"Innocency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other things," answered Foy, "every one of them true, for I am a miserable sinner. Well, all right, there is a mistake, and it is," he added, with an air of radiant innocency that somehow was scarcely calculated to deceive, "that I was merely poking a stick into Adrian's temper. I never saw him talking to Black Meg. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... correspondent, "simplicity, faith, guilelessness, unfit them to conduct public affairs, where one must deal with quacks and charlatans.... We are not all at once 'as gods, knowing good and evil;' and the very innocency of our lives, and the habits of pure homes, unfit us to manage a certain class who will flock to ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and brain of what we now call the genus Homo was fully developed: he was then an animal pure and simple, conscious of living but knowing neither good nor evil; there was nothing in his thoughts more perfect than himself; it was the golden age of innocency; he was a being enjoying himself in a perfect state of nature with absolute freedom from responsibility of action. But, as ages rolled on, under the great law of evolution, his brain was enlarging and gradually ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... since the creation of the world, unto the sons of men; but the great end of all of them, has been the renown of his own excellent name in the creation and restoration of man: man, the emblem of himself, as a God on earth, and the glory of all his works. The world began with innocency; all was then good that the good God had made: and as he blessed the works of his hands, so their natures and harmony magnified him their Creator. Then the morning stars sang together for joy, and all parts of his work said Amen to ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... It is this,—that if a word be directly from the Latin, it will not have undergone any alteration or modification in its form and shape, save only in the termination—'innocentia' will have become 'innocency', 'natio' will have become 'nation', 'firmamentum' 'firmament', but nothing more. On the other hand, if it comes through the French, it will generally be considerably altered in its passage. It will have undergone a process of lubrication; its sharply defined ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... with his marriage—they have given rise to nearly as much discussion as his poetry. In his "Defensio Secunda," he tells, with a touch of pride, of the absolute innocency that continued until his thirty-fifth year. When we consider how his combined innocence and ignorance plunged him into a sudden marriage with a bit of pink-and-white protoplasm, aged seventeen, we can not but regret that he had not devoted a little of his valuable time ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... going forth from before the avenging sword of his own forging to the bitterness of an accursed earth, took with him this bright memory of perfect, ceaseless service, and so fashioned our labouring wheel—pathetic link with the time of his innocency. It is one of many unanswered questions, good to ask because it has no answer, only the suggestion of a train of thought: perhaps we are never so receptive as when with folded hands we say simply, "This is a great mystery." ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... of the Lord's vicegerents here on earth, whatsoever they any where find uttered against the cruelty of blood-thirsty men, and to themselves they draw all the sentences which Scripture hath in favor of innocency persecuted ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... his starting-point, in the days of his innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham, was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... was, of course, convinced that the lady whom he was employed to watch was—no better than she ought to be. That is the usual Bozzlian language for broken vows, secrecy, intrigue, dirt, and adultery. It was his business to obtain evidence of her guilt. There was no question to be solved as to her innocency. The Bozzlian mind would have regarded any such suggestion as the product of a green softness, the possession of which would have made him quite unfit for his profession. He was aware that ladies who are no better than they should be are often very clever,—so ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... soul, yea, the very shape of God himself into an exterior and bodily form, urgently pretending a necessity and obligement of joining the body in a formal reverence and worship circumscribed; they hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold, and gewgaws fetched from Aaron's old wardrobe or the flamen's vestry: then was the priest set to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and his lurries, till the soul by this ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... shall have him very loth to be in the field, and very willing to be in the school. Yea, I say more, and not of myself, but by the judgment of those from whom few wise men will gladly dissent; that if ever the nature of man be given at any time, more than other, to receive goodness, it is in innocency of young years, before that experience of evil have taken root in him. For the pure clean wit of a sweet young babe is like the newest wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing; and like a new bright silver dish never occupied, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... close, unique union and indwelling of God in Christ, but they involve also this other: that these sufferings bore no relation to the deserts of the person who endured them. If Christ, with His pure and perfect character—the innocency and nobleness of which all that read the Gospels admit—if Christ suffered so; if the highest virtue that was ever seen in this world brought no better wages than shame and spitting and the Cross; if Christ's life and Christ's death are simply ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... and fled into the hardships and experiences of a disciplinary and growing humanity.... The radical vice of the popular way of thinking about moral evil lies in the supposition that ... a state of spotless innocency is better than a state of moral exposure and moral struggle; and that all our humanity is not entitled to use development and play, in its grand career of being. On the other hand, the true theory of humanity ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... to all this with the joy and wantonness of an innocent, unsuspicious being. With all these glorious things round about her, she felt as if surrounded by a sea of blessedness and pleasure, and she plunged into it with the quiet daring of innocency, which foresees not what breakers and abysses this sea ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... burnt their houses, took what they could of their household stuff, killed and mangled themselves. 