Earnest Quotes - Page 4

• Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Society, Importance Of Being Earnest

  Oscar Wilde (1984). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.65, Dramatic Publishing

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• To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

  Oscar Wilde

  Hands, Ordinary, Bags

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.38

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• I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

  Oscar Wilde

  Education, Ignorance, Squares

  1895 Lady Bracknell. The Importance of Being Earnest, act 1.

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• More than half of modern culture depends upon what one shouldn't read.

  Oscar Wilde

  Culture, Half, Importance Of Being Earnest

  Oscar Wilde (1980). “Poems”

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• A man who desires to get married should know everything or nothing.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Desire, Importance Of Being Earnest

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• Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?

  Oscar Wilde

  Truth, Men, Forgive Me

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.151

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• Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thoughtful, People, Literature

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• I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don't mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.

  Elton John

  Stars, Rocks, Individuality

  "A star is reborn". Interview with Amy Raphael, www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2004.

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• When he speaks to you he speaks with an earnest vibe and an earnest energy.

  Dwayne Johnson

  Inspire, Energy, Speak

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• About my career I was serious and earnest, sometimes impatient.

  Gene Tierney

  Careers, Serious, Sometimes

  Gene Tierney, Mickey Herskowitz (1979). “Self-portrait”, Peter Wyden

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• Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts, and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious, it's hilarious.

  Christopher Walken

  Funny, Thinking, Play

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• Lincoln?” she (Beth) asked. “Yes?” “Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?” Her breath caught in her throat like a sore hiccup. And then it was too much to keep trying not to kiss her.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Sweet, Believe, Eye

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• but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probably, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt.

  Jose Saramago

  Moving, Thinking, Firsts

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• A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

  Don DeLillo

  Solitude, Way, Endless

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.134, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Hate, Thinking, Morality

  Sinclair Lewis (2015). “Babbitt”, p.56, Penguin

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• It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too-real chest, making his widower's rememberences that much more convincing and his pain that much more real.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Pain, Real, Sleep

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I've traveled all over the world for the Institute, but I never dreamed I'd meet someone like you." "Strong?" A chuckle escaped her. "Yes." "Handsome?" "Of course." "Sharp of wit and skilled with a sword?" "Absolutely." An other chuckle. "But I mean a man… friend… guy. Oh, I don't know what to call you!" He savored her amusement—and her earnest words. "Just call me yours. That is all I want to be." (Ashlyn and Maddox)

  Gena Showalter

  Strong, Mean, Men

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• A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

  Charles Dickens

  Words Of Wisdom, Speech

  Charles Dickens (1870). “Novels”, p.38

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• Quotes about Life Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art; to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Life, Death, Dream

  "A Psalm of Life" st. 1 - 2 (1838)

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• This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood, So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is-- I hold it towards you.

  John Keats

  Dream, Heart, Night

  'This living hand, now warm and capable' (written 1819)

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• Take a Nicodemus and put a Joseph Smith's spirit in him, and what do you have? Take a Da Vinci or a Michelangelo or a Shakespeare and give him a total knowledge of the plan of salvation of God and personal revelation and cleanse him and take a look at the statues he will carve and the murals he will paint and the masterpieves he will produce. Take a handel with his purposeful effort, his superb talent, his earnest desire to properly depict the story, and give him inward vision of the whole true story and revelation, and what a master you will have!

  Brigham Young

  Giving, Effort, Vision

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• A man who says, 'I want to change, tell me how to', seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Men, Order, Inward

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• Just because he was pretty didn't mean he couldn't be improved by a smack upside the head with a piece of earnest hickory

  Christopher Moore

  Mean, Pieces, Smack

  Christopher Moore (2009). “The Stupidest Angel (v2.0): A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror”, p.27, Harper Collins

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• I opened my eyes and met his dark, earnest gaze. "It's okay," I said. "It's okay now. I'm here I'll always be here for you.

  Richelle Mead

  Eye, Dark, Said

  Richelle Mead (2013). “Vampire Academy: The Complete Collection”, p.1245, Penguin

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• Did you fall in love with her?" "I care about her. A lot." "You're not supposed to marry someone if you don't fall in love with her." "Well, love is a choice, too." Holly shook her head. "I think it's something that happens to you." Mark smiled into her small, earnest face. "Maybe it's both," he said, and tucked her in.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Falling In Love, Love Is, Thinking

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