Innocent

“ To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin; how then is it possible to make the suffering of the innocent a justification for the criminal? Why should a man be willing to let the innocent suffer for him? ”

“ Antonyms: INNOCENT. Synonyms:
Innocent, in the full sense, signifies not tainted with sin; not having done wrong or violated legal or moral precept or duty; as, an innocent babe. Innocent is a negative word, expressing less than righteous, upright, or virtuous, which imply knowledge of good and evil, with free choice of the good. A little child or a lamb is innocent; a tried and faithful man is righteous, upright, virtuous. Immaculate, pure, and sinless may be used either of one who has never known the possibility of evil or of one who has perfectly and triumphantly resisted it. ”

“ I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the instant confounding and bottomless, for if he were innocent, what then on earth was I? ”

“ Your silence is the indication of guilt, and in that indication I ought to acquiesce. Yet the fortitude of your manner, and something, I know not what, of emotion, that your manner produces in my own bosom, would fain persuade me you are innocent. Why will you leave me a prey to this contention of thought? If all men, constituted as I am, were to feel in you, as it were, the magnetism of innocence, shame, the simple inference of understanding, and the general sense of mankind, would oblige them to treat you as guilty. ”

“ This spotless way beginneth from innocence, and it endeth also in innocence. Why seek many words? Be innocent: and thou hast perfected righteousness....But who is innocent? He who while he hurteth not another, injureth not himself. For he who hurteth himself, is not innocent. ”

“ Innocent is a good name for you, and fits your case. For you're innocent of the faults of your parents whatever they were, and you're innocent of my blunders. You're free to make your own life pleasant if you'll only put a bright face on it and make the best of an awkward business. ”

“ Nor do I speak of those open and avowed sinners who have thrown off even the appearance of virtue. I speak only of those who, like yourselves, live as most live, and whose actions present nothing to the public view particularly shameful or depraved. They are sinners and they admit it: you are not innocent, and you confess it. Now are they penitent? ”

“ Hence, also, we are all innocent to begin with, and this merely means that neither we nor others know the evil of our own nature; it only appears with the motives, and only in time do the motives appear in knowledge. ”

“ We fear it must be allowed that Innocent being merely a man (which is the one unsurmountable argument against papal infallibility) went the way his prepossessions and inclinations—and also, we have no doubt, his conviction of what was best—led him, and was no more certain to be right in doing so than any other man. ”

“ Nor can we help noting another involuntary testimony borne by human language to human sin. I mean this,—that an idiot, or one otherwise deficient in intellect, is called an 'innocent' or one who does no hurt; this use of 'innocent' assuming that to do hurt and harm is the chief employment to which men turn their intellectual powers, that, where they are wise, they are oftenest wise to do evil. ”

“ The partly innocent are apt to be quite foolish at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a viewpoint with universal application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent or true perception means that you never misperceive and always see truly. ”

“ But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent ”

“ There is none so innocent but may be wrongfully accused, sith innocency itself in our Lord and Master was accused and condemned as an enemy to the State and no friend to Cæsar. The servant must not look to be more free from wrongs than his Master was. But happy is that man by whom the truth is tried in judgment and innocency cleared.
“I durst not presume, being branded with the odious name of traitor, to offer my petition to my Sovereign (to whom, as God is witness, I wish long life and all happiness as to my own soul) . ”

“ Innocent is used of inanimate substances in the sense of harmless; as, an innocent remedy, that is, one not dangerous, even if not helpful. Innocent, in a specific case, signifies free from the guilt of a particular act, even tho the total character may be very evil ”

“ Things may be fitting to be done, which are not fitting to be boasted of; for by the perverse judgment of the world, that often becomes the subject of censure, which is, in truth, not only innocent but laudable.”—“Right!” cries Jones: “what can be more innocent than the indulgence of a natural appetite? or what more laudable than the propagation of our species?”— ”

“ Bearing in mind his great power, it is more likely that he will pardon a guilty person than admit that any one is innocent, in his presence.” This was the feeling of poor provincial folk in the presence of the Roman prætor: “He is too proud for us to dare to be innocent.” ”

“ Innocent was extolled by contemporaries as a lover of peace and honesty, but he was without energy, guilty of nepotism, and showed no favour to the proposal that he as well as the antipope should resign. ”

“ There are ways of Deceiving the Eyes, as well as of Blinding them; so that the Cause of the Innocent must be Remitted at last to the Great and Final Decision, where there is no longer any Place for Passion, Partiality, Corruption, or Error. ”

“ But you are innocent, and such a cross is too much for you. ”

“ Everything that's innocent to us is crazy to them. ”

“ This short description of man's state and condition in innocency, agrees with the state and circumstances of human nature at present. Innocent man was required to labor and subdue the earth, out of which he was to be subsisted ”

“ By heaven, it is enough to drive a man mad to see a girl making an idiot of herself like this!”
Poor Innocent could not stand against this torrent of reproof. She shrank back into a corner, and cried and sobbed. It seemed to her that heaven and earth had risen up against her, now that Frederick “scolded” her too. She had done no harm. But what an evening, what a round of miserable adventures she had gone through! Her limbs were aching with fatigue, and her mind with fright and terror. ”

“ No obligation whatever rests on us in respect to a given kind—much light as our choice may often throw for the critic on the nature of our own intelligence. There at any rate, we are disposed to say of such a piece of penetration as “L’Innocente,” there is a particular dreadful adventure, as large as life, for those who can bear it. ”