'Yet were they, upon report of that poor knave, who was himself foremost in doing these mischiefs, all taken and brought to their trial by law, where they were, through their innocency, acquitted, to their no small cost; so as betwixt the professed enemy, and the private envy of our governors, seeking thereby to advance themselves, there was no way left for the poor ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... up holy hands.' That, of course, needs no explanation. One of the psalms, you may remember, says 'I will wash mine hands in innocency, so will I compass Thine altar.' The psalmist felt that unless there was a previous lustration and cleansing, it was vain for him to go round the altar. And you may remember how sternly and eloquently ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Rapine, Lust, are fled to hell, And in their rooms with us the Graces dwell; That honour more than riches men respect, That worthiness than gold doth more effect, That Piety unmasked shows her face, That Innocency keeps with Power her place, That long-exiled Astrea leaves the heaven, And turneth right her sword, her weights holds even, That the Saturnian world is come again, Are wish'd effects of thy most happy reign. That daily, Peace, Love, Truth, Delights increase, And ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... think me what he pleases, if he ever comes to know me, the rest of my actions shall justify me in this; if he does not, I'll begin to practise on him (what you so often preached to me) to neglect the report of the world, and satisfy myself in my own innocency. ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... "I am innocent and God will clear my innocency." Once acquitted yet falsely condemned she suffered death July ...
— Quaint Epitaphs • Various
... Boxford, Mary Lacy and Ann Foster of Andover, and Abigail Hobbs of Topsfield. Of these Eight were Executed."[29] And Cotton Mather in a letter to a friend: "Our Good God is working of Miracles. Five Witches were lately Executed, impudently demanding of God a Miraculous Vindication of their Innocency."[30] ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long a-bed, spoil both her complexion and conditions; Nature hath taught her too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises therefore with chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes lamb her curfew. In milking a cow and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... not however think this disposition ought to hinder him from labouring to manifest to the world the innocency of his conduct, and that of those who were ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... own side. I know, Iulianus stat. // Apostata did so, but I neuer hard or red, that any auncyent father of the primitiue chirch, either thought or wrote so. But this ignorance in yougthe, which I spake on, or rather Innocency // this simplicitie, or most trewlie, this innocencie, in youth. // is that, which the noble Persians, as wise Xenophon doth testifie, were so carefull, to breede vp their yougth in. But Christian fathers commonlie do not so. And ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... faithfully, was pleasant and obliging, but lived her life largely apart from the others. Her later experience in moving amongst the people had enlarged her knowledge of life, and now she realized that, as a certain white flower with smooth petals remains unspotted at the mouth of coal pits, so by the innocency of her mind and the purity of her spirit, she had been preserved from dangers worse than death. The thought of Kate in such company was intolerable. With her usual motherliness towards her sister, she replied, 'On no account must you take a situation without my approval. ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... on, and not mind me; and I called for tea. When we had done tea, "See, ma'am," he cried, "I have brought You 'Carr,' and here is a sermon upon the text I mean, when I preach, to choose 'Keep innocency, and take heed to the thing that is right; for that will bring a man peace at ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Alone I could almost answer for its success. I cannot be certain of its reception in the bad company it may keep. In such heterogeneous assortments, the most innocent person will lose the effect of his innocency. Though you should send out this angel of peace, yet you are sending out a destroying angel too; and what would be the effect of the conflict of these two adverse spirits, or which would predominate in the end, is what I dare not say: whether ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... spiritually, but—she hesitates, lowers her gentle head and, finally, confesses that she is troubled with "temptations." She shows her angelic confidence in him by telling them, and he is deeply moved at the almost childish innocency of what she calls her temptations. No honest woman could possibly regard them as such, if he only knew it. But he doesn't know it. He sees her reduced to tears over her would-be transgressions, and before he considers what he is about ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... infinitely more full of temptation, bloomful with radiant health, the blush of youth and conscious loveliness upon her lips and looking out under the crisp entanglement of her hair, all simple purity and straightness of soul in the fearless innocency of her eyes; the Lady Ysolinde, deeper taught in the mysteries of existence, more conscious of power, not so beautiful, but oftentimes giving the impression of beauty more strongly than her fairer rival, compact of swift delicate graces, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... innocency of being allowed of for a time; I am so far from that persuasion that, from what has been before hinted, I count it perfectly contagious! and as a thing that, for the most part, infects the whole life, and influences most actions! For he that finds himself to have the right ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... & Ev'ry person takes the Liberty of judging or rather determining (with judging) from appearances (or information) without weighing circumstances, or the proper causes, on wch their judgem^t ought to be founded.... Upon the whole, S^r, triumph in your innocency, your disinterestedness, your unwearied Application & Zeal for your country's good, determine you to continue in its service at a time there may be the greatest call for