Quotes about Innocence

a face which would have been a very fine one but for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness had aught to do with criminality, could not be determined; since, as intense heat and cold, though unlike, produce like sensations, so innocence and guilt, when, through casual association with mental pain, stamping any visible impress, use one seal--a hacked one.

In reality, I never want to grow up.

Christ wants us to have a child's heart but a grown-up's head.

Mum prayed to the Lord that when her children were born they wouldn't be tone deaf. Mum says at two years old I was singing my own little songs, she didn't know where I'd heard it so I must have made it up. I used to sing along with the radio.

We really do see the pattern Jesus warns us about: "Pick up the sword and you will die by the sword." Not only do innocent children suffer as collateral damage, but the one who picks up the sword also suffers. We've learned that lesson all too well. We are not made to kill. So when we do, it kills a part of us.

Lord, thank you for using the foolish to confound the wise and the weak one: to shame the strong. Help us live with the shrewdness of serpents and the innocence of doves. Keep our feet from fatigue, our spirits from despair, and our hands from failing to rise in praise to you. Amen.

In exchange for his first taste of powdered milk, Pascal showed me a tree we could climb to find a bird's nest. After we handled and examined the pink-skinned baby birds, he popped one of them into his mouth like a jujube. It seemed to please him a lot. He offered a baby bird to me, pantomiming that I should eat it. I understood perfectly well what he meant, but I refused. He did not seem disappointed to have to eat the whole brood himself.

I had a list going in my head that fall, of what all I would tell my little brother one day. But time passed and eventually my mind had only one thought in it as regards childhood. For any kid that gets that as an option: take that sweet thing and run with it. Hide. Love it so hard. Because it's going to fucking leave you and not come back.

Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us.

We have been told the lie ever since we can remember: human beings are basically nice and good. Everyone is born equal and innocent and self-sufficient. The world is a pleasant, harmless place. We are born free. If we are in chains now, it is someone's fault, and we can correct it with just a little more intelligence or effort or time.

To be without guile is to be free of deceit, cunning, hypocrisy, and dishonesty in thought or action.

Don't grow up too fast, darling. Age is inevitalbe but if you nurture a childlike heart you'll never grow old.