#innocence

For Mercy has a human heart; Pity, a human face; And Love, the human form divine: And Peace the human dress. Songs of Innocence Cruelty has a human heart And jealousy a human face, Terror the human form divine, And secrecy the human dress. The human dress is forged iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace seal'd, The human heart its hungry gorge. Songs of Experience - This poem was discovered posthumously. ↗

— William Blake

#human-nature #innocence #experience

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

#hope #innocence #joy #faith

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

#family #innocence #family

He was an American character, one typical of men of his generation, men who embraced the notion of freedom and individualism and the open road without always knowing its price, and whose enthusiasms could as easily lead to the cowardice of McCarthyism as to the heroics of World War II. Men who were both dangerous and promising precisely because of their fundamental innocence; men prone, in the end, to disappointment. ↗

— Barack Obama

#americans #innocence #freedom

When you were born, the sight of your face and the noise of your voice brought people joy, you are a carrier of peace and love; return to your natural state of innocence, be free today ↗

— Martin Suarez

#birth #face #freedom #innocence #joy

Our true nature is one of innocence and freedom to choose how we live. We need to be brave enough not to give that away. Don't give up on your right to, and sense of, TRUTH, Justice, and GRACE. ↗

— Jay Woodman

#choose #freedom #grace #innocence #justice

One day you’re innocent, then circumstances find you in an unlikely situation and you wonder how you could have been so stupid. I suppose I should be thankful. Being framed for a crime is all a part of growing up. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#funny #innocence #maturity #funny

Bill Gates (and his successor at Microsoft, Ray Ozzie) are famous for taking annual reading vacations. During the year they deliberately cultivate a stack of reading material—much of it unrelated to their day-to-day focus at Microsoft—and then they take off for a week or two and do a deep dive into the words they’ve stockpiled. By compressing their intake into a matter of days, they give new ideas additional opportunities to network among themselves, for the simple reason that it’s easier to remember something that you read yesterday than it is to remember something you read six months ago. ↗

— Steven Johnson

#ideas #innocencevation #inspiration #reading #self-improvement

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

#love #madness #love

Sometimes I ask God what I did to deserve her love. I maintain my innocence, and of all the forms of God’s wrath from plagues, pestilence, and famine, her love is by far the cruelest.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#famine #god #innocence #love #pestilence