A generous confession disarms slander. [ Proverb ]

We have the confession of the accused. [ Law ]

An open confession is good for the soul. [ Proverb ]

Confession of a fault makes half amends. [ Proverb ]

Thou need'st not answer; thy confession speaks,
Already reddening in thy guilty cheeks. [ Byron ]

A knavish confession should have a cane for absolution. [ Proverb ]

He that repents of his own act either is, or was a fool by his own confession. [ Proverb ]

No receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. [ Bacon ]

People who love once in their lives are really shallow people. What they call their loyalty and their fidelity is either the lethargy of custom or lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what constancy is to the intellectual life, simply a confession of failure. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]

Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, the sailor perceives these decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day; and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all; and they give plenary and brief without listening to confession. [ Ruskin ]