Earnestness Quotes

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain. The pain may be pain to other people or pain to one's self — it makes little difference; for when the strenuous mood is on one, the aim is to break something, no matter whose or what. Nothing annihilates an inhibition as irresistibly as anger does it; for, as Moltke says of war, destruction pure and simple is its essence. This is what makes it so invaluable an ally of every other passion. The sweetest delights are trampled on with a ferocious pleasure the moment they offer themselves as checks to a cause by which our higher indignations are elicited. It costs then nothing to drop friendships, to renounce long-rooted privileges and possessions, to break with social ties. Rather do we take a stern joy in the astringency and desolation; and what is called weakness of character seems in most cases to consist of the inaptitude for these sacrificial moods, of which one's own inferior self and its pet softnesses must often be the targets and the victims.”
― William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

“Earnestness is stupidity sent to college.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

“I have often been charged with falsehood and hypocrisy, yet there lives not the man who would more gladly than I speak truthfully and lay bare his heart; but as I have not one idea, one feeling in common with the people who surround me, as the very first word I should speak truthfully would cause a general hue and cry, I have preferred to keep silent, or, if I do speak, to utter only stupid commonplaces which everyone has agreed to believe in.”
― Théophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin

“I hear they're givin' you a bad reputation
just because you've never been denied.
You try to say you've done it all before,
baby, you know that you just get tired.
Yet everybody loves you so much, girl,
I just don't know how you stand the strain.
Oh, I, I'm the one who's here tonight,
and I don't wanna do it all in vain.”
― Elvis Costello

“We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action.”
― Sarojini Naidu

“The older Mario gets, the more confused he gets about the fact that everyone at E.T.A. over the age of about Kent Blott finds stuff that’s really real uncomfortable and they get embarrassed. It’s like there’s some rule that real stuff can only get mentioned if everybody rolls their eyes or laughs in a way that isn’t happy. The worst-feeling thing that happened today was at lunch when Michael Pemulis told Mario he had an idea for setting up a Dial-a-Prayer telephone service for atheists in which the atheist dials the number and the line just rings and rings and no one answers. It was a joke and a good one, and Mario got it; what was unpleasant was that Mario was the only one at the big table whose laugh was a happy laugh; everybody else sort of looked down like they were laughing at somebody with a disability. The whole issue was far above Mario’s head…”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“His words cost him so much, she thought, not like hers that just came dancing out of the air and went back into it. He spoke from his marrow. It made what he said a solemn compliment, which she accepted gratefully...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Four Ways to Forgiveness

“I saw that he was looking anxious.
'I thought you weren't coming.' As he spoke, he grasped my hand. And if the sight of him had not quite restored the magic, the touch of him most certainly did. 'You're not wishing yourself some place else, Mary?”
― Jennifer Paynter, Mary Bennet

“I think of the way James proposed, at our favorite New York City restaurant. He'd tucked the ring in his pocket and gotten down on one knee. Simple, perfect. I feel the familiar pain creeping back, and then I remember what Alex said. I know I may always ache for the past, for the two greatest loves of my life, but I want to be a bird now. I want to flap my wings through the rainstorms. I want to start my day with the earnestness of the morning glory, the way its blossoms open with the sunrise, ready to shine no matter what.”
― Sarah Jio, Morning Glory

“When you read God's Word, in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: It is I to whom it is speaking, it is I about whom it is speaking—this is earnestness, precisely this is earnestness”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Essential Kierkegaard

“The son of a bitch believes.”
― Don DeLillo, Running Dog

“If you compliment a woman, it better be in expressions and earnestness that you haven't used for others. Else you'll just ruin it.", she said.”
― Nitya Prakash

“There are people who like to ascribe only the basest of motives to the actions of others. This is not always because they act basely themselves; often they would not dream of acting as they suspect others of doing. They talk like this because they think that cynical explanations testify to their knowledge of life. A readiness to believe that others are acting honourably, so they imagine, is a sign of naiveté.”
― Vasily Grossman, Stalingrad

“Sincerity is frequently written off as an immature stance. Naiveté and earnestness often co-exist, but they are not necessarily the same thing. Naiveté is a simple lack of knowledge and experience. Earnestness is a way of BEING in the world: sometimes by default of innocence, but also as a conscious, informed choice to reject cynicism and live life in an authentic way. To be earnest is to face each day with an open spirit, as opposed to living one's life crouched in an impermeable, defensive posture. For many in our culture, it is a much greater sin to be a gullible idealist than a cruel cynic.”
― Kate Kretz, Art from Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice