Innocence Quotes

Never had we ever kissed as lovers; if we touched lips it was as brother and sister. In one moment of emotion, our lips fell together by accident, but we quickly removed ourselves as though we were children touching glass with dirty hands.

~ Roman Payne

I knelt and locked the door. I locked the door locking the world and time outside. I stretched my body across the mattress and Saskia drew in close to me and placed her open hand on my chest, her mouth near my shoulder; her breath, my breath blew out the candle, and I held my lost Wanderess with tenderness until sweet sleep overcame us.

~ Roman Payne

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

~ Ayn Rand

No matter how hard you try to be a good person, to make choices that will lead to success, nothing is promised. Even the good and the innocent are damned from time to time.

~ Lindsay Detwiler

Life is made of moments. and choices. Not all of them matter, or have any lasting impact. Skipping class in favor of a taste of freedom, picking a prom dress because of the way it transforms you into a princess in the mirror. Even the nights you steal away from an open window, tiptoe silent to the end of the driveway, where darkened headlights and the pull of something unknown beckon. These are all small choices, really. Insignificant as soon as they’re made. Innocent.But then.Then there’s a different kind of moment. One when things are irrevocably changed by a choice we make. A moment we will play endlessly in our minds on lonely nights and empty days. One we’ll search repeatedly for some indication that what we chose was right, some small sign that tells us the truth isn’t nearly as awful as it feels. Or as awful as anyone would think if they knew.So we explain it to ourselves, justify it enough to sleep. And then we bury it deep, so deep we can almost pretend it never happened. But as much as we wish it were different, the truth is, our worlds are sometimes balanced on choices we make and the secrets we keep.

~ Jessi Kirby

For Mercy has a human heart;Pity, a human face;And Love, the human form divine:And Peace the human dress.Songs of InnocenceCruelty has a human heartAnd jealousy a human face,Terror the human form divine,And secrecy the human dress.The human dress is forged iron,The human form a fiery forge,The human face a furnace seal'd,The human heart its hungry gorge.Songs of Experience - This poem was discovered posthumously.

~ William Blake

All life-forms are innocent, but man is the greatest innocent life-form that the universe has ever produced. Man is never created bad, as some primitive “revelations” claim. Man is both all-capable, and innocent; Man cannot have better attributes than the ones he already has. Once we defeat scarcity, the factor that has forced all our negative attributes into existence will be no more. Man’s nature is forged by scarcity. Man is a child of scarcity. Some men may currently live in abundance, even obscene abundance, but they still are the children of scarcity. We all are.

~ Haroutioun Bochnakian

A face whose emotions had not yet been battered by experience.

~ Jojo Moyes

O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts, while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them!

~ Samuel Richardson

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

~ Michel De Montaigne

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

~ Voltaire

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

~ G.k. Chesterton

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.

~ John Adams

Well, did he do it?She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant did it or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.

~ Michael Connelly

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

~ John Marshall

I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty is when we've actually done something wrong, because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent, and in a way the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief.

~ Paul Beatty

But to whom can one appeal when one does not even know where to find the judge? How can one ever hope to prove one's innocence when there is no means of knowing of what one has been accused? No, there's no justice for people like us in the world: all that we can do is to suffer as bravely as possible and put our oppressors to shame.

~ Anna Kavan

If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?

~ Michael Connelly

Henry was thinking of the younger Holland sister of the way she could go from being an impetuous girl to a knowing woman in a few seconds and never lose the stars in her eyes.

~ Anna Godbersen

A machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

This is a bad story.”“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”“No, you should,” I say.“But—”“I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.

~ Emma Donoghue

Anyway, in those years, I was happy, as to one extent or another I have always been happy. The forest was not a wilderness to me, but served instead as my private garden, comforting in spite of its vastness, and endlessly mysterious.The more familiar a place becomes, the more mysterious it becomes, as well, if you are alert to the truth of things. I have found this to be the case all of my life.

