Quotes & Sayings About Naivety

Tacitus laughed at the Germanic tribes who tried to stop a torrent with their shields, but it is no less naive to believe in planetary migration or to believe in the establishment by purely human means of a society fully satisfied and perfectly inoffensive and continuing to progress indefinitely. Al lthis proves that man ,thoough he has inevitably become less naive in some things, has nontheless learned nothing as far as essentials are concerned; the only thing that man is capable of when left to himself is to "commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways," as Shakespeare would say. And the world being what it is, one is doubtless not guilty of a truism in adding that it is better to go to Heaven naively than to go intelligently to hell. — Frithjof Schuon

Only experience can lead you to what it is you want and sometimes, I wish I didn't have so much experience. Now I've got it, I sometimes yearn to have my naivety back again, just so that I didn't know the pain of trying to love someone who can't be loved. — Sarah Michelle Lynch

I'd been about to say something...something...about human naivety...and the fact we had no fundamental right to happiness...or something...but his hand moved over my thigh, fingers brushing my cock through my trousers, and my breath hitched and my thoughts scattered, and I did not mourn them. He pushed me back onto the kitchen floor, crawling over me like some mountain cat stalking its prey. — Alexis Hall

My weakness consists in not having a discriminating eye for the incidental
for the externals,
no eye for the hod of the rag-picker or the fine linen of the next mean. Next man
that's it. I have met so many men." he pursued, with momentary sadness
"met them too with a certain, certain impact, let us say; like this fellow, for instance
and in each case all I could see was merely a human being. A confounded democratic quality of vision which may be better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to me
I can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! It's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too indolent for whist
and a story ... " [p.44] — Joseph Conrad

A naive girl like you should stay in the light and out of the dark. — Tachibana Higuchi

His own naivety taunted him like a flicker of madness. — Jane Harper

An ounce of naivety can earn you many days of shame. An ounce of stupidity can earn you a hundred days of shame. An ounce of insensibility can earn you a thousand days of shame. An ounce of folly can earn you countless days of shame. — Matshona Dhliwayo

For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. — William Shakespeare

So if people want to make a monster out of him, if they want to write books that make him into a cold-hearted man, without a conscience and then write ill about him because he has made a few mistake in life like any normal person would. That has become rough around the edges because so many people have taken advantage of his kindness and child- like naivety to continue to believe in the better of others, while they do nothing but tear him down to pieces to suit their purpose. — Avra Amar Filion

Complete honesty has nothing to do with 'purity' or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist is not pure in heart. — Clement Greenberg

I do not much trust the man who cares solely to inspire - he does not really inspire me - only the man who cares mostly to tell the truth, whatever that may do. For when the man who cares to tell the truth happens to inspire, I, in addition, find it easier to believe that he in fact does his homework on how and when one should truly inspire. — Criss Jami

For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?' 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.' 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp,.. 'that is precisely the point. That's their value - their ability to adapt -' 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse. — Steven Erikson

The boarding school memoir or novel is an enduring literary subgenre, from 1950s classics such as The Catcher in the Rye to Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep. Doust's recognisably Australian contribution to the genre draws on his own experiences in a West Australian boarding school in this clever, polished, detail-rich debut novel. From the opening pages, the reader is wholly transported into the head of Jack Muir, a sensitive, sharp-eyed boy from small-town WA who is constantly measured (unfavourably) against his goldenboy brother. The distinctive, masterfully inhabited adolescent narrator recalls the narrator in darkly funny coming-of-age memoir Hoi Polloi (Craig Sherborne) - as does the juxtaposition of stark naivety and carefully mined knowingness.' - Bookseller+Publisher — Jon Doust

In my view, it's irreverence, foolish confidence and naivety combined with persistence, open mindedness and a continual ability to learn that created Facebook, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Juniper, AOL, Sun Microsystems and others. — Vinod Khosla

His head was thrown back, his chest
heaving, and the look on his face was more indicative of pain than
pleasure.
Rosemary snatched her fingers back, certain she'd
misunderstood the technique somehow.
But he whimpered piteously and she realized, no, she couldn't
have misunderstood. Because (a) she was a genius, and (b) it just
wasn't that complicated — Louisa Edwards

She was just kind and genuine. Pure, even. I hated that her good heartedness and naivety were going to cost her so dearly because I was going to bust up her marriage and take her husband if it were the last thing I did. — Rhonda McKnight

