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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.
Anne RiceThe talk of pale, burning-eyed students, anarchists and utopians all, over tea and cigarettes in a locked room long past midnight, is next morning translated, with the literalness of utter innocence, into the throwing of the bomb, the shouting of the proud slogan, the dragging away of the young dreamer-doer, still smiling, to the dungeon and the firing squad.
Christopher IsherwoodOh,to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn to dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does. But my innocence is forever gone.
Paullina SimonsThe decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica.
Frederic FarrarThis is a generation weaned on Watergate, and there is no presumption of innocence and no presumption of good intentions. Instead, there is a presumption that, without relentless scrutiny, the government will misbehave.
Dee Dee MyersAnd that's what innocence is. It's simple and trusting like a child, not judgmental and committed to one narrow point of view. If you are locked into a pattern of thinking and responding, your creativity gets blocked. You miss the freshness and magic of the moment. Learn to be innocent again, and that freshness never fades.
Michael JacksonThe first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.
Joseph AddisonMaybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.
Margaret AtwoodAn indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm; yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense.
Herman MelvilleEven if you forget thatยดs not the same as if it never happened. The slate is not entirely wiped clean; you canยดt reclaim the person you were beforehand; your state of innocence is not there to be retrieved.
A.S.A. HarrisonI suppose there's a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it's the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom.
George WillChoices, more choices than we like afterward to believe, are made far backward in the innocence of childhood.
Loren EiseleyIt is necessary to reaffirm our solid opposition to any direct offense against life, especially when innocent and defenseless, and the unborn child in its mother's womb is the quintessence of innocence. Let us remember the words of Vatican Council II: 'Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.'
Pope FrancisRegarding the children in Israel who made the first known world change in history using the Bible Code, they left a statement which they wrote on a rock, in Hebrew: "If it is not simple, it simply will not be," meaning that they have decided that if there is not an innocence, a simplicity in the actions of the world, they are simply going to erase it.
Drunvalo MelchizedekEnjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought.
Friedrich NietzscheI don't know how to defend myself: surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion.
Pierre CorneilleNo matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.
Federico FelliniRyan Stout, a straight-arrow-looking kind of guy, shocks the crowd into laughter with his inventive interplay between innocence and a jarringly twisted point of view. He goes from loony to weirdly logical. With him, itโs more than clever writing; his comedy is based on clear and clever thinking.
Ben Fong-TorresUnlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence.
Lewis H. LaphamThose that expose themselves as knowing the truth, lose the battle of innocence and humility and eventually pull a trigger at the universe. Wisdom chooses the unknown to be its reason.
Akiane KramarikA cheerful temper, joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.
Joseph Addison... the connection between imperial politics and culture is astonishingly direct. American attitudes to American "greatness", to hierarchies of race, to the perils of "other" revolutions (the American revolution being considered unique and somehow unrepeatable anywhere else in the world) have remained constant, have dictated, have obscured, the realities of empire, while apologists for overseas American interests have insisted on American innocence, doing good, fighting for freedom.
Edward SaidThere is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
Friedrich NietzscheThere have always been poets who performed. Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.
Adrian MitchellIt is a low thing to always want to be understood. Let my innocence take care of itself.
Blanche Willis HowardTo an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.
Beryl MarkhamHad Adam tenderly reproved his wife, and endeavored to lead her to repentance instead of sharing in her guilt, I should be much more ready to accord to man that superiority which he claims; but as the facts stand disclosed by the sacred historian, it appears to me that to say the least, there was as much weakness exhibited by Adam as by Eve. They both fell from innocence, and consequently from happiness, but not from equality.
Sarah Moore GrimkeI would love to be fooled. The innocence of child for the first time, seeing something and being in wonder is something that I long for because I'm tainted.
Criss AngelI wish to you sunshine, my dear one, my dear one. And treetops for you to soar past. I wish to you innocence, my child, my child. I pray you don't grow up too fast. Never know pain, my dear one, my dear one. Nor hunger nor fear nor sorrow. Never know war, my child, my child. Remember your hope for tomorrow.
Amelia Atwater-RhodesPrayer is innocence's friend; and willingly flieth incessant 'twist the earth and the sky, the carrier-pigeon of heaven.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowIn India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Salman RushdieOne of my favorite things is watching my children learn something new. The combination of innocence and excitement makes a parent feel truly alive, even if only for a second and peripherally.
Michael Adam HamiltonConscience, that boon companion who sets a man free under the strong breastplate of innocence, that bids him on and fear not.
Dante AlighieriComing to the master is coming in search of your innocence, in search of your lost childhood, in search of your originality... in search of your individuality, in search of freedom.
RajneeshEarly in life she had discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality.
Oscar WildeI think you lose your innocence when you have kids, because the world suddenly becomes a much more dangerous place.
Jon StewartI believe Michael [Jackson] in a sense is an American martyr. Martyrs are persecuted and Michael was persecuted. Michael was innocent and martyrs are innocent. If you go on YouTube and watch interviews with Michael, you don't see a crack in the facade. There's this purity and this innocence that continued [throughout his life].
David LaChapelleInnocence is indeed a glorious thing; but, unfortunately, it does not keep very well and is easily led astray.
Immanuel KantMy voice in combination with the harp - which, by the way, I use because I've played it my entire life, not to make some statement about the harp - somehow has ... coloured people's interpretations of the music and projected an idea of childlike or fairytale quality or innocence. Which sometimes prevents people from listening to the songs the way I would like them to be listened to.
Joanna NewsomThe writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent.
Juan GoytisoloAs children's inquiries are not to be slighted, so also great care is to be taken, that they never receive deceitful and illuding answers. They easily perceive when they are slighted or deceived, and quickly learn the trick of neglect, dissimulation, and falsehood, which they observe others to make use of. We are not to intrench upon truth in any conversation, but least of all with children; since, if we play false with them, we not only deceive their expectation, and hinder their knowledge, but corrupt their innocence, and teach them the worst of vices.
John Locke