129 Innocence Quotes

Innocence, often associated with purity, honesty, and unblemished perspectives, is a profound aspect of the human experience that resonates deeply with many. Whether reflecting on the innocence of childhood, the simplicity of an untainted heart, or the clarity of an honest mind, quotes on innocence provide a window into the beauty and virtue inherent in unspoiled moments. In this carefully curated collection, we bring you the top 129 innocence quotes that capture the essence of this precious quality, offering inspiration, reflection, and a reminder of the unadulterated joy and wisdom found in life's purest moments.

1. “A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.” - Germaine Greer

2. “If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.” - Charlotte Brontë

3. “He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.” - Mark Helprin

4. “How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d” - Alexander Pope

5. “Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou shalt.” - John Stuart Mill

6. “Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales, That's all she ever thinks about,Riding with the wind.” - Jimi Hendrix

7. “Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.” - Joan Didion

8. “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” - Anne Frank

9. “The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children. ” - Jim Henson

10. “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

11. “He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.” - Cormac McCarthy

12. “They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night.” - Harper Lee

13. “It takes a very long time to become young.” - Pablo Picasso

14. “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

15. “It's never too late to have a happy childhood.” - Tom Robbins

16. “I'm not...' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never held unkind thoughts? The stranger's observation was valid. No one was innocent of darkness.” - Charles de Lint

17. “For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.” - G.K. Chesterton

18. “To see her is a picture—To hear her is a tune—To know her an IntemperanceAs innocent as June—To know her not—Affliction—To own her for a FriendA warmth as near as if the SunWere shining in your Hand.” - Emily Dickinson

19. “Innocence is a kind of insanity” - Graham Greene

20. “A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!” - J.K. Rowling

21. “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” - Voltaire

22. “Unschuld ist kein Schutz.” - Thomas Fuller

23. “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

24. “That was my first instinct -- to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was a greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.” - Graham Greene

25. “We speak of love when we destroy nature.It sounds like innocence of cruel arrogance.” - Toba Beta

26. “Love wasn't to be measured, much less restricted, by methodology. Love wasn't a method. Love was a faculty of the highest order, imagined or unimagined. Love wasn't an activity. Love was an experience. Love was the second coming of innocence.” - Rob Inclan

27. “During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me. Remarkably, according to what they told me, nearly every inmate in the prison didn't do it. Several thousand people had been locked up unjustly and, by an incredible coincidence, all in the same prison.On the other hand, they knew an awful lot about how to knife somebody.” - Alan Alda

28. “Saints preserve us,' Dr. Kellen said, and squeezed Galen's shoulder. 'What have we done to our youth?” - Jessica Day George

29. “So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.” - Robert Frost

30. “Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.” - Albert Camus

31. “Dalgliesh was too experienced to assume that fear implied guilt; it was often the most innocent who were the most terrified.” - P.D. James

32. “There is no aphrodisiac like innocence” - Jean Baudrillard

33. “To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.” - Ouida

34. “It is photography itself that creates the illusion of innocence. Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness that they will change or die. It is the future they are innocent of. Fifty years on we look at them with the godly knowledge of how they turne dout after all - who they married, the date of their death - with no thought for who will one day be holding photographs of us.” - Ian McEwan

35. “I want to get out of here means I want to be innocent.” - Kathy Acker

36. “That's most interesting. But I was no more a mind-reader then than today. Iwas weeping for an altogether different reason. When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. Morescientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But aharsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could notremain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

37. “He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment.” - Henry Miller

38. “You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.” - Aberjhani

39. “There is no client as scary as an innocent man."J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962.” - Michael Connelly

40. “Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.” - William Blake

41. “People say you're born innocent, but it's not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can't wash off. ... We are born with our heads turned back, but my mother says we have to face into the future now. You have to earn your own innocence, she says. You have to grow up and become innocent.” - Hugo Hamilton

42. “But you were a goody-goody, you said.' 'Even goody-goodies think about such things. In fact, I would say that's what defines us. We're always thinking about the things we don't dare do, figuring out where the lines are drawn, so we can go right up to the edge of things, then plead innocence on the ground of a technicality.” - Laura Lippman

43. “This was when he first suspected that the kindly child-loving God extolled by his headmistress might not exist. As it turned out, most major world events suggested the same. But for Theo’s sincerely godless generation, the question hasn’t come up. No one in his bright, plate-glass, forward-looking school ever asked him to pray, or sing an impenetrable cheery hymn. There’s no entity for him to doubt. His initiation, in front of the TV, before the dissolving towers, was intense but he adapted quickly. These days he scans the papers for fresh developments the way he might a listings magazine. As long as there’s nothing new, his mind is free. International terror, security cordons, preparations for war — these represent the steady state, the weather. Emerging into adult consciousness, this is the world he finds.” - Ian McEwan