you, & when probably some signal Day may mark you the bravest ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... the same. The fact against the queen's highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but, touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God, and the face of you, good christian people, this day: and therewith she wrung her hands, wherein she had her book. Then said she, I pray you all, good christian people, to bear me witness, that I die a good ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... was not for effect. It was merely that the man and the kinsman in Silas Crafts had throttled the righteous judge. "It breaks my heart, Thomas, but I must say it. You have put it out of your power to say with the Psalmist, 'I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord.' You must give up all thoughts of going back ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the Scarlet Woman in the 'fifties. We palliated nothing, we believed in no good intentions, we used (I myself used, in my tender innocency) language of the seventeenth century such as is now no longer introduced into any species of controversy. As a little boy, when I thought, with intense vagueness, of the Pope, I used to shut my eyes tight and clench my fists. We welcomed ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... think proper of my advice; but were I in your situation, I would endeavour to reconcile Lord Rochester and Miss Temple. Once more I recommend to you to take care that your endeavours to mislead her innocency, in order to blast his honour, may not come to his knowledge; and do not estrange from her a man who tenderly loves her, and whose probity is so great, that he would not even suffer his eyes to wander towards her, if his intention was not ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... live that it had been very inhumane to have troubled him with any interrogacons."[807] The news of the King's displeasure at his conduct added much to his suffering. He pleaded for an opportunity "to clear his Innocency" even though the "tedious passage & griefe of mind" had reduced him "to extreame weaknesse".[808] That Charles did not refuse him this privilege is attested by a letter written to Berkeley by Secretary Coventry. "I am commanded by his Majesty," he ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... admission of deception, indelicacy, or management, he knows; for he has seen it from long and close examination. He regrets that the very artlessness of those who are most pure in the one sex, subjects them to the suspicions of the grosser-materials which compose the other He believes that innocency, singleness of heart, ardency of feeling, and unalloyed, shrinking delicacy, sometimes exist in the female bosom, to an extent that but few men are happy enough to discover, and that most men believe incompatible with the frailties of human ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... nor act one way nor other, but as we were moved of the Lord, least we should add to his bonds,—I say, being thus kept, we were delivered out of the snare of the fowler, who secretly lay in wait to betray our innocency; And after a little time the Lord showed me I should go to the inquisition, which I did, and enquired for the Inquisitor, as I was showed of the Lord I should do; and when I spoke to him I told him I was come from England for to see my brother J. P.; to which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... the hearts of our fathers and brethren to elect, on this day, to the work and ministry of a Bishop in Thy Church, Thy servant, to whom the charge of this Diocese was first committed; and that Thou didst so replenish him with the truth of Thy doctrine and endue him with innocency of life, that he was enabled, both by word and deed, faithfully to serve Thee in this office, to the glory of Thy name, and the edifying and well-governing of Thy Church. For this so great mercy, and for ail the blessings which, in Thy good Providence, ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... was the reply—it was uttered in a vulgar nasal tone, that Julia instantly perceived was counterfeited: but Miss Emmerson, with perfect innocency, proceeded in ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... drink.—which things he did, in order to make trial of his brethren, whether they would stand by Benjamin when he should be accused of having stolen the cup, and should appear to be in danger; or whether they would leave him, and, depending on their own innocency, go to their father without him. When the servant had done as he was bidden, the sons of Jacob, knowing nothing of all this, went their way, and took Symeon along with them, and had a double cause of joy, both because they had received him again, and because they took back ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and her young husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were executed at the Tower, the former on the Green within the ancient stronghold, and the latter on Tower Hill. The story of her unhappy fate is one of the most familiar pages of English history. Fuller said of this noble woman: "She had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of middle, the gravity of old age, and all at eighteen; the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, and the death of a malefactor for ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence; if so, then, how should I, in the presence of that tremendous Being, the Author of existence, how should I meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom I deserted in the smiling innocency of helpless infancy? O, thou great unknown Power!—thou Almighty God! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality!