Selected innocence quotes

1. Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.

2. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

3. Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?

4. The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.

5. A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.

6. I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there.

7. I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence.

8. Innocence is always unsuspicious.

9. Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime.

10. Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs.

11. I project a definite innocence. A lot of that is just the way I grew up.

12. Rich kids gave us their old clothes. They were the best clothes we ever had. We were these very pure, naive, poor children. The rich kids called us a lot of names but it never bothered us because we didn't know what the words meant.

13. The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said.

14. An honest man is always a child.

15. If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.

16. The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

17. Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

18. We're not in Wonderland anymore, Alice.

19. Beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.

20. The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven.

21. How full and rich a world Theirs to inhabit is- Sweet scent of grass and bloom, Playmates' glad symphony, Cool touch of western wind, Sunshine's divine caress. How should they know or feel They are in darkness? But, oh, the miracle! If a Redeemer came, Laid finger on their eyes- One touch and what a world, New-born in loveliness!

22. Children and fools cannot lie.

23. Thank God kids never mean well.

24. What is our innocence, what is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe.

25. Alas, regardless of their doom, The little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond today.

26. Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: 'Pipe a song about a Lamb.' So I piped with merry cheer; 'Piper, pipe that song again.' So I piped; he wept to hear.

27. The Angel that presided o'er my birth Said, 'Little creature, formed of joy and mirth, Go love without the help of any thing on earth.'

28. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

29. Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.

30. - A simple child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?

31. It is always and forever the same struggle: to perceive somehow our own complicity with evil is a horror not to be borne. ... much more reassuring to see the world in terms of totally innocent victims and totally evil instigators of the monstrous violence we see all about us. At all costs, never disturb our innocence. But what is the most innocent place in any country? Is it not the insane asylum? These people drift through life truly innocent, unable to see into themselves at all. The perfection of innocence, indeed, is madness.

32. I envy your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure - an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?

33. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. (p 1)

34. Children are persons. They are small persons whose perfect souls have not yet been ground through the meat grinder of slavery.

35. We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.

36. I'm very mature for my age, but I'm also innocent in a lot of ways. I'm complicated.

37. I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

38. Where children are, there is a golden age.

39. Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.

40. I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky: It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from Heaven Than when I was a boy.

41. Every Harlot was a Virgin once

42. But there still must be a way to have our children say... 'There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one.' (Live version)

43. The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble sheep a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

44. Then [she] wept with all her heart. Not for the cruel and greedy man who had warred and killed and savaged everywhere he could. But for the boy who had somehow turned into that man, the boy whose gentle hand had comforted her childhood hurts, the boy whose frightened voice had cried out to her at the end of his life, as if he wondered why he had gotten lost inside himself, as if he realized that it was too, too late to get out again

45. In planning a new picture, we don't think of grownups and we don't think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget...

46. Isn't it funny How a bear likes honey? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I wonder why he does?

47. L'homme enfin n'est pas entierement coupable - il n'a pas commence l'histoire - ni tout a fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.

48. The age of enlightenment, as people say, wanted to suppress the death penalty on the pretext that man was naturally good. Of course he is not (he is worse or better). After twenty years of our magnificent history we are well aware of this. But precisely because he is not absolutely good, no one among us can pose as an absolute judge and pronounce the definitive elimination of the worst among the guilty, because no one of us can lay claim to absolute innocence.

49. The triumph of the man who kills or tortures is marred by only one shadow: he is unable to feel that he is innocent. Thus, he must create guilt in his victim so that, in a world that has no direction, universal guilt will authorize no other course of action than the use of force and give its blessing to nothing but success. When the concept of innocence disappears from the mind of the innocent victim himself, the value of power establishes a definitive rule over a world in despair.

50. 'Teddy, you know what I was thinking? How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?' The bear shuffled its alternatives. 'Real things are good.' 'I wonder if time is good. I don't think Mummy likes time very much. The other day, lots of days ago, she said that time went by her. Is time real, Teddy?'

51. Maybe the trouble is that modern comics strive too hard to be sophisticated and knowing. What we've lost over the years is innocence and, as Keaton and company prove, innocence is an integral part of comedy.