44. “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” - Ernest Hemingway

45. “Innocence eroded into nightmare.All because of very bad touch.Love, corrupted.” - Ellen Hopkins

46. “Those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight, and this is a great and grievous loss.” - Alan Jacobs

47. “Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.” - Kurt Vonnegut

48. “There are many more layers to innocence than one might ever imagine, and we are ever unaware of them until each barrier is breached.” - Paula Reed

49. “There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.” - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

50. “When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.” - Angela Carter

51. “We see that in the organic world, to the same degree that reflection gets darker and weaker, grace grows ever more radiant and dominant. But just as two lines intersect on one side of a point, and after passing through infinity, suddenly come together again on the other side; or the image in a concave mirror suddenly reappears before us after drawing away into the infinite distance, so too, does grace return once perception, as it were, has traversed the infinite--such that it simultaneously appears the purest in human bodily structures that are either devoid of consciousness or which possess an infinite consciousness, such as in the jointed manikin or the god.” - Heinrich von Kleist

52. “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

53. “No one loses their innocence. It is either taken or given away willingly.” - Tiffany Madison

54. “He himself, he realized, had always been most abominably frightened, even at the height of his divine power, a frail god upon a rickety throne, afraid of opening letters, of making decisions, afraid of the instinctive knowledge in the eyes of mules, of the innocent eyes of good men, of the elastic nature of the passions, even of the devotion he had received from some men, and one woman, and dogs.” - Patrick White

55. “I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep. When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and most self- absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they're sleeping. For me there's no discernible difference between killing a child and killing a sleeping man.” - Fernando Pessoa

56. “It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.” - Mignon McLaughlin

57. “The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien, there was no stain.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

58. “And 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 Jackson

59. “I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.” - Andre Gide

60. “Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.” - Piers Anthony

61. “Scout- .. Uncle Jack?"Uncle Jack- "Ma'am?"Scout- "What's a whore-lady?” - Harper Lee

62. “Then Deborah stood at the wicket gate, the boundary, and there was a woman with outstretched hand, demanding tickets. "Pass through," she said when Deborah reached her. "We saw you coming." The wicket gate became a turnstile. Deborah pushed against it and there was no resistance, she was through. "What is it?" she asked. "Am I really here at last? Is this the bottom of the pool?" "It could be," smiled the woman. "There are so many ways. You just happened to choose this one." Other people were pressing to come through. They had no faces, they were only shadows. Deborah stood aside to let them by, and in a moment they had gone, all phantoms. "Why only now, tonight?" asked Deborah. "Why not in the afternoon, when I came to the pool?""It's a trick," said the woman. "You seize on the moment in time. We were here this afternoon. We're always here. Our life goes on around you, but nobody knows it. The trick's easier by night, that's all." "Am I dreaming, then?" asked Deborah."No," said the woman, "this isn't a dream. And it isn't death, either. It's the secret world." The secret world... It was something Deborah had always known, and now the pattern was complete. The memory of it, and the relief, were so tremendous that something seemed to burst inside her heart. "Of course..." she said, "of course..." and everything that had ever been fell into place. There was no disharmony. The joy was indescribable, and the surge of feeling, like wings about her in the air, lifted her away from the turnstile and the woman, and she had all knowledge. That was it - the invasion of knowledge. ("The Pool")” - Daphne du Maurier

63. “A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief -- as well as injustice -- to those who should gain exemptions from the rule's functioning.” - Derrick Bell

64. “I remembered my little brother, Allyn, had appeared so innocent and angelic when he slept--similar to Kerrick. It must be a survival tactic. If Allyn hadn't looked so sweet, we would have killed him while he slept. He had been pure evil when he was awake--similar to Kerrick.” - Maria V. Snyder

65. “My parents had torn through my innocence and left me with a tar-like substance that was corrupting what was left of me. I could feel it at night; slithering and curling around my soul as it slowly devoured me. It was draining my energy and replacing it with an evil I was afraid to confront.” - J.D. Stroube

66. “Don't care what people sayJust follow your own wayDon't give up and use the chanceTo return to innocence.That's not the beginning of the endThat's the return to yourselfThe return to innocence.” - Enigma

67. “We Lannisters do have a certain pride," said Tyrion Lannister.“Pride?” Catelyn snapped. His mocking tone and easy manner made her angry. “Arrogance, some might call it. Arrogance and avarice and lust for power.”“My brother is undoubtedly arrogant,” Tyrion Lannister replied. “My father is the soul of avarice, and my sweet sister Cersei lusts for power with every waking breath. I, however, am innocent as a little lamb. Shall I bleat for you?” He grinned.” - George R.R. Martin

