retribution overtook the invalid. The Red Cross had made a marvellous name for itself in San Francisco, and was already organized and doing wonders at Honolulu. Its ministrations had been gladly accepted by ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... the whole duty of children. And although a desire not to transgress his code regarding silence and decorum in such parts of the house as were within ear-shot of his study was strong in the children, knowing how swift and sure was the retribution overtaking such offenders—yet, however willing the spirit, the flesh was weak, and succumbed to temptations to jump whole flights of stairs, to slide down bannisters, arriving with a sounding thump at the bottom, and ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... own, she determined to deal with them openly; and acknowledged, therefore, in her letter, her marriage without disguise, but begged their patience and secresy, and promised, in a short time, the most honourable retribution ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... intrigue will confound his tricks, and will deprive him of his power; he governs by means of corruption, and his immoral practices will redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct in the political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement where he may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely to remain for ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... connects it with himself; it is not heredity; it is not his father's character that invests him. This Kharma may have crossed the ocean from the death-bed of some unknown man of another race. The doctrine is the more astonishing when we consider that no Supreme Being is recognized as claiming this retribution. There is no God; it is a vague law of eternal justice, a law without a law-giver or a judge. There can therefore be no pardon, no commutation of sentence, no such thing as divine pity or help. The only way in which one can disentangle himself is by breaking forever ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... and at the same time defrauded of the happiness which this night of the full moon contained for her. Or had the demons who promised happiness meant something else in their prediction than Hermon's love? Was she to owe the bliss they had foretold to hate and pitiless retribution? ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection: the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... her children's blood; she had been trampled under the iron heel of the conqueror for centuries; she had been exhausted by the payment of taxes and tribute; she had had to bow the knee, and lick the dust under the conqueror's feet—was not retribution needed for all this? True, she had at last risen up and expelled her enemy, she had driven him beyond her borders, and he seemed content to acquiesce in his defeat, and to trouble her no more; but was this enough? Did not the law of eternal justice ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... sustained material injuries to their property. The obligation and policy of indemnifying them are strong and obvious. It may also merit attention whether policy will not enlarge this provision to the retribution of other citizens who, though not under the ties of office, may have suffered damage by their generous exertions for upholding the Constitution and the laws. The amount, even if all the injured were included, would not be great, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in the genocide of roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the killing in July 1994, but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees - many fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and the former Zaire. Since then, most of the refugees have returned to Rwanda, but about 10,000 that remain in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo have formed an extremist insurgency bent ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... if meteors of vast proportions had fallen from heaven to earth, taking fire in their descent. There is a shock which shakes all Memphis, and announces to the disappointed, terror-stricken, weeping, humiliated multitude that the drama which they have played so madly for a twelvemonth is over, that retribution for crime ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... his breast with cunning! Soon Odin, soon will thy beloved be silent; Soon from thy sight will Balder flit for ever; Then will it be thy turn to mourn, O tyrant! It comes—the long-protracted day of vengeance! It comes—the sigh'd-for hour of retribution! How long hast thou not tortur'd Loke's bowels, And fearless trampled 'neath thy feet his offspring? Hear Hael and Fenris' Wolf, and Midgaard's Serpent— Loud howl they!—hear them night and day proclaiming Thy unmatched cruelty with frightful voices! Each of them was a god, and fair ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald

... to the desire of explaining unusual natural appearances, coupled with the idea that sin must be followed by retribution, we also owe the well-known Niobe myth. Having incurred the divine wrath, Niobe saw those dearest to her destroyed by missiles from heaven, and was finally transformed into a rock on Mount Sipylos which bore some vague resemblance to the human form, and her tears became ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... fallen, they say: and that was Karma; because Paris, and Troy in supporting him, had sinned against Zeus the patron of hospitality,—to whom the offense rose like vultures with rifled nest, wheeling in mid-heaven on strong oars of wings, screaming for retribution. —You may not that Aeschylus' freedom from the bonds of outer religion is like Shakespeare's own: here Zeus figures as symbol of the Lords of Karma; from him flow the severe readjustments of the Law;—but in ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... sickness grew, he became confirmed in this conviction. While he could not be said to find satisfaction in Slavin's impending affliction, he could hardly hide his complacency in the promptness of Providence in vindicating his theory of retribution. ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor

... so, Mollie," with a dreary sigh. "You can't wish I had never married more than I do. It's a righteous punishment upon me, I suppose. I've been the greatest villain unhung to the only woman who ever did love me, and now this is retribution." ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... things were artificial birds, made in imitation of turkeys with plumage of worked gold; there were also fifteen hundred robes of delicate cotton cloth. The emperor's message expressed regret for the late catastrophe, and denied all knowledge of the plot which had, he said, brought a retribution upon its authors which they richly deserved; and he explained the presence of the Aztec force in the neighbourhood by saying that there was a disturbance that had to be quelled. More than a fortnight had passed since the Spaniards entered Cholula, and the general had, after the city was once ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... abuse Defames my grey hairs rather than thine own? Murder and incest, deeds of horror, all Thou blurtest forth against me, all I have borne, No willing sinner; so it pleased the gods Wrath haply with my sinful race of old, Since thou could'st find no sin in me myself For which in retribution I was doomed To trespass thus against myself and mine. Answer me now, if by some oracle My sire was destined to a bloody end By a son's hand, can this reflect on me, Me then unborn, begotten by no sire, Conceived in no mother's womb? And if When born to misery, as born I was, I met my sire, not ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... some said by a fall in climbing over a stone wall, some said by a severe fit of coughing, had caused his old wound to beset him again with danger of his life. That night, indeed, the tide of rancorous gossip swelled high. The spirit of persecution and righteous retribution which finds easy birth in New England villages was fast getting to itself feet and hands and tongue and a whole body ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... which sometimes bear the appearance of temporal judgments. It is a fact worthy of observation, that Hispaniola, the place where this flagrant sin against nature and humanity was first introduced into the New World, has been the first to exhibit an awful retribution. ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... might come into His presence in Heaven. Alas! the shrinking from suffering we cannot help. That part of her prayer was vain. And as for the rest, was not the sure justice of His law finding her out even now? His laws once broken, His justice and the very nature of those laws bring the immutable retribution; but if we turn penitently to Him, He enables us to bear our punishment with a meek and docile heart, "for His ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the matter up well as they can, but it is many days before Florence or her husband, or any of their guests, forget the dreadful hour in which they discovered the unsightly remains of him who had been overtaken by a just and stern retribution. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... developed and exalted by the responsibilities she had accepted, and by the purity of her grief. She submitted, as a just retribution, to the solitude and humiliation of her wedded lot; she earnestly, virtuously strove to banish from her heart every sentiment that could recall to her more of Darrell than the remorse of having darkened a life that had been to her childhood so benignant, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... retaliation, reprisal, retort, payback; counter-stroke, counter-blast, counterplot, counter-project; retribution, lex talionis[Lat]; reciprocation &c. (reciprocity) 12. tit for tat, give and take, blow for blow, quid pro quo, a Roland for an Oliver, measure for measure, diamond cut diamond, the biter bit, a game at which two can play; reproof ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... see the closing in of the forces of retribution about the center of the malignant ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the Baltic, he unburdened himself in more explicit fashion: "Es ist ein Verbrechen gegen das Deutschtum" ("It is a crime against Germanity"). By this he probably meant that Germany, feeling her own interests assailed by the Serajevo crime, would make common cause with Austria to exact a full retribution. With more self-control than usual, however, he abstained from all further public ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... owe a double service—service to your God as well as to your country; and that he who is faithless to the God of his fathers can never be faithful to his country." And now, when the day of ambition with me is long past and gone, and when that day of retribution, which, as it cometh to all, so it shall come to us, is drawing nigh, I may say that it ever has been my fervent and steadfast prayer to be able to illustrate in my humble life the precept of my ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... consideration the merits of the parties; corrective justice is concerned only with restoring a balance which has been disturbed. The distribution is a question not of equality, but of right proportion; and this applies to retribution, which is recognised as one of its aspects, e.g., the retribution for an officer striking a private and for a private striking an officer. Proportional requital is the economic basis of society, arrived at by the existence of a comparatively unfluctuating currency ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... their old neighbor and charitably drop a veil over his attempted crime, which had brought upon him such fearful retribution. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... bedroom, the woman in question gave some provocation. She may by act or word have irritated her assailant and in certain instances evidence has been supplied both as to the provocation offered and as to the retribution inflicted. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... operated to the destruction of the true morality, both in theory and practice, must have had a fatal augmentation of its power in that part especially of this ignorance which respected hereafter. The doctrine of a future existence and retribution did not, in any rational and salutary form, interfere in the adjustment of the economy of life. The shadowy notion of a future state which hovered about the minds of the pagans, a vague apparition which alternately came and vanished, was at once too fantastic and too little of a serious ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... murdered him!" Her agonies, her yells, her attempts at self-violence, were now so dreadful, that Bruce, raising her bleeding from the hearth on which she had furiously dashed her head, put her into the arms of the men who attended her, and then, with an awful sense of Divine retribution, left the apartment. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... the crumbling fragment; years, aye, centuries had rolled away, yet there it still stood, arrested it seemed even in its decay, not permitted to crumble into dust, but to remain an everlasting monument of crime and its retribution. After a brief pause Nigel resumed his seat, and pushing the hair from his brow, which was damp with some untold emotion, signed to the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... opinion of the entire Knight family in all its unmitigated and complete badness. Mrs. Knight herself he had called a blood-sucker, it seemed—the good woman shook with rage at the memory—and he had threatened her with the direst retribution if she persisted in attempting to fasten herself upon him. Bob, he had explained, was a loafer whom he had supported out of a sense of duty; if the idiot was ungrateful he would simply have to suffer the consequences. But Bob's mother felt ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... third to be informed why he received no answers to letters addressed to friends in Cuba, and so on. But if the tables were turned upon us, there is no point on which we should be found open to a more fearful retribution than on this. I know an American gentleman of education—and he told me the story himself—who applied at Washington for letters to our diplomatic representatives in Europe, and who had sufficiently ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... the Divine blessing upon those who, when they emancipated themselves, were so unjust as to hold their fellow-creatures in bondage. The time will come, I have no doubt, although perhaps not any of us here present may see the day, when the retribution will fall upon their heads, or rather upon the heads of their offspring; for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation. But it is time for us to think of retiring—good-night, and ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... nation truly lives, it unfolds its specific idea and lives according to its original type. When it fails to do this, the sentence of decay is already written upon it. If it fails to illustrate God's purpose in its obedience, it illustrates His control in retribution. For there is nothing supreme, nothing finally triumphant, nothing of the last importance, but His Law. It penetrates, and oversweeps, and survives all charters and institutions and nationalities, like ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... achieved by anti-English propaganda, we find the Boer nation, from the Zambesi to the Cape, unanimous in convictions as to their fancied claims, their own absolute innocence, and the immeasurable guilt of the British Government, abetted by capitalism—guilt which cries to heaven for retribution; and those convictions take with each man the form of a resolute patriotism wherein mingled fanaticism and religious fervour in their cause form a ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... and coiled. It was a fitting piece to accompany the gruesome occupant of the little room in his long, last vigil. In fact, it almost sent a shudder over me, and if I had been inclined to the superstitious, I should certainly have concluded that this was retribution for having disturbed the lares and penates of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... your map of Africa. There above Cape Blanco, where the land trends away north and south from the westernmost point of the continent, there it is that Septimius Goring still reigns over his dark subjects, unless retribution has overtaken him; and there, where the long green ridges run swiftly in to roar and hiss upon the hot yellow sand, it is there that Harton lies with Hyson and the other poor fellows who were done to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that this precipitated his condemnation, since he himself seems to have designed precisely that result. The exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his cruel death; and when men's minds had cooled, natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on such a man. His words had been met with deeds: the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of Jerusalem; and to the Jews who assembled from distant parts at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... upon her mind against corrupting his daughter, when such an effect might contribute to answer the purpose which she had in view. But in the ingratitude of Tiberius, however undutiful and reprehensible in a son towards a parent, she at last experienced a just retribution for the crimes in which she had trained him to procure the succession to the empire. To the disgrace of her sex, she introduced amongst the Romans the horrible practice of domestic murder, little ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... publicity can only harm," he said at last. "We will see what can be done. I'll take the proper steps. It can be done legally and verified by the other witnesses. The butler identifies her, you say. It's a curious case of retribution. I can't help imagining Mahr's feelings when he recognized her voice. Is your patient at all dangerous otherwise?" He addressed himself ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... indignant neighbours round the door. To look for her would have been absurd. Louise was much too clever to disappear and leave traces behind. Besides, he had no wish to find her. The hereditary self in him accepted his disaster as representing the natural retribution which the canny Divine vengeance keeps in store for those who take to themselves wives of the daughters of Heth. And there was the sense, too, of emerging from something ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... which the laundress accepted without question, or pretended to do so; and immediately after the funeral, the mourners returned to Rome, hoping at length to enjoy quietude and peace. For some time, indeed, they did enjoy tranquillity, perhaps poisoned by remorse, but ere long retribution pursued them. The court of Naples, hearing of the sudden and unexpected death of Francesco Cenci, and conceiving some suspicions of violence, despatched a royal commissioner to Petrella to exhume the body and make minute inquiries, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... from the altar. Now a supreme act of insolent impiety; Samson, too, shall sacrifice to Dagon. A boy is told to lead him where all can witness his humiliation. Samson feels that the time for retribution upon his enemies is come. He asks to be led between the marble pillars that support the roof of the temple. Priests and people, the traitress and her dancing women, the lords of the Philistines, the rout of banqueters and worshippers—all hymn ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... were subjected, the might of Germany was concentrating its power; the enthusiasm of her people was animating the soldier's courage, and the virtue of her inhabitants was sanctifying the soldier's cause: and when at last the hour of retribution arrived, when the sufferings of twenty years were to be revenged, and the disgrace of twenty years was to be effaced; it was by the energy of her people that these sufferings were revenged, and by the sacrifices of her people, that these victories ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... unbelieving, those who have no hope; as Paul has said—"That ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope." And observe how carefully he expresses himself; for he does not say, Those who have not the hope of a resurrection, but simply, Those who have no hope. He that has no hope of a future retribution has no hope at all, nor does he know that there is a God, nor that God exercises a providential care over present occurrences, nor that divine justice looks on all things. But he that is thus ignorant and inconsiderate is more unwise than a beast, and ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... them," said the skipper. "They will not come. They have gotten Herr Arne's hoard to share amongst them, and are even now measuring out silver coin in their hats. For the sake of this money the evil deed was done, and this money has now brought retribution upon you." ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... may be experienced by those who upon earth make only a selfish and heartless use of wealth and position and opportunity. The consequences are shown to be as endless as they are distressing. A time of reversal is to come, a time of judgment and retribution. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... afternoon. Avery, inspired by the merriment around her, was in a frankly frivolous mood. She was fast friends with the two elder boys, who had voted her a brick on the night that she had intervened to deliver them from the just retribution for their misdeeds. They had conceived an immense admiration for her which placed her in a ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... expressed satisfaction of Honorable John Company and English merchants. But my position, sir, is of Damoclean anxiety. I am horrified by conviction that one small error of calculation will entail direst retribution. Videlicet, sir, this week a fellow captive is minus a finger and thumb—and all for oversight of six annas {the anna is the 16th part of a rupee}. But I hear the step of our jailer; I must bridle ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... his origin;—his tastes were all on the side of the splendid and the arbitrary. The chief recommendation of the cause of India to his fancy and his feeling was that it involved the fate of ancient dynasties, and invoked retribution for the downfall of thrones and princedoms, to which his imagination, always most affected by objects at a distance, lent a state and splendor that did not, in sober reality, belong to them. Though doomed to make Whiggism his habitual haunt, he took his perch at all ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... imposing, Diana. It's so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic asylum. I thought that was a poetical retribution for ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... taken,—a full and furious vengeance exacted. The whole army mourned for their companions; holy rites attended their stately burial; Ganelon was tried, condemned, torn to pieces by wild horses. But the joy of the Franks, their hero, their idol, was gone forever from them; retribution, even the bitterest, could count for little against the passing ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... harvest is not fully grown nor ripened yet; it is not reaped in all its extent; the bitter bread is not baked and eaten as it will have to be. Nor are men's consciences so awakened that they connect the retribution, which does befall them, with its causes in their own actions, as closely as they will do when they are removed from the excitement of life and the deceit of its dreams. 'Sentence against an evil work ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... course to him. It seemed to me a supreme test. I believe—no, I don't believe. I don't know. At the time I was certain. They all went down; and I don't know whether I have done stern retribution—or murder; whether I have added to the corpses that litter the bed of the unreadable sea the bodies of men completely innocent or basely guilty. I don't ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... went on, picking up his narrative, "it was not long before retribution overtook the Arabs. One night their camp was attacked by a tribe whose village they had raided and sacked some time before and only a few of them escaped, among them must have been Muley-Hassan, though, till you told me of him, I believed him dead. The savages, seeing that I was not one ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... perched hard by the eagle's crag, Loud cawed his fellows from afar to feast. Ill-omened bird—his carrion-cries were vain! Again our veteran eagles plumed their wings, And forth he fled from Montezuma's shores— A dastard flight—betraying unto death Him whom he dazzled with a bauble crown. Just retribution followed swift and sure— Germania's eagles plucked him at Sedan. A gloomy month wore off, and then the news That Lee, emboldened by his late success, Had poured his legions upon Northern soil, Rung through the camps, and thrilled the mighty heart Of the Grand Army. Louder than ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... heard from again. He probably died there, a miserable sot, and Benjamin lost all the money he lent him. In later life, Benjamin Franklin referred to this event, and spoke of himself as having received retribution for his influence over Collins. For, when they were so intimate in Boston, Benjamin corrupted his religious opinions by advocating doubts about the reality of religion, until Collins became a thorough sceptic. Until that time he was industrious, temperate, and honest. But having lost ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... in the course of earthly greatness a day of culminating triumph is often paid for by a morrow of sudden extinction. Let us hope it is so. Yet the dawn of that day of retribution may be a long time breaking above a dark horizon. War is with us now; and, whether this one ends soon or late, war will be with us again. And it is the way of true wisdom for men and States to take account ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... of compensation. For ten years Elsa has been the flower o' the corn for me. She almost loved me. And one day she sees you; and in that one day all that I had gained was lost, and all that you had lost was gained. The law of compensation. Sometimes we escape retribution, but never the law of compensation. Some months ago she wrote me a letter. She was always direct. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... headache, have ye? Well, that's retribution, Mr. Hewett. You ought to have a headache. You've led my husband astray. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... speaking here of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future retribution; but I am considering the faculty of reason actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against it, in the long run; and hence it is that in the ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman



Words linked to "Retribution" :   correction, penalty, retaliation, revenge, rectification



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