Quotes About Innocence

It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

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.

Innocence ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know. Innocent little kids rip the wings off flies, because they don’t know any better. That’s innocence

Innocence never gets destroyed because it is eternal, but it may happen that it will get covered with some clouds by our mistakes that we commit. But once you get your Realization, your innocence is re-established, manifests, and you become innocent. Your attention becomes innocent.

To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost." So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions." An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.

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

She felt him tremble with the force of his need. He spoke just beneath her ear, his voice thick with tormented pleasure. "You have to leave, Sara ... because I want to hold you like this until your skin melts into mine. I want you in my bed, the smell of you on my sheets, your hair spread across my pillow. I want to take your innocence. God! I want to ruin you for anyone else.

America has a hold on imaginations that no other country does. I think that is partly because it is an immigrant country and there is still a kind of innocence in America that translates very well everywhere in the world.

Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends.

What a quality of innocence people have when they don't expect to be harmed.

You do not have to incriminate yourself. But once you assert your innocence, and once you say you didn't do anything wrong, you can't then use the Fifth Amendment to say, 'I'm not answering questions.'

Innocence is always unsuspicious.

The young, in their innocence, are often wise and capable of teaching the old.

For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false to the point of innocence, is far above the ape-regarding Christians, a well known theory of descent becomes a mere compliment.

Well, I'm pretty anti legends - I just don't think they're useful. So that certainly wouldn't be my intention. But will it contribute to that? Sure. Any medicine can be mis-used. But I think that there is a great courage, innocence and magic to him that more than a legend is about connection.

Innocence is always the state of being untouched. Sometimes it's synonymous with virginity, so sometimes it's quite literal, but sometimes it's more of a mental state of being untouched, of not having seen a lot of the world.

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.

Cheap thrill: moral outrage revels in its own innocence and in the guilt of the wicked Others.

The only thing I was trying to portray was serenity. Also, innocence, vulnerability and elegance.

One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.

I didn't do what they said I did. I may have done enough so that I don't know if I can prove my innocence.

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.

This isn't about guilt or innocence, he says. The dinosaurs weren't morally good or bad, but they're all dead.

Small crimes always precede great crimes. Whoever has been able to transgress the limits set by law may afterwards violate the most sacred rights; crime, like virtue, has its degrees, and never have we seen timid innocence pass suddenly to extreme licentiousness.

O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it—the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.

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

My body Healed quickly. But the wound to my psyche was deep. Wide. First aid, too little, too late, left me hemorrhaging inside, the blood unstaunched by psychological bandage or love's healing magic. Eventually it scabbed over, a thick, ugly welt of memory. I work to conceal it, but no matter how hard I try, once in a while something makes me pick at it until the scarring bleeds. In my arms, Ashante cries, innocence ripped apart by circumstance. Bloodied by inhuman will. Time will prove a tourniquet. But she will always be at risk of infection. (124)

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.

Liberate yourselves from everything you know and look with complete innocence at this infinitely improbable thing before you.

I was first sexually exploited when I was seven, by a distant cousin at a family wedding. Even after that I was routinely molested by older cousins and their friends. See, my innocence was taken away and I became mature at one bloody incident. I believe I never had a childhood. I grew up as an elderly person. And that's what my femininity brought upon me. Of course, in a patriarchal society, hijras' bodies are thought of as toys.

To the extent we are perceiving anyone's guilt -choosing to focus on the errors of their personality rather than the eternal innocence of their spirit - we're closing our hearts, deflecting a miracle and causing our own inevitable suffering.

No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that, it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden.

Knowledge is a burden if it robs you of innocence. Knowledge is a burden if it is not integrated into life. Knowledge is a burden if it doesn't bring joy. Knowledge is a burden if it gives you an idea that you are wise. Knowledge is a burden if it doesn't set you free. Knowledge is a burden if it makes you feel you are special.

You lie once.. you lie for the rest of your life... and in quest of proving your innocence.. you pledge your honesty with utter lies.... !!!

It wasn't the intention to do something important, or to even relate about social issues. The ground is so fertile in the justice world, dealing with the death penalty and the Innocence Project, for characters that have a moral ambiguity, which we were both attracted to. It's the idea that everybody has their reasons. Whatever their actions are, whether you agree with them or not, you can understand why they're feeling that way, in terms of racism or even the death penalty.

You either keep your childhood innocence or you rot!

There have always been poets who performed. Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

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

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

I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.

Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.

What narrow innocence it is for one to be good only according to the law.

Innocence eroded into nightmare. All because of very bad touch. Love, corrupted.

There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.

Maybe there are moments between any two adults in love when the age of one of them dissolves before the other's eyes, when the first refuge of the soul at its creation is laid bare and skinless as a sunbeam through a window. Innocence and vulnerability, two unmeasurable quantities...Perhaps that is the essence of the protection's intimacy, that it dwells in camouflage and justifies itself in stillness.

We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we’re faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off.

The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed, for innocence and purity can have no equal. In this relation we deal with one whom we respect more religiously even than we respect our better selves, and we shall necessarily conduct as in the presence of God. What presence can be more awful to the lover than the presence of his beloved?