Quotes about innocent
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“You think I'd cheat on you?" I demanded with all the innocent outrage I could muster.

"With another guy, no. With a cheeseburger… in a heartbeat.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Guy, Thinking, Cheating

“The innocent should never have to suffer from the battles of others. (Valerius)
I know, but it seems to always be the case. (Acheron)
A furore infra, libera nos - spare us from the fury within. (Valerius)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

Suffering

“Innocence is a kind of insanity”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

“There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

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

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Source: The Garden of Eden

“I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

People

“In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

“In a Town like Twin Peaks noone is innocent”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

“Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.”

Piers Anthony book Centaur Aisle

Source: Centaur Aisle

Nature, Suffering

“Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.”

Michael Pollan book The Omnivore's Dilemma

Source: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Dreams, Reality, Dependency

“Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police---who already think you're guilty---will find it for you.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Hope, Thinking

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 12, “Puzzle Pieces Fitting” (p. 88)

Children, Thinking, Future, Childhood

“Maybe innocence makes its way easiest through the elemental chaos of this world…”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

World, Way

“Truly decent, innocent people can be taxing to be around.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

People

“Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.”

Terry Goodkind Faith of the Fallen

The Romantic Manifesto (1969)
Source: Faith of the Fallen

“You're lying through your fangs," Iggy accused.
Fang tried to play innocent--but "innocent Fang" is an oxymoron, so it didn't work.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

Lying

“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

People, Reality, Dead

“If by 'miracle kids' you mean innocent test-tube babies whose DNA was forcibly unraveled and merged with two percent avian genes, yeah, I guess that would be us," I said. "Because it's a miracle that we're not complete nut jobs and mutant disasters.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Final Warning

Baby

“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 12: The Cry of the Hunters
Context: His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

Heart

“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 book Venetia

Source: Venetia

Love, God, Madness

“I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought me to despair?”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: My Mother/Madame Edwarda/The Dead Man

Pleasure, Despair

“But now it was spring again, and spring was almost unbearable for sensitive hearts. It drove creation to its utmost limits, it wafted its spice-laden breath even into the nostrils of the innocent.”

Knut Hamsun book Dreamers

Source: Dreamers

Spring, Heart

“My innocence is a dying flower”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Flowers

“I dont believe in learning from other peoples pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

People, Thinking, Learning

“If blue is dream
what then innocence?
What awaits the heart
if Love bears no arrows?”

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director

Love, Dreams, Heart

“You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Heart

“To the children and the innocent it's all the same.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Children

“The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Way

“Time for bed.” I held my fist out. One by one, my flock stacked theirs on top, and then we headed up into the trees to sleep the sleep of the innocent. Well, okay, maybe not so innocent. But the sleep of the much less guilty than others, for sure.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Final Warning

Sleep, Tree, Time

“What a quality of innocence people have when they don't expect to be harmed.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

People

“Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

Source: Cool Memories

Pleasure

“Let the guilty bury the innocent, and let no one change the evidence”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Change

“I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)
Context: As we address these challenges – and others we cannot foresee tonight – America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

People, Truth, World, Peace

“To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing

“Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won’t you, and I’ll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everybody does.

But my innocence is gone forever.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Way, Feeling, Night

“Where were you born?"
"On a battlefield," [Yossarian] answered.
"No, no. In what state were you born?"
"In a state of innocence.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

"The Old Way of Thinking" http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Old_Way_Thinking.html, in The Progressive (November 2001)

War, Children, Time

“The opportunity to love a dog and to treat it with kindness is an opportunity for a lost and selfish heart to be redeemed. They are powerless and innocent, and it is how we treat the humblest among us that surely determines the fate of our souls”

Dean Koontz book The Darkest Evening of the Year

Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year

Love, Fate, Dogs, Soul

“God save us always," I said, "from the innocent and the good.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Pt. I, ch. 1, pg 15
Source: The Quiet American (1955)

God

“Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

“To see her is a picture-
To hear her is a tune-
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June-
To know her not-Affliction-
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Affliction, Sun

“What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!”

Margaret Atwood book The Edible Woman

Source: The Edible Woman

Education, Thinking, Time

“One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Loss, Personality

“Magnus shrugged. "He also made inappropriate amorous advances to a startled grandmotherly sort selling flowers, an Irish wolfhound, and innocent hat stand in a dwelling he broke into, and myself.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Flowers

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Section II, Chap. III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part II

“There are very few innocent sentences in writing.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

“Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

1848
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)

Evil

“I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

1984: Spring (1984)
1980s

Home

“Angel raised her hand. "Excuse me. What does LTC stand for?" She blinked innocently.
"Loving Tender Care?"Gazzy suggested. If our instructor had had lasers for eyes, he would have sliced Gazzy in half.
"Lieutenant colonel," he sputtered.”