Even as the urgency of the task ahead reemerged in thought, her body grappled with the notion, buying into the soothing sweetness - of Nate's embrace, of the darkness - with a naivety her mind would not permit. — Shona Moyce

God sends little children to speak and act for him. In their simplicity and naivety they say and do things that we adults never would, but which can reveal deep truths about the way the world should be, if we only would have ears to hear and eyes to see... — Phil Steer

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. — Thomas Szasz

There are some who esteem that it is a naivety to believe that a moral regeneration may be possible ("soit possible", Fr.); now, if this was not the case, it would not be worth the trouble that humanity continue to vegetate without aim. — African Spir

It was funny - this man, or whatever he was, spoke with the naivety of child and the authority of a king. He was kind of sweet but a total a-hole at the same time. It was a strange combination. — Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I love you without knowing how, nor when, nor from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you this way because I know no other way to love, — Pablo Neruda

Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination; if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth, it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic. — Terry Eagleton

There are no shy women,"announced the count. "The modest way they cast thier eyes down merely his their naivety."
I was fast coming to the conclusion that there was no need to feel afraid of him. He was only a self-satisfied old git who hated women and liked the sound of his own voice. — Kerstin Gier

Hope is for people who can't see the Truth. — Jeff Lindsay

Our answer is more democracy, more openness and more humanity. But never naivety. — Asne Seierstad

He destroyed in her the knowing, doubting, sophisticated Ella, and again and again he put her intelligence to sleep, and with her willing connivance, so that she floated darkly on her love for him, on her naivety, which is another word for a spontaneous creative faith. And when his own distrust of himself destroyed this woman-in-love, so that she began thinking, she would fight to return to naivety. — Doris Lessing

When we were that young we invented the world, no one could tell us a thing. — Audrey Niffenegger

It's naivety to think that we can just change someone's lifetime belief system using some casual conversations. It cannot happen! — Assegid Habtewold

There's a crazy amount of goodwill, and I don't know where it came from, and I don't understand, but the more I pay attention to it, the more it's going to sting when it flips, so I think I'm almost subconsciously cultivating this naivety to it all. — Feist

Naivety is cured with time. Stupidity is terminal. — Eliza Crewe

She had something that is gone from the world, from the female world. A sweetness without sentimentality, a limpidity without naivety. She was so easy to hurt, to tease. And when she teased, it was like a caress. — John Fowles

Most often, what I don't know will have a vastly greater bearing on my life that what I do know. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I'm always amused when people point out that Benjamin's naivety about the publishing process is just so unbelievable in Starborn #1 since, of course, no aspiring writer in reality could ever be so naive. — Chris Roberson

I love you madly, forever. — Crystal Woods

I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naivety has no peer but my own. — Andre Breton

It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here. — Lady Gaga

People expect me to be dark and gloomy, then write that I'm a jolly chap, and after all, that is what I am. I think it's a case of an absolute romantic naivety that there should be a parallel between the work and the artist. — Michael Haneke

Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place- whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. — Joseph Conrad

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path. — Andre Gide

I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage. — Alain De Botton

I woke early like a condemned man to the naivety of birdsong. — Nick Drake

Jutta whispers, A girl got kicked out of the swimming hole today. Inge Hachmann. They said they wouldn't let us swim with a half-breed. Unsanitary. A half-breed, Werner. Aren't we half-breeds too? Aren't we half our mother, half our father? — Anthony Doerr

I'll be happy when I get married." The faith, the hope, the conviction that marriage is a happy institution, the sincere tone, the lack of any shred of doubt, made the world a better place that moment. I even probed, 'What makes you happy now?' He stuck to his guns," I'll be happy when I get married." Was it naivety or what is hope? Who was I to judge! — Andy Paula

I guess I just grew up thinking that when we become adults, we get to do what we love. For work, for fun, forever. I don't know where I got that from. Seems silly now. — Crystal Woods

As we get older, we tend to become more risk averse because we tend to find reasons why things won't work. When you are a kid, you think everything is possible, and I think with creativity it is so important to keep that naivety. — Heston Blumenthal

The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not "the Word of God" in the sense that every passage in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God. — C.S. Lewis

When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable. — Michael Haneke

I was cocky and arrogant when I was younger. I thought that if I delivered a good performance, and put my best foot forward, that would be enough to get people's attention. So in my naivety, I cut my legs off at the knees, because I didn't realize that oftentimes it doesn't matter about the performance ... it's the media that creates stars. — Bokeem Woodbine

