Seriousness Quotes - Page 14

• Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Attention, May

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.299

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• Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.

  Agnes Repplier

  Laughter, Serious, Reason

  Agnes Repplier (1924). “Under dispute”

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• Widowhood provided Mama with a higher form of being. In refusing to recover from my father's death she had discovered that her life was endowed with a seriousness her years in the kitchen had denied her. She remained devoted to this seriousness for thirty years. She never tired of it, never grew bored or restless in its company, found new ways to keep alive the interest it deserved and had so undeniably earned.

  Vivian Gornick

  Father, Tired, Years

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• In all seriousness, I'm flattered and humbled to have been asked to reprise my role as Luke in the 'Veronica Mars' movie.

  Sam Huntington

  Roles, Mars, Luke

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• There's not a lot of room for un-ironic emotion in contemporary culture. I think that irony is an important tool in dealing with the world as we find it. It's a tool of protection, but it can also be a tool of incision to get to some truth. But along the way maybe we've lost some of what I think of as the power of straightforward emotion and earnestness and seriousness.

  John Green

  Thinking, Ironic, Important

  "Q&A: John Green & Nat Wolff on ‘Paper Towns’ Themes, Inside Jokes, Nicknames". Interview with Seth Kelley, variety.com. July 19, 2015.

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• Neiman's book is written with considerable flair, as many critics have already noted, but it possesses a far rarer and more valuable quality: moral seriousness. Her argument builds a powerful emotional force, a sense of deep inevitability. . . . It is not often that a work of such dark conclusions has felt so hopeful and brave.

  Mark Kingwell

  Powerful, Book, Dark

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• Beauty and seriousness are perhaps the most shocking tactics left to artists these days.

  Grayson Perry

  Artist, Tactics, These Days

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• Are we willing to risk being misunderstood and maligned in order that truth might be told and men might be saved? Identifying a malady and explaining its seriousness are always the first steps to finding a cure... God has ordained that men come to conviction of sin, repentance, and saving faith through preaching. Yet how can the [Holy] Spirit use our preaching if we are not willing to expose sin or call men to repentance?

  Paul Washer

  Men, Order, Risk

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• Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

  Giuseppe Verdi

  Mean, Past, Composer

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• We need to reflect with great seriousness about why many young people don't feel like getting married... For fear of failure, many do not want to even think about it... Many people believe the change that has taken place in recent decades was set in motion by the emancipation of women. But this argument is not valid, it is an insult, a form of misogyny.

  Pope Francis

  Believe, Taken, Thinking

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• For all of the advice in the magazines on "How to Keep your Love Alive," the salvation of love is not the prolongation of sexual desire but the shared lifelong cultivation of a romantic lightheartedness that softens conflicts and anxieties and focuses serious attention even as it undermines seriousness as such. It's hard to fall out of love so long as you're laughing together.

  Robert C. Solomon

  Falling In Love, Love Is, Laughing

  Robert C. Solomon (2006). “About Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times”, p.343, Hackett Publishing

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• Friedrich Engels once said: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism." What does "regression into barbarism" mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization.

  Rosa Luxemburg

  War, Mean, Civilization

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• As for the fashion world, the one thing I respect is its shallowness: it's so deep - it's so serious. It can be hard to get that kind of shallowness because of its depth and seriousness.

  Nikki S. Lee

  Fashion, Serious, Depth

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• We need to alert women everywhere about the seriousness of heart disease.

  Laura Bush

  Heart, Needs, Disease

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• Beauty and art pervade all the business of life like a kindly genius, brightly adorning our surroundings whether interior or exterior, mitigating the seriousness of existence and the complexities of the real life, extinguishing idleness in an entertaining fashion, and, where there is nothing good to be achieved, filling the place of vice better than vice itself.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Fashion, Art, Real

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• Seriousness is a sickness... Existense is pure playfulness

  Rajneesh

  Sickness, Playfulness, Pure

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• It's not so much the question that offends me; it's that the people asking it don't seem to respect the moral seriousness of the question.

  Phil Klay

  People, Asking, Moral

  "In 'Redeployment,' Former Marine Explores The Challenges Of Coming Home". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, www.npr.org. March 20, 2015.

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• I just thought it was important that people knew right from the jump that I've got problems. But in all seriousness, that's a huge part of my writing process.

  Joshua Mohr

  Writing, People, Important

  Source: therumpus.net

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• We have a lot of rhetoric today about "high rigor" and you often hear terms like that thrown about when discussing the Common Core. But the American education system historically has not embraced intellectual seriousness.

  Dana Goldstein

  Intellectual, Today, Common

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I studied Hitchcock and Josef von Sternberg under Richard Dillard at Hollins, and that year under his tutelage just completely rewired my brain. Both directors combine moral seriousness with great artistry and, certainly in Hitchcock's case, an enormous respect for plot, for its power to enthrall and delight.

  Adam Ross

  Years, Brain, Tutelage

  Source: therumpus.net

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• But why should a religious person be interested in a work like Heidegger's that many regard as the epitome of nihilism? For a start, because Heidegger forces us in a way that few philosophers do to really think through the seriousness and all-encompassing nature of our mortality.

  George Pattison

  Religious, Thinking, Nihilism

  "Towards hope". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. July 18, 2014.

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• Vaclav Havel was a really popular leader. He couldn't believe that he was really there. I mean, he still dressed in black T-shirts and jeans and was very kind of '60s. And he began to realize the seriousness of it. And he knew how to strategize. And he had a very keen political sense, but he didn't want to be like the old communist leaders.

  Judy Woodruff

  Believe, Mean, Communist Leaders

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• If someone is doing something crazy - or what I think is crazy - I'm watching, but also am I keeping the actual seriousness of someone actually running for president in my mind all the time?

  Maria Thayer

  Running, Crazy, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.

  Alain de Botton

  Mean, Connections, Needs

  Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.73, Penguin UK

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• Eric Schlosser's book on the economy and strategies of the fast-food business should be read by anyone who likes to take their children to fast-food restaurants. I shall certainly never do that again. He employs a long, cold burn, a quiet and impassioned accumulation of detail, with calm, wit and clarity. (...) Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done.

  Adam Nicolson

  Children, Book, Long

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