68. “When he saw Tyler, his face went serious, which struck me as comical. Andy had always been protective, but when it came to me having anything to do with guys, he felt it was his duty to inform and protect me from the ones he thought were most like himself. When I turned thirteen, he pulled me aside and we had his version of 'the talk,' which mostly consisted of a bunch of 'uhs' and 'ums,' but I got the gist of his speech: boys only wanted one thing, and I shouldn't give it to them until I was at least thirty-three. And married.” - Jessi Kirby

69. “Those long uneven linesStanding as patientlyAs if they were stretched outsideThe Oval or Villa Park,The crowns of hats, the sunOn moustached archaic facesGrinning as if it were allAn August Bank Holiday lark;And the shut shops, the bleachedEstablished names on the sunblinds,The farthings and sovereigns,And dark-clothed children at playCalled after kings and queens,The tin advertisementsFor cocoa and twist, and the pubsWide open all day--And the countryside not caring:The place names all hazed overWith flowering grasses, and fieldsShadowing Domesday linesUnder wheat's restless silence;The differently-dressed servantsWith tiny rooms in huge houses,The dust behind limousines;Never such innocence,Never before or since,As changed itself to pastWithout a word--the menLeaving the gardens tidy,The thousands of marriages,Lasting a little while longer:Never such innocence again.- MCMXIV” - Philip Larkin

70. “Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.” - Anne Lamott

71. “Bonnie who had never hurt a - a harmless thing for malice. Bonnie who was like a kitten making airy pounces at no prey at all. Bonnie with her hair that was called something strawberry but that looked simply as if it was on fire. Bonnie of the translucent skin with the delicate violet fjords and estuaries of veins all over her throat and inner arms. Bonnie who had lately taken to looking at him sideways with her large childlike eyes big and brown under lashes like stars...” - L.J. Smith

72. “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

73. “Parker looked distressed. He had confidence in Wimsey's judgment, and, in spite of his own interior certainty, he felt shaken."My dear man, where's the flaw in [this case]?""There isn't one ... There's nothing wrong about it at all, except that the girl's innocent.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

74. “To express nostalgia for a childhood we no longer share is to deny the actual significance and humanity of children.” - Perry Nodelman

75. “Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.” - Katherine Mansfield

76. “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

77. “You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty."Levin nodded thoughtfully."The bottom line was my old man was a damn good lawyer and he didn't like having innocent clients," I said. "I'm not sure I do, either.” - Michael Connelly

78. “O Rose, thou art sick.The invisible wormThat flies in the nightIn the howling stormHas found out thy bedOf crimson joy,And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy.” - William Blake

79. “You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.” - Lionel Shriver

80. “Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way.” - Gregory Maguire

81. “Voll Blüten steht der Pfirsichbaum nicht jede wächst zur Frucht sie schimmern hell wie Rosenschaum durch Blau und Wolkenflucht. Wie Blüten geh'n Gedanken auf hundert an jedem Tag -- lass' blühen, lass' dem Ding den Lauf frag' nicht nach dem Ertrag! Es muss auch Spiel und Unschuld sein und Blütenüberfluss sonst wär' die Welt uns viel zu klein und Leben kein Genuss.” - Hermann Hesse

82. “Soul of a victim tends to prove her innocence.” - Toba Beta

83. “How could he maintain the apology in his eyes without getting carried away by her cherubic innocence?” - Faraaz Kazi

84. “If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing—that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world?” - Neal Shusterman

85. “No matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.” - Federico Fellini

86. “I was very lighthearted. This often the way when the abandonment of personal responsibility is enforced: neither wronged innocence or just guilt can seriously impair the sensation of freedom one has.” - Anthony Burgess

87. “O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I'm not mad yet--not so mad that I don't know how disastrous it might be to you--to us both! You don't realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!” - Georgette Heyer

88. “Never such innocence,Never before or since,As changed itself to pastWithout a word--the menLeaving the gardens tidy,The thousands of marriagesLasting a little while longer:Never such innocence again.” - Philip Larkin

89. “Wir alle, ob schuldig oder nicht, ob alt oder jung, müssen die Vergangenheit annehmen. Wir alle sind von ihren Folgen betroffen und für sie in Haftung genommen. [...] Es geht nicht darum, Vergangenheit zu bewältigen. Das kann man gar nicht. Sie läßt sich ja nicht nachträglich ändern oder ungeschehen machen. Wer aber vor der Vergangenheit die Augen verschließt, wird blind für die Gegenwart. Wer sich der Unmenschlichkeit nicht erinnern will, der wird wieder anfällig für neue Ansteckungsgefahren."[Ansprache am 8. Mai 1985 in der Gedenkstunde im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages]” - Richard von Weizsäcker