52. She is a woman indeed! in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion, her most innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that who saw would say, Guilt was a thing impossible in her. Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature; and her taste, a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and draws in, at subtlest beauties, and most recondite faults.

53. A humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child's drawing of a cat, but gifted with the secret grace and obvious clumsiness of a penguin on terra firma) who is never so happy as when egoist-mouse, thwarting altruist-dog, hits her in the head with a brick. Dog hates mouse and worships 'cat', mouse despises 'cat' and hates dog, 'cat' hates no one and loves mouse.

54. I have talked to you in the past but we have always exchanged pleasantries. And it has always been assumed that I am Kaltenbrunner, the big bad man next to Himmler and the successor of Himmler. But I think you can see by this time, after having treated my brain hemorrhages, both in the hospital and here in my cell, that I am not the disagreeable, uncouth fellow the public probably thinks because of all the atrocities committed under Himmler's rule, and of which I am totally innocent.

55. A little while ago, not much more than a few days ago, I was a child who went about in a world of colors, of hard and tangible forms. Everything was mysterious and something was hidden, guessing what it was was a game for me. If you knew how terrible it is to know suddenly, as if a bolt of lightning elucidated the earth. Now I live in a painful planet, transparent as ice; but it is as if I had learned everything at once in seconds.

56. O the idea was childish, but divinely beautiful.

57. Till I had you I didn't know that I was missing out. Had to grow up and see the world through different shades of doubt. Give me one more chance to dream again. One more chance to feel again through your young heart. If only for one day let me try. I wanna see Christmas through your eyes. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Back to being a child again, thinking the world was mine . . . I see the rain, you see the rainbow hiding in the clouds. Never afraid to let your love show. Won't you show me how. Wanna learn how to believe again. Find the innocence in me again, through your young heart. Help me find a way, help me try. I wanna see Christmas through your eyes. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Back to being a child again, thinking the world was kind. I wanna see Christmas, Christmas through your eyes.

58. You can't indict a government and its organizations as criminal. The conception of the Reich government is a hundred years old. The general staff is several hundreds of years old. The case of the SS is another matter, because it was started with the party and by the party. But it's quite impossible to indict or convict an organization as criminal if it has in its membership millions of innocent people.

59. There were times at the theater when one or another of the young actors would make a pass, but invariably they reconsidered, deciding I was too 'sweet.' I was cursed with innocence.

60. Billy's agony, mainly proceeding from a generous young heart's virgin experience of the diabolical incarnate and effective in some men-the tension of that agony was over now.

61. He seems unable to brook any criticism or challenging of his stories or statements. My comments from time to time, my obvious failure to be convinced of his complete innocence and lack of guile were irritating to him, and his voice reached heights of shrillness at times. As ever, his is still the pose of outraged innocence, and the honest banker indignant.

62. At first flash of Eden, We race down to the sea. Standing there on Freedom's shore. Waiting for the sun...

63. Fay: I'm innocent till I'm proved guilty. This is a free country. The law is impartial. Truscott: Who's been filling your head with that rubbish? Fay: I can't be had for anything. You've no proof. Truscott: When I make out my report I shall say you've given me a confession. It could prejudice your case if I have to forge one.

64. McLeavy: I'm innocent. (A little unsure of himself, the beginnings of panic) Doesn't that mean anything to you?

65. A child laughs when it feels joy and cries when it feels pain. Both things, laughing and crying it does with its whole heart. We all became so tall and so clever. We know so much and we have read so much. But one thing we forgot: to laugh and cry like the children do.

66. I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden, Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen, Yet have I seen All of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.

67. Ooh, he's here again, The man with the child in his eyes.

68. She has always freely admitted being like a little girl in many ways, and furthermore, happily presumes she'll still be that way in her dotage. It's certainly still a factor on Aerial , both in the track 'Bertie' itself and in the memories and reminiscences that cobweb some other songs. But compared to the darker corners of the mind sometimes mined in earlier songs, the new album seems a much sunnier affair: an enduring image I took away from it - not necessarily a lyric, though it might have been - was of windows flung wide open, their curtains billowing out in the breeze, a room's long-dormant dust stirred into life again.

