Innocence Quotes

Speaking of [Philip] Larkin, in his poem about the First World War he wrote something like, "Never such innocence, before or since, that turned itself to past without a word".

If there is innocence on Earth again, I tend to imagine it in more [Henry David]Thoreau sort of terms.

I think the seventies caught the last red rays of the dying sun of this innocence, but were already a little cold and drab.

I suppose I could say that to be interested in innocence already suggests a remove from innocence, perhaps a longing for something that is lost.

You might call this innocence. I had a sense of another world that had not been spoken of to me.

What do you call a bad man? The sort of man who admires innocence.

God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence, and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices.

A new life is innocent, like an empty page, ready for the hard lessons ahead. GENNITA LOW, Facing Fear To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

I don't judge the character at all. It's a bit like being someone's defense lawyer - you have to believe in their innocence in order to defend them.

A creativity that comes out of meditative innocence, of meditative purity. And a real creator is possible only through meditation.

A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

In your heart there is innocence waiting to be free.

whatever a work of art may be, the artist certainly cannot dare to be simple. He must have a nature as complicated and as violent, as totally unsuggestive of the word innocence, as a modern war.

I haven't lost my innocence particularly. I'm always ready to pretend I haven't. Yeah, it is a shame in a way.

It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never maintain a single day of unmingled innocence.

But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime; An age that melts with unperceived decay, And glides in modest Innocence away

The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.

Few things are more aggravating than to be forgiven when one has done no wrong.

Although a man has so well purged his mind that nothing can trouble or deceive him any more, yet he reached his present innocence through sin.

There is an innocence or purity that we see in renewals and in the Mennonite church and a new an invigorated civil rights movement.

Innocence is impossible when people have never had the choice of becoming corrupt by dominating others.

In Baltimore, kids grow up very quickly. You're placed in a lot of situations that a child shouldn't be in and a lot of Baltimore kids lose innocence very soon.

Most men die many times in their lives. The man we become invariably slaughters the child we once were. His knowledge of the world murders the babe's innocence. from Time Untime by Sherrilyn Kenyon

What hope is there for innocence if it is not recognized?

Innocence as we understand it in our culture is very theatrical. The flip side is, if youre charming enough, you can get away with anything.

It seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.

My innocence is a dying flower

To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence.

It was quite a European war until 1917, when the Americans joined up. They don't have the same sense of the loss of innocence and the cataclysmic loss of life. A whole generation was wiped out.

I met Big Pun when I was a young boy. I think that he really gravitated to my innocence.

The feeble-minded, the neurotic, the criminal, perhaps, also, the artist, have unpredictability and perverted innocence in common.

There was a serenity about him always that had the look of innocence, when, technically, the word was no longer applicable.

Few can remember clearly when innocence came to a sudden end, the moment at which we ask for the first time: Am I loved?

Those who judge children in their innocence, prove themselves the lesser of character and the greater of ignorance.

Auguries of innocence "The emmet's inch and eagle's mile Make lame philosophy to smile. He who doubts from what he sees Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?

Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.

How beautiful is sorrow when it is dressed by virgin innocence! it makes felicity in others seem deformed.

Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart.

The trust I have is in mine innocence, and therefore am I bold and resolute.

Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.

I'm not saying eating babies should be legal, but when they're so delicious, what's the harm in it? I don't know what tastes better, their innocence or their gooey rib butter.

It takes a very long time to become young.

Cruel people are not only people who kill innocent people with guns. Individuals who steal from government coffers to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor are grossly cruel.

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Work, love, courage and hope, Make me good and help me cope!

You lost your innocence when you grew up, all right, everyone knew that, but did you have to lose your hope, as well?

There was an ocean above us, held in by a thin sac that might rupture and let down a flood at any second.