Innocence is a term used to indicate a general lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, sin, or wrongdoing. In a legal context, innocence refers to the lack of legal guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime.

In relation to knowledge

Innocence can also refer to a state of unknowing, where one's experience is lesser, in either a relative view to social peers, or by an absolute comparison to a more common normative scale. In contrast to ignorance, it is generally viewed as a positive term, connoting an optimistic view of the world, in particular one where the lack of knowledge stems from a lack of wrongdoing, whereas greater knowledge comes from doing wrong. This connotation may be connected with a popular false etymology explaining "innocent" as meaning "not knowing" (Latin noscere). The actual etymology is from general negation prefix in- and the Latin nocere, "evil" or "guilty".

People who lack the mental capacity to understand the nature of their acts may be regarded as innocent regardless of their behavior. From this meaning comes the term innocent to refer to a child under the age of reason, or a person, of any age, who is severely mentally disabled.

Innocence is a term that describes the lack of guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. It may also be used to indicate a general lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, sin, or wrongdoing.

Sourced

• Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.
  • Lyman Abbott, quoted in The Seven Powerful Secrets of Emotional Sex‎ (2005) by A. Vishwanath, p. 144

• Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.
  • Anatole France, in Les Dieux Ont Soif [The Gods Are Thirsty] (1912), Ch. XV

• Innocence once lost cannot be regained.
  • Lucifer in The Sandman: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman

• Summer has come and passed The innocent can never last.
  • Green Day, in "Wake Me Up When September Ends"

• That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end.
  • Lise Hand, quoted in The Truth in Words : Inspiring Quotes for the Reflective Mind (2002) by Paras, p. 107

• Assuredly we bring not innocence not the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
  • John Milton, in Areopagitica (1644)

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Tue Jul 27 05:38:49 2010