God sense little children to speak and act for him. In their simplicity and naivety they say and do things that we adults never would, but which can reveal deep truths about the way the world should be, if we only would have ears to hear and eyes to see... God sense children to speak into our world.. — Phil Steer

Might there come a time
When we stand over a grave
And mourn ourselves?
Mourn the past, a previous life?
Shall we weep for the passing of time?
Shall we grieve for unfulfilled dreams?
In my naivety; in my belief
In immortal youth,
I sleep walk through life.
Someone ... wake me up.
Please.
Wake me up. — Samantha Young

Oh, the naivety of humanity, and insanity of the understanding.
But if the world understood, would the stupid be considered sane? — Larul Andrews

The appeal of the Golden Age heroes for me is their simplicity, even their naivety - they represent the fundamental building blocks of the whole superhero genre, whether it's a 'super' man able to lift cars, or a vigilante who terrorises criminals at night like Batman. — Adam Christopher

Don't misunderstand me. The terrorist actions of Al-Qaeda were and are unmitigatedly evil. But the astonishing naivety which decreed that America as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided up into evil people (particularly Arabs) and good people (particularly Americans and Israelis), and that the latter had a responsibility now to punish the former, is a large-scale example of what I'm talking about - just as it is immature and naive to suggest the mirror image of this view, namely that the western world is guilty in all respects and that all protestors and terrorists are therefore completely justified in what they do. In the same way, to suggest that all who possess guns should be locked up, or (the American mirror-image of this view) that everyone should carry guns so that good people can shoot bad ones before they can get up to their tricks, is simply a failure to think into the depths of what's going on. — N. T. Wright

(On getting married at 19)
We told ourselves we had forever and we never looked back. The problem was that we never really looked ahead. — Crystal Woods

Money brings you security and choice. You can make decisions in a different way if you have a lot of money. But when you have nothing, you have a naivety, and a more fearless attitude because you have nothing to lose. — Simon Cowell

She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured and reciprocated the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Creepy is being attached to an outcome. If you approach someone with the goal of sex, and hten find thins not going in that direction, you may try to steer things back to sex. This is creepy. — Allison Moon

I think that good parenting should allow children to be children. That naivety and slightly open way of looking at the world is very valuable. — Robert Winston

I won't tell," he said, his arms holding my waist with amateur stiffness. I smiled, thinking about the lover he'd become and all the things he'd try with me for the very first time. I'd be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he'd have afterwards would have to pass through the gate of my comparison, and it would be a losing equation. The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naivety would be subtracted from my experience to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible. — Alissa Nutting

The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making of a poem. — May Swenson

If the Holy Communion touched my teeth, I thought that was a mortal sin — Edna O'Brien

For such a worldly, surly bastard, Bas had always been incredibly innocent. Always seen the best in people. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Politics preys on people's naivety — Bangambiki Habyarimana

I don't want to compare myself to him - I don't want people to see me as this great genius - but when I see Charlie Chaplin's movies there is a combination of drama, naivety and social meaning that I can see in myself, at a different level. — Michel Gondry

Instantaneous and mass communication is the mother of mass naivety. Should we then lose hope? Is there any hope? But to lose hope is as dangerous as to nurture false hope. Where then can we find hope that is responsible? — Tariq Ramadan

If you're not careful
you'll end up believing this is the world — Antonio Cisneros

A lot of people have said that I've got a voice that speaks to children. I think I've got a natural naivety to me. I'm childish. — Geri Halliwell

It was total naivety that got me to Hollywood. I thought it was going to happen straight away. I told myself 'give it 5 years, there's no way I'll be here after that if it doesn't happen'. Cut to ten years later! — Naomi Watts

Sometimes a little naivety goes a long long way!" (I said that) — Robert Greenfield

A foolish rabbit is endeared by a foxes' smile. — Matshona Dhliwayo

I was the worst kind of fool. When I look back on that August night, changed forever by all my wounds and all my suffering, that undamaged Odd Thomas seems like a different human being from me, immeasurably more confident than I am now, still able to hope, but not as wise, and I mourn for him. — Dean Koontz

There was a time when that kind of thing looked like the kingdom of heaven, but somewhere along the line it had lost its glow. Maybe that was just the cost of growing up. And maybe the cost of growing up was too high. — James P. Blaylock