James Patterson book Maximum Ride

Source: Max

Love, Angels

“He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment.”

Henry Miller book Sexus

Context: A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in....

The Rosy Crucifixion I : Sexus (1949), Chapter 1. (New York: Grove Press, c1965, p. 17-18)

World

“That disapproving look was back in her eyes. Her teacher face. The one that could make you squirm from ten paces, even if you were innocent. And I hadn't been innocent for years.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Circus of the Damned

Source: Circus of the Damned

Teachers

“Thatʹs a dangerous look,ʺ said Dimitri, giving me a brief glance before returning his eyes to the road.
ʺWhat look?ʺ I asked innocently.
ʺThe one that says you just got some idea.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Variant: That's a dangerous look," said Dimitri, giving me a brief glance before returning his eyes to the road.
"What look?" I asked innocently.
"The one that says you just got some idea."
"I didn't just get an idea. I got aidea.
Source: Last Sacrifice

Idea

“There could never be innocence in a world without justice.”

Tim Bowler book Frozen Fire

Source: Frozen Fire

World, Justice

“I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Pleasure

“Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Science, Happiness

“Children, Never look Back!" and this meant that we must never allow the future to be weighed down by memory. for children have no past, and that is the whole secret of the magical innocence of their smiles.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Children, Secret, Smile, Memory

“Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took very little sugar.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Death, Fate

“Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a "war against terrorism."”

Noam Chomsky book 9-11

9-11, 2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20061015103427/http://indymedia.org.nz/usermedia/application/2/9-11.pdf <br class="br">Quotes 2000s, 2001

War

“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Life

“What do you call a planet where bad guys stroll through life with success draped around their shoulders like a King’s cloak, while random horrors are visited upon the innocent heads of children? I call it Earth.”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Life, Children, Guy, Success

“How wicked, my brothers, innocent milk must always seem to me now.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

“When the wicked want to bring down the innocent, they aim for a loving heart.”

Cynthia Rylant (1954) American author of children's books and librarian

Source: Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Love, Heart

“Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?" says Peeta. "It costs everything you are.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: It costs your life,” says Caesar.

“Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?” says Peeta. “It costs everything you are.
Source: Mockingjay

Life, People

“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Good Morning, Life, Nature

“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Ch 17; Variant: All things truly wicked start from innocence.
As quoted by R Z Sheppard in review of The Garden of Eden (1986) TIME (26 May 1986)
A Moveable Feast (1964)

“Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Source: Old Christmas: From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving

Smile, Light, Happiness

“No one is safe from nature's savagery, not even the innocent. Only beauty is consistent.
Gabrielle envisions a time when the Savage Garden will overtake civilizations and destroy it.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

Beauty, Nature, Time

“One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Learning

“We had and incident. I took care of it."
"Really." Jace's voice dripped sarcasm. "Do you even know how to use that knife, Clarissa? Without poking a hole in yourself or any innocent bystanders?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“We killed an innocent girl”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Twisted

Girl

“Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, "I didn't do it." Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies.”

Leonard Peltier (1944) Native American activist

Source: Prison Writings

“Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club (1989)

Hope, Hope, Daughters

“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Source: Murder on the Orient Express

Nature, Personality

“If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?”

Michael Connelly book The Concrete Blonde

Source: The Concrete Blonde

“Not true,” said Adrian. “All guys mean the same thing when they want to ‘get to know a girl better.’ You’re a wellbred young lady, so I understand why you’d be too innocent to understand. Good thing you’ve got me here to interpret.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Guy, Girl, Understanding

“He wasn't evil as much as magnificently innocent of any kind of morality.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

Evil

“For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever.”

Susan Hill book The Woman in Black

Source: The Woman in Black

“Fang snorted in disbelief. "On one hand, we have a mythical nice family that wants to adopt me. On the other, we have a gang of insane scientists desperate to do genetic experiments on innocent children. Guess which hand I get dealt?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Maximum Ride The Angel Experiment

Children, Family

“There are girls who do not like real life… Some of these girls are innocent enough to think that these unreal friendships [with homosexuals] will lead to true love — a kind of sexual intercourse that will happen to them without their having to take too horribly much notice. Even those who are sufficiently sophisticated to know that this will not be so persist in these relationships. They provide an opportunity to lavish emotion on a pseudo-man without paying the price that in heterosexual circumstances would be inevitable.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 19

Love, Life, Friendship, Girl

“No! No! Gentlemen, no emotion for me. But, those of congratulation. I am happy. To die is the irreversible decree of him who made us. Then what joy to be able to meet death without dismay. This, thank God, is my case. The happiness of man is my wish, that happiness I deem inconsistent with slavery, and to avert so great an evil from an innocent people, I will gladly meet the British tomorrow, at any odds whatever.”