~ Dean Koontz

Last night I walked for hours. It was as if I wanted to get lost down some unknown street. To get absolutely and happily lost. But there are moments when we can’t, when we don’t know how to lose our way. Even if we always go in the wrong direction. Even if we lose all our points of reference. Even if it begins to grow late and we feel the weight of morning as we advance. There are times when no matter how we try to find out what we don’t know, we can’t lose our way. And perhaps we long for the time when we could be lost. The time when all the streets were new.

~ Alejandro Zambra

Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

~ William Golding

There was no fear of sandpaper earth, no sense of danger from a bare-skinned spill, for the boy was a child—a six-foot, one-inch growing child who knew nothing of accident, injury, dismemberment, death—who would study those lessons tomorrow, thank you, but not today. Today, it would be sufficient to be wild and free.

~ Tony Taylor

Young people sometimes use their innocence as an excuse to be unwise.

~ David A.r. White

She had never had a friend like this, in her private room, combing her hair, listening to her, talking about silly nonsense and the uselessness of one's parents; how the future was perfect, because they hadn't lived it yet.

~ Jessie Burton

I know that age, it's a particularly obstinate one, and a thousand bogies won't make you fear the future. A pity we can't change over.

~ Daphne Du Maurier

I had forgotten such innocence exists,/forgotten how it feels/ to live with neither calendars nor clocks

~ P.k. Page

He asked her, 'Why do you feel sorry for me, Old Woman?'The Old Woman stood beside him and looked out the window at the Garden, so beautiful, flowering and everywhere illuminated by the rays of the setting sun, and said, 'I feel sorry for you, dear Youth, because I know where you are gazing and what you are waiting for. I feel sorry for you and your mother.'Perhaps because of these words, or perhaps because of something else, there was a change in the Youth's mood. The Garden, flowering behind the high fence below his window, and exuding a wonderful fragrance, suddenly seemed somehow strange to him; and an ominous sensation, a sudden fear, gripped his heart with a violent palpitation, like heady and languid fragrances rising from brilliant flowers.'What is happening?' he wondered in confusion.(The Poison Garden)

~ Valery Bryusov

The Old Woman asked, Here you are, dear Youth, you are looking at the Garden and do not know that it is an evil Garden. Here you are waiting for the Beautiful Woman and do not know that her beauty is destructive. You have been living in my room for two years and never before have you become so engrossed as you have today. Apparently your turn has come too. Go away from the window before it is too late, do not breathe the evil fragrance of these deceitful flowers and do not wait for the Beautiful Woman to appear below your window and enchant you. She will come, she will enchant you, and you will follow her against your will.Speaking thus, the Old Woman lit two candles on the table where some books were lying, banged the window shut and drew the curtain tightly across the window. The curtain rings scraped lightly along the bronze curtain rod, and the yellow linen of the curtain fluttered and once again lay motionless — and the room became cheerful, comfortable and peaceful. And it seemed that there was no longer any garden beyond the window, nor was there any sorcery in the world, and everything was simple, ordinary, and would remain so once and for all.(The Poison Garden)

~ Valery Bryusov

It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death... And they should! ...For they are in life.

~ Roman Payne

I cherished her individuality, that spark of independence no child should lose to life's restrictions and parameters.

~ Truddi Chase

Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish.

~ T.h. White

She blinked, sat up, and saw Chris in the bathroom doorway. He'd just gotten out the shower. His hair was damp, and he was dressed only in his briefs. The sight of his thin, boyish body - all ribs and elbows and knees - pulled at her heart, for he looked so innocent and vulnerable. He was so small adn fragile that she wondered how she could ever protect him, and renewed fear rose in her.

~ Dean Koontz

I just wanted things to be simple. I didn't understand why things had to be so complicated for all the grown ups. And I decided that if growing up meant things got confusing, then I would stay little forever. I would stay simple. But unfortunately everything around me did its best not to be. The world liked to be complex. It liked to twist, to distort. To bleed you dry of whatever feeling you could muster while still letting you hold on to your sanity so that you could experience heartache at its prime. I didn't know how cold the world could be when I was eleven. If I would have known...maybe I would have packed a sweater.

~ A.l. Collins

Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood, she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

~ Patrick Rothfuss

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.

~ Robert Frost

No matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.

~ Federico Fellini