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. 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.

42. 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.

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

44. 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.

45. 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.

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

47. 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.

48. 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.

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

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

51. 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.

52. 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.

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

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

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

56. 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.

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

58. 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.

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

60. 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.

61. 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.

62. 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.

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

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

65. 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

66. '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

67. 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

68. 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

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

70. 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

71. 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

72. 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

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

74. Harvey: Elwood P. Dowd

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

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

77. I've heard that story about kids are high naturally, but I've seen kids that aren't high, kids who've had the high taken out of them.

78. And there's kids playing guns in the streets And one's pointing his tree branch at me So I put my hands up I say 'Enough is enough, If you walk away I walk away.' And he shot me dead.

79. She is a combination of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth.

80. I love going to the park, watching the kids running around, yelling...they don't know I'm using blanks!

81. 'God save us always,' I said, 'from the innocent and the good.'

82. 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.

83. The hurt is in the act of possession; we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad my wife had struck out at me again - I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower.

84. He'll always be innocent, you can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.

85. Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets, With a third dog one of the two dogs meets; With angry teeth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.

86. Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye, and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.

87. When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

88. 'Why can't you fly now, mother?' 'Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way.' 'Why do they forget the way?' 'Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.'

89. L'innocence enfin n'a rien a redouter.

90. Innocence and purity are definitely themes that I've plodded about in over the years. They're themes I'm fascinated with, because for me, growing up in America in the '50s and just into the '60s, there was still some kind of innocence. There was hope. (2004)

91. I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I'd never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn't prove something had happened if it hadn't happened. And second, I hadn't killed anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time, anyway.

92. Bubbles! Oh come on Sharon! I'm fucking Ozzy Osbourne, I'm the Prince of fucking Darkness. Evil! Evil! What's fucking evil about a shitload of bubbles!?

93. Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art.

94. Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.

95. One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still.

96. People justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the ground that they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child as a living crime - heir to an infinite curse - doomed to eternal fire.

97. Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends.

98. The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

99. It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

100. Power and Innocence (1976)