90. “Wir lernen aus unserer eigenen Geschichte, wozu der Mensch fähig ist. Deshalb dürfen wir uns nicht einbilden, wir seien nun als Menschen anders und besser geworden. Es gibt keine endgültig errungene moralische Vollkommenheit - für niemanden und kein Land! Wir haben als Menschen gelernt, wir bleiben als Menschen gefährdet. Aber wir haben die Kraft, Gefährdungen immer von neuem zu überwinden."[Ansprache am 8. Mai 1985 in der Gedenkstunde im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages]” - Richard von Weizsäcker

91. “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

92. “I’m not comfortable in this stadium,” I explained, trying to look calm.“I know. And you hate Fang looking at those girls. But we’re still havingfun, and Fang still loves you, and you’ll still save the world. Okay?” - James Patterson

93. “Who else but me is ever going to read these letters?” - Anne Frank

94. “O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts, while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them!” - Samuel Richardson

95. “Adults havethe benefit of experience and know the trick will work as long as the technique is correct.When we “grow up” we gain this experience and knowledge, but we lose our innocence andsense of wonder. In other words, the price we pay for growing up is a permanent sense ofloss.” - Alberto Alvaro Ríos

96. “Just as she was unaware of the hidden currents of politics running below the surface of College affairs, so the Scholars, for their part, would have been unable to see the rich seething stew of alliances and enmities and feuds and treaties which was a child’s life in Oxford. Children playing together: how pleasant to see! What could be more innocent and charming?” - Philip Pullman

97. “Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrikes. Guilt does. Innocence is a mighty shield, and the man or woman covered by it, is much more likely to answer calmly: 'My life is blameless. Look into it, if you like, for you will find nothing.' That is the tone of innocence.” - Whittaker Chambers

98. “My child, I know you're not a childBut I still see you running wildBetween those flowering trees.Your sparkling dreams, your silver laughYour wishes to the stars above Are just my memories.And in your eyes the oceanAnd in your eyes the seaThe waters frozen overWith your longing to be free.Yesterday you'd awokenTo a world incredibly old.This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.You had to kill this child, I know.To break the arrows and the bowTo shed your skin and change.The trees are flowering no moreThere's blood upon the tiles floorThis place is dark and strange.I see you standing in the stormHolding the curse of youthEach of you with your storyEach of you with your truth.Some words will never be spokenSome stories will never be told.This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.I didn't say the world was good.I hoped by now you understoodWhy I could never lie.I didn't promise you a thing. Don't ask my wintervoice for springJust spread your wings and fly.Though in the hidden gardenDown by the green green laneThe plant of love grows next toThe tree of hate and pain.So take my tears as a token.They'll keep you warm in the cold.This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.You've lived too long among usTo leave without a traceYou've lived too short to understandA thing about this place.Some of you just sit there smokingAnd some are already sold. This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.This is the age you are broken or turned into gold.” - Antonia Michaelis

99. “If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?” - Michael Connelly

100. “We're children. We're supposed to be childish.” - George R.R. Martin

101. “I saw something I could never forget. I saw lifetimes of acknowledgement, fear, wisdom, questioning, and understanding in a child's eye. It was the worst thing I would ever witness.” - Shannon A Thompson

102. “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

103. “Who is that blond child laughing as he runs after his colored marbles? [my marbles]It's me And who is the poet writing this poem? That blond child who laughed as he ran after his colored marbles” - Pierre Albert-Birot

104. “The knowledge of secrets is a very enticing ship, a very tempting voyage, and one thinks that the highest attainment in life is to find out hidden truths, to seek out what is truth, to know what are all lies; to uncover, to discover and to rediscover, to dig up, to expose, to reveal... But secrets can go on forever, for an eternity! For as vast as the universe is, so are the secrets therein! And one can lose, because of that thought that in the secrets, everything is to be gained! But I can see, that all the knowledge of hidden things, all the knowledge in the universe, is not nearly as valuable and as worthy as the innocence of one's soul. And we are not directed unto good things through our ability to scavenge or to hunt or to decipher or to sail! Or to fly! But we are directed unto good things, through sovereign providence! He is more worthy- the innocent soul who has a simple faith in what he believes in- than the one who has found out all the dark secrets about what the other man has put his faith in! And it is far more profitable for a man to be healthy, to have a long, long life, loved ones that are blessed with these blessings all the same, much love and happiness and safety! It is far more profitable for a man to be able to remain innocent and have love and be healthy and to be able to watch his loved ones in good health and in good love, than for a man to uncover all the secrets of the universe! A single love, a single faith, a single trust, and one hope- these are far, far better things to aspire to have! And this– this is the biggest secret!” - C. JoyBell C.

