INNOCENCE QUOTES
quotations about innocence
It’s innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn’t.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
The Neurotic's Notebook
We may think of children as being innocent, but the experience of innocence is a way of being, a chosen state of mind--and one that can be experienced at any stage of life.
JOHN B. IZZO
Second Innocence
Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Quiet American
Innocence can never perish;
Blooms as fair in looks that cherish
Dim remembrance of the days
When life was young, as in the gaze
Of youth himself all rosy-clad,
Whom but to see is to be glad.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
"Innocence"
Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse; clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.
WALTER LIPPMANN
Drift and Mastery
That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end.
LISE HAND
attributed, The Truth in Words
Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Quiet American
Innocence and mysteriousness never dwell long together.
ROUSSEAU
attributed, Day's Collacon
Fair innocence, thou lovely Thing, unblemisli'd and unstained,
All spotless is thy snowy wing, thy light hath never waned.
H. ROWLAND HARDING
"To the Spirit of Innocence"
When we take revenge against another, we lose some of our innocence.
PATRICE REDD VECCHIONE
Revenge and Forgiveness
Innocence is the weakest defense. Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, "I didn't do it." Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.
LEONARD F. PELTIER
Prison Writings
What can innocence hope for,
When such as sit her judges are corrupted!
PHILIP MASSINGER
The Maid of Honour
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
WILLIAM BLACKSTONE
Commentaries on the Laws of England
Innocence is the wonderment of life.
DAVID MATTHEW BROWN
The Book of Light
We each begin in innocence.
We all become guilty.
LEONARD F. PELTIER
Prison Writings
To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.
OUIDA
Two Little Wooden Shoes
Always the innocent are the first victims.... So it has been for ages past, so it is now.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
PATRICK ROTHFUSS
The Name of the Wind
Innocence is destroyed by contact with the world.
AL-FORABI
attributed, Day's Collacon
I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
JESUS
Matthew 10:16