Earnest Quotes

• It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Blood, Sweat

  "2008: The year in review" by Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. December 26, 2008.

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• In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

  Oscar Wilde

  Luck, Style, Matter

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “Aphorisms”, p.14, Oscar Wilde

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• The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Relationship, Essence

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.104, Wordsworth Editions

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• No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

  Oscar Wilde

  Birthday, Witty, Time

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1389, GENERAL PRESS

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• The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present.

  Oscar Wilde

  Style, Littles, Way

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.133

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• So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.

  Walter Bagehot

  Fear, Long, Judgement

  Walter Bagehot (1986). “The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: Miscellany”

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• My chief concern is to try to be an humble, earnest Christian.

  Robert E. Lee

  Christian, Humble, Civil War

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• The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophical, Animal, Squirrels

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.92, BookBaby

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• An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.

  Oscar Wilde

  Girl, Engagement, May

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “The Importance of Being Earnest: Revised Edition”, p.25, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

  Oscar Wilde

  Firsts, Importance Of Being Earnest, First Time

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.60, Xist Publishing

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• The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

  Oscar Wilde

  Women, Making Love, Way

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.21, Wordsworth Editions

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• Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ignorance, Upper Class, Gone

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

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• Really, if the lower orders don't set a good example, what on earth is the use of them?

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Order

  'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) act 1

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• I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Hypocrisy, Wicked, Would Be

  'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) act 2

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• Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

  Oscar Wilde

  Reading, Culture, Half

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.10

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• Have you noticed that whatever sport you're trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent?

  Dave Barry

  Sports, Trying, Literature

  Dave Barry (2009). “Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus”, p.88, Ballantine Books

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• I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

  Oscar Wilde

  Hate, People, Meals

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.19

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• Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

  Winston Churchill

  Business, Insperational, Games

  Winston Churchill (1973). “Liberalism and the Social Problem”, p.249, Library of Alexandria

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• Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Heart, Literature

  "David Copperfield". Book by Charles Dickens, 1850.

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• The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

  Oscar Wilde

  Truth, Lying, Simple

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.368, Wordsworth Editions

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• You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?

  Oscar Wilde

  Girl, Daughter, Dream

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.39

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• The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.

  Oscar Wilde

  Flirty, Husband, Flirting

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.17

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• This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno, he's Frank and in Chicago he's Ernest.

  Henny Youngman

  Funny, Women, Humor

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• It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Believe, Men, Effort

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• The dangers which threaten us are twofold: First, from the Confederate forces, composed of men whose earnest convictions and reckless bravery it is idle to deny.

  Robert Dale Owen

  Men, Ethos, Bravery

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