“ And through it Man lost his innocence? The antithesis of morality and innocence is as old as the world. And if we are to capture innocence again, if the world is to become æsthetically acceptable to us, we must dispense more and more with morality and limit its domain. This, one desperate glance into the depths of the myth tells us. Instinct is upheld in it against isolated reason and exterior law. Detached, "abstract" Reason brought sin into the world, but Instinct, which is fundamentally Love, Creation, Will to Power, is forever innocent, beyond good and evil. ”

“ And if my Innocents ask—as they do sometimes—Innocents are like that!—"Why must we consider the other person?" I answer—for no reason, and under no threat or danger or categorical imperative; but simply because we have grown to be the sort of animal, the sort of queer fish, who cannot do the things "that he would"! ”

“ Then in a lower tone, and with a kindle of that cynicism to come upon folk who, working no evil and doing no wrong, are yet made to find themselves fronted of adverse tides and blown against by winds of cruelty, “Innocent, yes ”

“ The incongruity of the appeal, the words so foolishly simple, the look so tragically anxious, had such an effect upon Frederick as nothing in his life had ever had before. Was the murder of which she accused herself no more to this child than the breaking of a piece of china, the neglect of some trifling duty? God help them all! Wonder, horror, pity, love, all complicated with the mystery of a doubt which could not be shaken off, and a certainty which was above all doubt, distracted the very soul of the man, who could no more understand Innocent than she could understand him. ”

“ A long-drawn, sobbing breath of spent excitement, so universal as to reach to a subdued but distinct sound, came from the crowd. The witness stood for a moment leaning upon the front of the box, seeing nothing but a mist of white faces—her brain whirling, her mind confused, with the shock. It did not occur to her—how should it?—that her reluctance, her paleness, her misery, were all so many additions to the force of her testimony. What more terrible witness could have appeared against Innocent than one out of whom this terrible testimony had to be dragged as from the bottom of her heart? ”

“ Her charm was made up of goodness, simplicity and, above all, innocence, that innocence which is unaware of its own existence, which knows nothing of life, which suspects no evil and which does not see the traps laid for it, nor the hypocrisy that surrounds it, nor the envy which it inspires. ”

“ To Heaven I leave the vindication of my innocence. Its justice is sure, though sometimes slow, and the hour of retribution often arrives when least expected. Much as I have suffered—much as I may still suffer, I think my own situation preferable to theirs who have set their snares around me. The injurer must ever feel greater pangs than the injured—the pangs of guilt and remorse. I shall return to my obscurity, happy in the consciousness that it is not a shelter from shame, but a refuge from cruelty I seek. ”

“ First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt, partly of pity, partly of genuine regret. ”

“ Golaud.
A great innocence! They are bigger than innocence! They are purer than the eyes of a lamb... They would give God lessons in innocence.—A great innocence! Listen: I am so near that I feel the freshness of their lashes when they blink; and yet, I am less far from the great secrets of the other world than from the little secret of these eyes!... A great innocence!... More than innocence! One would think that the angels of heaven were there ceaselessly celebrating a baptism! I know them, these eyes! ”

“ Accused, and forced by her sisters along with the child before the curate, his attention to their representation, his crimson face, knit brow, and thundering voice, struck with terror her very soul: innocence is not always a protection against fear—sometimes less bold than guilt. ”

“ Innocence is sacred, and repentance ought to be equally respected. Did the most perfect of men, the Divinity on earth, refuse to cast a pitying eye on weak, sinful women; to respect their fear and confusion, and rank them among the minds he delighted to consort with and to honour? By what law, then, do we act, when we treat with so much contempt women fallen into ignominy? ”

“ Atkinson.
I must inform, therefore, all such readers, that it is not because innocence is more blind than guilt that the former often overlooks and tumbles into the pit which the latter foresees and avoids. The truth is, that it is almost impossible guilt should miss the discovering of all the snares in its way, as it is constantly prying closely into every corner in order to lay snares for others. Whereas innocence, having no such purpose, walks fearlessly and carelessly through life, and is consequently liable to tread on the gins which cunning hath laid to entrap it. ”

“ That is to say, it is not the gracious elemental innocence which has such attractive qualities; but it is rather the cultivated, mature innocence, in which no one can be mistaken, and which goes straight to the heart. ”

“ Innocence in prosperous circumstances, unwarped by evil habit, untainted by corruption in the blood, uncompelled by harsh surroundings, simple innocence had its day in Paradise, a brief day with a shameful close. ”

“ Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the 321 price of crime has been paid: here shall your spirit dwell for ever, and for ever. You have dreamed away life’s joyous hour, nor made atonement for error, nor denied yourself aught that the fair earth presented you. ”

“ Nor must we be: there is upon us the compulsion to prove that a life of innocence is possible. And as a first step, we must separate ourselves from those who, before they have sought innocence, praise the senses. ”

“ Alas, my child!-that innocence, the first, best gift of Heaven, should, of all others, be the blindest to its own danger,-the most exposed to treachery,-and the least able to defend itself, in a world where it is little known, less valued, and perpetually deceived! ”

“ But then it is that you believe yourself invincible, when we exhort you to fly all profane conversations, suspicious intercourses, doubtful pleasures, lascivious spectacles, and assemblies of sin. Ah! you then defend yourself upon the ground that your innocence is in no degree injured there: you resign to weak souls all the precautions of flight and of circumspection: you tell us that every one must feel and know himself, and that those who are weak enough to be injured there, should in prudence keep away from them. ”