Quotes About Innocence

He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.

A faithful man shall abound with blessings; but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

Unto the pure all things are pure.

A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.

Kittens are angels with whiskers.

Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Those who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. Their other children grow into manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality; but this one alone is rendered an immortal child; for death has arrested it with its kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.

Don't let yourself forget what it's like to be sixteen.

What are little boys made of?Snips and snails, and puppy dogs' tails;That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?Sugar and spice, and everything nice;That's what little girls are made of.

Curlylocks, Curlylocks,Wilt thou be mine?Thou shalt not wash dishesNor yet feed the swine,But sit on a cushionAnd sew a fine seam,And feed upon strawberries,Sugar and cream.

When you befriend old men you realize how innocent the human race is.

There was no need for a term like 'magical thinking' in the Golden Age of Man...there was only genuine everyday magic and mysticism. Children were not mocked or scolded in those days for singing to the rain or talking to the wind.

It reminds me of the Irish prisoner who dug a tunnel under the prison wall and managed to escape. He comes out right in the middle of a school playground where little children are playing. Of course, when he emerges from the tunnel he can't restrain himself anymore and begins to jump up and down, crying, "I'm free, I'm free, I'm free! A little girl there looks at him scornfully and says, "That's nothing. I'm four.

Every child has a god in him. Our attempts to mold the child will turn the god into a devil. Children come to my school, little devils, hating the world, destructive, unmannerly, lying, thieving, bad-tempered. In six months they are happy, healthy children who do no evil.

Werner wonders in the dead of night, isn't life a kind of corruption? A child is born, and the world sets in upon it.

He was a just a boy. They all were. Even the largest of them.

Uncle Etienne says heaven is like a blanket babies cling to.

We used to pick berries by the Ruhr. My sister and me.

and Werner sees six-year-old Jutta lean toward him, Frau Elena kneading bread in the background, a crystal radio in his lap, the cords of his soul not yet severed.

But seven-year-old Werner seems to float. He is undersized and his ears stick out and he speaks with a high, sweet voice; the whiteness of his hair stops people in their tracks. Snowy, milky, chalky. A color that is the absence of color. Every morning he ties his shoes, packs newspaper inside his coat as insulation against the cold, and begins interrogating the world.

It was enough when Werner was a boy, wasn't it? A world of wildflowers blooming up through the shapes of rusty cast-off parts. A world of berries and carrot peels and Frau Elena's fairy tales. Of the sharp smell of tar, and trains passing, and bees humming in the window boxes. String and spit and wire and a voice on the radio offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.

A child is born, and the world sets in upon it. Taking things from it, stuffing things into it. Each bite of food, each particle of light entering the eye—the body can never be pure. But this is what the

Bernd molders in the corner. Jutta moves through the world somewhere, watching shadows disentangle themselves from night, watching minders limp past in the dawnn. It was enough when Werner was a boy, wasn't it? A world of wildflowers blooming up through the shapes of rusty cast-off parts. A world of berries and carrot peels ad Frau Elena's fairy tales. Of the sharp smell of tar, and trains passing, and a voice on the radio offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.