Innocence Quotes

• The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

  Stephen King

  Trust, Liars, Lying

  Stephen King (2016). “Needful Things”, p.507, Simon and Schuster

  127 Copy quote

  Show source

• The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beautiful, Time, Enemy

  The Winding Stair (1929) "In Memory of Eva Gore Booth and Con Markiewicz"

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

  James A. Baldwin

  Eye, Reality, People

  "Stranger in the Village". Essay by James A. Baldwin, first published in Harper's Magazine (1953), republished in James A. Baldwin "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), and later quoted in "Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin's 'Stranger in the Village'" by Teju Cole, www.newyorker.com. August 19, 2014.

  58 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children.

  Jim Henson

  Inspirational, Children, People

  Jim Henson (2007). “Wisdom from It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider”, p.52, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• Under this fine rain I breathe in the innocence of the world. I feel coloured by the nuances of infinity. At this moment I am one with my picture. We are an iridescent chaos.

  Paul Cezanne

  Rain, World, Nuance

  33 Copy quote

• There is no aphrodisiac like innocence.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Aphrodisiac

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.185, Verso

  46 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Honesty, Integrity, Writing

  1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

  102 Copy quote

  Show source

• All great art originates from the innocent child within us expressing itself through the wisdom, experience and skill of an adult.

  Richard Schmid

  Art, Children, Wisdom Experience

  10 Copy quote
• 

  Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

  Pablo Picasso

  Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  135 Copy quote

  Show source

• Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, "I didn't do it." Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.

  Leonard Peltier

  Lying, Voice, Guilt

  Leonard Peltier (2016). “Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance”, p.23, St. Martin's Griffin

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Guilty, Ashamed

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979). “Emile: Or, On Education”, p.217, Basic Books

  15 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

  Albert Camus

  Essence, Nostalgia, Rebellion

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.105, Vintage

  93 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Immanuel Kant

  Splendid, Protect, Turns

  Immanuel Kant, Mary J. Gregor (1999). “Practical Philosophy”, p.59, Cambridge University Press

  85 Copy quote

  Show source

• All things truly wicked start from innocence.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Inspiring, Wicked, Literature

  Ernest Hemingway (2008). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, Ecco

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ignorance is learned; innocence is forgotten.

  Jose Bergamin

  Ignorance, Forgotten

  6 Copy quote

• Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Children, Freedom, Real

  "‘Four Agreements’ Author Don Miguel Ruiz Reveals How Doubt Can Lead To Happiness" by don Miguel Angel Ruiz, don Jose Ruiz, with Janet Mills, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 2, 2013.

  118 Copy quote

  Show source

• There 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 Nietzsche

  Might, Admiration, Found

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.276, Modern Library

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

  William Golding

  Wise, Fall, Heart

  Lord of the Flies ch. 12 (1954)

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the inner place where true artists create there exists a pure child.

  Lawren Harris

  Children, Artist, Pure

  56 Copy quote

• The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable.

  Irving Howe

  Unattainable, Cherish

  Irving Howe (1975). “The critical point, on literature and culture”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on earth, a link between angels and men.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Baby, Peace, Spring

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1839). “Proverbial philosophy: a book of thoughts and arguments”, p.272

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.

  Anatole France

  Often Is, Literature, Virtue

  "The Gods Are Thirsty". Book by Anatole France, 1912.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Innocence and mystery never dwell long together.

  Suzanne Curchod

  Long, Together, Mystery

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Fate, Eden, Picnics

  'Out of a Book' in 'Orion III' (ed. Rosamund Lehmann et al, 1946)

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

  Ouida

  Vices, Kind, Chicanery

  Ouida (2016). “Wisdom, Wit and Pathos of Ouida”, p.149, Ouida

  8 Copy quote

  Show source