69. I have denied my eyes, both inner and outer. I am not a child, or virgin, or modest wife, fearing to offend. No one owns my eyes now but me. If I have not the stomach by now to look upon any sight in the world, good or evil, beautiful or vile, when shall I? It is far too late for innocence. My only hope is the much more painful consolation of wisdom. Which can grow out of knowledge alone. Give me my true eyes. I want to see. I have to know.

70. O Mirth and Innocence! O milk and water! Ye happy mixtures of more happy days.

71. He's sort of a fawn in a burning forest. It's a nice place where Michael comes from. I wish we could all spend some time in his world.

72. They had dropped the body behind a pile of cement blocks from a partly shattered wall, pulling a broken section of sheetrock over to hide it from casual view. But there's nothing casual about a little kid who liked to play in junk and found himself stumbling over the mutilated body of what had been a redheaded woman. At one time she would have been beautiful, but death had erased all that.

73. This is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood.

74. How do they manage it, these humans - beginning each time so innocently, yet always sending up with the most blood on their hands?

75. And the war rages on in a land called somewhere And Generals order their men to kill And to fight for a cause theyve long ago forgotten While a little cloud weeps on the side of a hill.

76. Sans doute vos chretiens, qu'on persecute en vain, Ont quelque chose en eux qui surpasse l'humain: Ils menent une vie avec tant d'innocence, Que le ciel leur en doit quelque reconnaissance; Se relever plus forts, plus ils sont abattus, N'est pas aussi l'effet des communes vertus.

77. Je me defendrai mal: l'innocence etonnee Ne peut s'imaginer qu'elle soit soupconnee.

78. Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence (1972)

79. Politics and Innocence: A Humanistic Debate (1986)

80. We cannot allow the spectacle of constant executions to be swept under the rug. We know that already over 100 individuals who were put on death row have been released. And we should shudder to think how many people have been sent to their deaths that were innocent.

81. The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.

82. It's a smile a girl could bring home to mother, if she had a mother; a smile a girl could pet like a pony, sip like a lemonade, hum like a popular tune; a smile a girl would feel safe with in a dark alley.

83. Il vaut mieux hasarder de sauver un coupable que de condamner un innocent.

84. People who have worked with me say I am 'innocence in action'. They say I have the innocence and unself-consciousness of a child. Maybe I have. I still look at the world with uncontaminated wonder, and with all living things I have a terrific sympathy. It was the most natural thing in the world for me to imagine that mice and squirrels might have feelings just like mine.

85. I would mould a world of fire and dew With no one bitter, grave, or over wise, And nothing marred or old to do you wrong.

86. Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.

87. I would like to think there's some purity in us, yeah, naive, y'know, purposely naive.

88. Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving? Over the sea. Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving? All that love me!

89. Thats the trouble. all i wanted was a tumble in the hay. oh, boy, i said. ill bet that cute thing is fun and games. what he doesnt know about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, i can sure teach him

90. 'At Gundar we conceive 'innocence' as a positive quality, not merely an insipid absence of guilt,' stated the Nolde. - the Nolde Huruska, in 'The Seventeen Virgins' from Cugel's Saga

91. What I'm telling you is, there's some people who do things so bad it tears the fabric of the world, and then there's some people so sweet and good that they can feel it when the world gets torn. They see things, they know things, only they're so good and pure that they don't understand what it is that they're seeing

92. There was no distinction between the innocent and the guilty, between those whose deaths achieved no purpose and those who had to die if mankind on treason was to mean anything

93. Dreaming of mercy st. wear your inside out dreaming of mercy in your daddy's arms again

94. You had to be so strong And you do nothing wrong Nothing wrong at all We're gonna to break it down We have to shake it down Shake it all around

95. When I see Aryan and Suhana, I see purity and spontaneity. Untouched by commerce, untainted by envy even as an actor, I grow simply by watching them. The truth is that I dont want to be this famous but absentee father. I want my children to flower under my care. - Shahrukh

96. Mama come rescue me I'm suicidal thinkin thoughts/I'm innocent, so there'll be bullets flyin when I'm caught/Fuck doin jail time, better day, sacrifice

97. Can anyone be proved innocent, if it be enough to have accused him?

98. Harvey: Elwood P. Dowd

99. The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.

100. Infancy, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven lies about us.' The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.