—I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of Thy works, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Stephen was inclined to say, 'How doth God know? and is there knowledge with the Most High? Behold, these are the ungodly that prosper in the earth; they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... alone, to deem myself innocent if I have never actually murdered a fellow-being. But when the Lord of glory tells me that "whosoever is angry with his brother" is in danger of the judgment, my mouth is stopped, and it is impossible for me to cherish a conviction of personal innocency, in respect to the sixth commandment. And the same is true of the seventh commandment, and the eighth commandment, and of all the statutes in the decalogue. He who reads, and ponders, the whole Sermon on the Mount, is painfully conscious that Christ has put a meaning ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... and triumphed, and sang. For months after, the laddie weans did nothing but squeak and sing like Punch. In short, a blithe spirit was among us throughout this year, and the briefness of the chronicle bears witness to the innocency of ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... the man dipped his hand to the arm. The judgment by water was accompanied by the solemnity of the same ceremonies. The culprit was thrown into a pool of water, in which if he did not sink, he was adjudged guilty, as though the element (they said) to which they had committed the trial of his innocency ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the wretched, and the depraved, he made the knowledge of low life lie thus obtained serve his purpose as dramatist or pamphleteer. Whatever may have been the effect of his vagabond habits on his principles, they did not stain the sweetness and purity of his sentiments. There is an innocency in his very coarseness, and a brisk, bright good-nature chirps in his very scurrility. In the midst of distresses of all kinds, he still seems, like his own Fortunatus, "all felicity up to the brims"; but that his content with Fortune is not owing to an unthinking ignorance of her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... every word brought back with it a flood of memories. He could see himself, the small boy, reading those verses for the first time before he went to Fernhurst, ignorant of what lay before him. How soon he had changed his fresh innocency! How soon his bright gold had grown dim! Then he saw himself this time last year, listening to those words with an unbounded confidence, certain that he at least would never achieve failure. Visions in the twilight! And what was ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... heard any one speak more plainly concerning the manhood of Christ, than George Fox himself. Penn was imprisoned in the Tower for "rejecting the mystery of the Trinity," in a book called "The Sandy Foundation Shaken." He afterward wrote "Innocency with her Open Face," regarded by some as a compromise, which procured his release. But though various popular doctrines naturally came in their way, and challenged discussion, while they were endeavoring to introduce a new order of things, the characteristic feature of their movement ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... millions of such sad and injured ones in India today. Their cry goes up to God and to man in inarticulate appeal for relief and redress against a social custom and a religious rule which consigns them, in their time of greatest innocency, to a life which is worse than death itself and which robs them of the protection, love and sympathy which the whole economy of heaven and earth should guarantee ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... establish his own kingdom by using now any other practices than the same which he hath ever used from the beginning. For since any man's remembrance we can scant find one time, either when religion did first grow, or when it was settled, or when it did afresh spring up again, wherein truth and innocency were not by all unworthy means, and most despitefully intreated. Doubtless the devil well seeth, that so long as truth is in good safety, himself cannot be safe, nor ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... he neuer made no com[-] parison with the riche man in richesse / nor with the myghty man in power. But yf nede required / with the hardy ma[n] in bold- [C.i.r] nes / with the temperate in moderacion / with the good man in innocency & iust dea[-] ling. He cared not for the name / it was suf- ficie[n]t to hym to haue the dede / & so / the lesse he cared for glorye / the more alwayes he opteyned. Many suche comparisons ve- ry profitable for this inte[n]t / are also in Plu[-] tarche in his boke ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... disdain. Let us observe (and the Calvinists should consider this), he will hear as little of the charges against mankind as of charges against himself. He will not listen to the 'corruption of humanity,' because in the consciousness of his own innocency, he knows that it is not corrupt: he knows that he is himself just and good, and we know it, the Divine sentence upon him having been already passed. He will not acknowledge his sin, for he knows not of what to repent. If he could ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... you are too severe upon Miss; you must not find fault with her pretty simplicity: it becomes her strangely. Pretty Miss, don't let 'em persuade you out of your innocency. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... limited by the new. The new statement is always hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles before the revelation ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and trials, suffering, sorrow and death are found on every hand. Many things would tempt us from our allegiance and continuance. Like the Psalmist, we see the wicked prospering, and we are ready to burst out with the faithless cry: "I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." Or we have been toiling in the vineyard for long without seeing any fruit, and like the prophet, we are tempted to cry: "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought." Then we hear the voice of the Apostle reminding us of "the love of God" ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... I will confess to you that I loved Lord William with all the strength of a first love, and with all that innocency of a young heart which does not yet even know that the passion which sways it is love. I soon found that Lord William was dearer to me than all the world beside, and that my chief delight was to obey ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... accustomed to say, "slavery is sectional, and freedom national," let those who elect slavery take the results of slavery to themselves; let them suffer, if their choice brings suffering; but as for us, we wash our hands in innocency, and hold ourselves guiltless of blood." And so we have been going on ever since the outbreak of slavery in the form of armed rebellion. "They are the guilty parties, let them suffer." But has all this been right? Have we had no responsibility? Is no guilt ours? ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... her to say, 'Are they his own?'—a piece of satiric innocency at which Miss Denham laughed softly as she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... aware of the Holy Isis, who is with me for evermore, and whom I shall yet again behold face to face. And then at last in that far day I shall find forgiveness; then the burden of my guilt will roll from me and innocency come back and wrap me round, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard |
