mend one's ways; alter [change] from bad to good; amend one's conduct; break away from the evil and return to the virtuous way; cleanse one's heart and begin a new life; correct one's conduct; cut off [abandon; drop; give up] one's bad habits; forsake heresy and return to the right way; forsake the deflected course and return to the straight one; forsake vices and embrace orthodox ways; give up one's evil ways and return to the path of righteousness; leave false ways and come back to the true ones; leave the heterodox and come back to the orthodox; reclaim sb. from vice; reject evil ways and start on the right track; return to lawful living; return to the orthodox path; stop doing evil and reform oneself; turn from the ways of vice and follow the paths of virtue
辟邪歸正 repudiate heresy and restore orthodox religion
改邪歸正 forsake heresy and return to the truth; abandon the depraved way of life and return to the path of virtue; break away from evil ways and return to the orthodox path; forsake [give up] evil ways and return to the right path; give up an evil way of life and reform oneself; have a change of heart and do good; mend one's ways; return to a lawful way of living; stop doing evil and reform oneself; turn over a new leaf
去邪歸正 leave false ways and come back to the true; depart from the evil and return to the good; return to the orthodox path
言歸正傳 hark back to the subject; and now to be serious; come back to our story; come to business; get back to the “true story”; jesting [joking] apart; lead the conversation to serious things; return from the [a] digression; resume the thread of one's discourse; return to one's muttons [the subject]; revert to the original topic of conversation
Manon died in a desert , it is true , but in the terms of the man who loved her with all the strength of his soul and who , when she was dead , dug a grave for her , watered it with his tears and buried his heart with her ; whereas marguerite , a sinner like manon , and perhaps as truly converted as she , had died surrounded by fabulous luxury , if i could believe what i had seen , on the bed of her own past , but no less lost in the desert of the heart which is much more arid , much vaster and far more pitiless than the one in which manon had been interred 瑪儂死后,這個情人為她挖了一個墓穴,他的眼淚灑落在她身上,并且連同他的心也一起埋葬在里面了。而瑪格麗特呢,她像瑪儂一樣是個有罪的人,也有可能像瑪儂一樣棄邪歸正了但正如我所看到的那樣,她是死在富麗豪華的環(huán)境里的。她就死在她過去一直睡覺的床上,但在她的心里卻是一片空虛,就像被埋葬在沙漠中一樣,而且這個沙漠比埋葬瑪儂的沙漠更干燥更荒涼更無情。