105. “But I think parents aren't teachers anymore. Parents -- or a whole lot of us, at least -- lead by mouth instead of by example. It seems to me that if a child's hero is their mother or father -- or even better, both of them in tandem -- then the rough road of learning and experience is going to be smoothed some. And every little bit of smoothing helps, in this rough old world that wants children to be miniature adults, devoid of charm and magic and the beauty of innocence.” - Robert R. McCammon

106. “Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.” - Mason Cooley

107. “I look at the world and through these innocent eyes, all I see is hatred and anger. Corrupting everything, ruining everything, but not preserving anything. What I should be seeing is respect, acceptance and love. But, if that was what these innocent eyes witnessed, they would be seeing and observing a lie. The people in this world are not respectful, theres barely any acceptance in this day and age, and love is an almost silent whisper, slowly fading. These innocent eyes, are now corrupted. No longer innocent as they should be.” - Kitauna Roberts

108. “Spring and Fall: To a Young ChildMárgarét, are you gríevingOver Goldengrove unleaving?Leáves, líke the things of man, youWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?Ah! ás the heart grows olderIt will come to such sights colderBy and by, nor spare a sighThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;And yet you wíll weep and know why.Now no matter, child, the name:Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressedWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:It ís the blight man was born for,It is Margaret you mourn for.” - Gerard Manley Hopkins

109. “Why should we remain innocent of what lurks in the shadows? How can we live in the world if we don't understand how dark and brutal it can be?” - Penny Matthews

110. “World & people only seem unlovable due to toxins & lies they've been fed. Release distortions of mind. Return all to innocence & freedom” - jay woodman

111. “If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments. It is just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life that a pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy. It is just because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet his neighbour's goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all long for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because he does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex; it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons.” - G.K. Chesterton

112. “There is no place for innocence on the battlefield.” - Jocelyn Murray

113. “But I rather thought--I mean, I heard you'd killed Balder the Fair.""I never did," snapped Loki crossly. "Well, no one ever proved I did. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Besides, he was supposed to be invulnerable. Was it my fault that he wasn't?” - Joanne Harris

114. “They are funny little representatives of simplicity, of awareness. No one is more aware of themselves as these children are. They have nothing, have no one but us, have seemingly no reason to be hopeful...yet they are. They choose to be happy even though the obviously easier choice would be to be frightened or sad and they have real reason to be those things as well. But they have life and faith and hope and love and they choose those things. Their innocence is addicting, their hope is catching and I'm happy to be surrounded by them.” - Fisher Amelie

115. “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

116. “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 and fragile that she wondered how she could ever protect him, and renewed fear rose in her.” - Dean Koontz

117. “You either keep your childhood innocence or you rot!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

118. “As long as you stay as a good hearted person, you will keep the innocence in your face.” - Mehmet Murat ildan

119. “The flowered trim on the hems [of the dress] seemed superfluous, even frivolous, but at the same time it comforted her, as though the idea that a seamstress had thought to adorn clothing so innocently implied that somewhere, innocence was safe.” - Gael Baudino

120. “There are times where excessive innocence seems so monstrous that it becomes hateful.” - Gaston Leroux

121. “Innocence has no place alongside immortality.” - Courtney M. Privett

122. “Heaven lies around us in our infancy.” - William Golding

123. “I've always felt that distant train whistles heard in the dead of night are the universe's way of letting us know the best days are neither ahead nor behind us...they're happening right now, cradled in the palms of our hands. But that doesn't change the fact that the whiskey, weed, and romance eventually runs out and the night will soon turn to day.” - Dave Matthes

124. “Innocence still lives within our hearts and the child within each of us knows right from wrong.” - Bryant McGill

125. “and yet a child’s utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes.” - Herman Melville

126. “Things that are truly innocent don’t need to be labelled as such.” - Zoe Heller

127. “The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true.” - Haruki Murakami

128. “The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.” - Joyce Carol Oates

129. “In the middle of a wrist's suicide slash-line, below the layered skin and above the pulse, there's an acupuncture point that says, Get back to who you were meant to be. This is the heart spot, the center. Your whole life the skin on that place will stay closest to being a baby's skin, as close as you can get anymore to the way you started, the way you once thought you'd always be.” - Monica Drake