quotations about innocence
Innocence is its own defense.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733
Innocence tinctures all things with brightest hues.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
All things which do not corrupt are innocent.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
All things truly wicked start from an innocence.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A Moveable Feast
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
TONI MORRISON
Tar Baby
Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last.
GREEN DAY
"Wake Me Up When September Ends"
Innocence is like a polished armor; it adorns and it defends.
R. SOUTH
attributed, Day's Collacon
Go in thy native innocence, rely
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all,
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
It is a blessing not yet to have acquired that over-keen, diagnostic, misanthropic eye, and to be able to look at people and things trustfully when one first sees them.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Beware of Pity
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
As innocent as a new-laid egg.
W. S. GILBERT
Engaged
People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
I want to assure you that regardless of your circumstances, age, or sex, you can indeed start over, re-arousing from within yourself those earlier, more innocent expectations, feelings and beliefs. It is much better if you can imagine this endeavor more in the light of children's play, in fact, rather than think of it as a deadly serious adult pursuit.
JANE ROBERTS
The Way Toward Health
Ignorance is not innocence but sin.
ROBERT BROWNING
The Inn Album
The worst of us is not without innocence, although buried deeply it might be.
WALT DISNEY
A Walt Disney World Resort Outing
No security of mind is so salutary as that of innocence: guilt, however confident, has inexorable fears.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.
ANATOLE FRANCE
The Gods Are Thirsty
Innocence is a flower which withers when touched, but blooms not again, though watered with tears.
J. HOOPER
attributed, Day's Collacon
No acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.
HENRY FIELDING
Tom Jones
Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
JOHN MILTON
Areopagitica