Johann de Kalb (1721–1780) American general

In August 1780, as quoted in "Death of Baron De Kalb" https://books.google.com/books?id=k2QAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=%22I+thank+you+sir+for+your+generous+sympathy,+but+I+die+the+death+I+always+prayed+for:+the+death+of+a+soldier+fighting+for+the+rights+of+man%22&source=bl&ots=-93hJzoCYU&sig=tAag8ObQI-ZjiII56viczov02wM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VlYVVcuJI4KmNsazgYgL&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20thank%20you%20sir%20for%20your%20generous%20sympathy%2C%20but%20I%20die%20the%20death%20I%20always%20prayed%20for%3A%20the%20death%20of%20a%20soldier%20fighting%20for%20the%20rights%20of%20man%22&f=false (1849), by Benjamin Franklin Ells, The Western Miscellany, Volume 1, p. 233. <br class="br">1780s

Death, God, People, Evil

“The now famous slogan 'keep calm and carry on' poster from 1939 was designed as a motivational poster for people living in cities expecting to be bombed by the Nazis. But the UK wasn't just 'keeping calm': we had taken a stand like no other country in the world and declared war on a barbaric regime which was a global threat to peace and security. Today, as we wait to hear news from Manchester following the slaughter and maiming of innocent children, we have people calling for us to do nothing. But it's not the same 'carry on' as in 1939: they want us to accept terror attacks as a part of life we should now accept. Well, I don't accept it. How many people are we going to sacrifice on the alter (sic) of political correctness before we build up the courage to confront what most people will happily admit to their friends and family: that we are facing a continuing threat from radical Islam which hashtags and tea lights will not stop?”

Jane Collins (1962) British politician

Jane Collins MEP responds to terror attacks in Manchester http://jane-collins.org/news.php?id=79. Item on official website (May 23, 2017).

Life, War, Children, People

“I don’t know how to defend myself: surprised innocence
Cannot imagine being under suspicion.”

Pierre Corneille Rodogune

Je me défendrai mal: l'innocence étonnée
Ne peut s'imaginer qu'elle soit soupçonnée.
Rodogune, act V, scene iv
Rodogune (1644)

Imagination

“Her face was that of a boy gang-leader, smooth with the innocence of one who, by the same quirk as blinds a man to the mystery of whistling or riding a bicycle, has never mastered the art of affection or compassion or properly learned the moral dichotomy.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Enemy in the Blanket (1958)

Art, Boy, Learning

“Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Children, People

“Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

These words, which have been widely attributed to Scalia, do not appear in any of his writings or statements. http://www.snopes.com/scalia-death-penalty-quote He nonetheless remarked in Herrera v. Collins (1993, concurring) that state courts had no obligation to review a death sentence on factual innocence grounds, an opinion that he repeated in In re Davis (2009, dissenting). <br class="br">Misattributed

Death

“For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman's heart.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Beauty, Art, Sense, Freedom

“I have talked to you in the past but we have always exchanged pleasantries. And it has always been assumed that I am Kaltenbrunner, the big bad man next to Himmler and the successor of Himmler. But I think you can see by this time, after having treated my brain hemorrhages, both in the hospital and here in my cell, that I am not the disagreeable, uncouth fellow the public probably thinks because of all the atrocities committed under Himmler's rule, and of which I am totally innocent.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Leon Goldensohn, 3/22/46, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Thinking, Time, Past

“Another innocent victim of my pointless rage.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), Commonly repeated

Rage

“Ken also identified the corporation, not “the market,” as the defining institution of modern economic activity, developing these and related themes both in his teaching and in such widely celebrated books as American Capitalism (1952) and The New Industrial State (1967). But his interest in these ideas persisted throughout his life. The central importance of the corporation, and the fear that government was no longer able to provide an adequate countervailing force against corporate influence exerted both legally and otherwise, was the subject of his last book, The Economics of Innocent Fraud”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

2004
Stephen A. Marglin, Richard Parker, Amartya Sen, and Benjamin M. Friedman, “John Kenneth Galbraith”, Harvard Gazette (February 7, 2008)
2000s

Life, Books, Fear, Idea

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s, Boston Massacre trial (1770)
Context: It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.

World