I have a certain sympathy with politicians having lived with one. I've seen how no matter how earnest or driven or energetic they are, it's still difficult to change things. I have been encouraged to go into politics, but I don't think I could make a contribution, it suits me better to be sniping from the sidelines.

Ardal O'Hanlon

Have an earnestness for death and you will have life.

I am never so happy as when I am really engaged in good earnest, & it makes me must wonderfully cheerful & merry at other times, which is curious & very satisfactory.

Ada Lovelace

Time Good Age

AIM started in 1997, and I remember when I started using it in earnest, in 1999, when I joined TheStreet.com from 'The San Jose Mercury News'. We digital journalism pioneers communicated obsessively by AIM, and as a newbie, I recall being amazed that the whole newsroom was 'chatting' this way.

Adam Lashinsky

Art Whole Who

I never was deeply interested in any object; I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came at some time - no matter how distant, in some way, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came. And yet, I have always had so little faith. God forgive me.

Adoniram Judson

Time God Faith

My earnestness at the injustices I witnessed when I was writing 'Random Family' may have been my gravest reportorial offense during the early years of reporting. When I discuss the book with students, they often ask me how I could 'stand by' in the face of so much suffering; the egregiousness wasn't my powerlessness but my surprise.

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

Power Family Years

I fell in love with reading when I was allowed to choose whatever books I wanted to check out of the library. I was around nine years old when I began choosing my own books in earnest.

Adriana Trigiani

Love Years Year

It would be terribly boring to be earnest.

Adrien Brody

Would Terribly T

I think humor can be an effective way of getting the point across, but there are definitely times where I just write very earnestly.

Alex Pareene

Time Humor Write

It's not that Millennials don't believe some things are serious. We'll make 'It Gets Better' videos or perform comedy for disaster relief. But sum up our lives in a phrase? The Importance of Never Being Too Earnest.

Alexandra Petri

Videos Video Us

I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday the very best, most earnest and most impressive preacher it has ever been my fortune to meet with, but it produced no effect whatever on my mind.

Alfred Russel Wallace

Family You Year

'Mr. Robot,' in particular, signals the rise of a fresh post-Occupy portrayal of the wealth gap. No longer is the story of income inequity delivered via a well-meaning, crushingly earnest indie film by John Sayles or in a single laugh line on 'Roseanne.'

Alissa Quart

Art Ya Well

Nowadays I'd describe myself as earnest, terribly earnest. I'm the person who wants everybody in the room to feel important and happy.

America Ferrera

Who Wants Want

I was inspired more by early Bette Midler. I do wear a fancy dress and very high heels - and extra high hair. My goal is to obliterate all earnestness.

Ana Gasteyer

Wear Very T

It's so easy in these cabaret venues to get earnest.

Ana Gasteyer

Venues Venue T

Insurance companies, whether private or government owned, must be compelled to pay for health-promoting measures. In turn, this will encourage physicians to offer such treatments in earnest.

Andrew Weil

Men Health Government

I started doing regional theater. My first job was 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at Dallas Theater Center.

Anna Camp

Art Theater Ted

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself.

Anna Jameson

Mom Men Truly

What we earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are.

Anna Jameson

T Some Sense

I think a lot of us responded intensely to 'True Detective' because it was so incredibly earnest. That's what made it heartbreaking and involving.

Annalee Newitz

Art Use Us

There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable.

Annie Dillard

Age You Wit

I have a certain sympathy with politicians having lived with one. I've seen how no matter how earnest or driven or energetic they are, it's still difficult to change things. I have been encouraged to go into politics, but I don't think I could make a contribution, it suits me better to be sniping from the sidelines.

Ardal O'Hanlon

I like pop music. Earnestly. Most of the greatest technicians, mix engineers, and players are working in pop music.

Autre Ne Veut

I believe in the fact that to portray a character convincingly, you need to live that character, own that character. You have to be earnest with every line that you deliver. However, it doesn't mean that you have to cut off your true self.

Ayushmann Khurrana

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

For a North Korean watcher, seeing 'The Interview' is like seeing an earnest endeavor reflected back through a freak-show mirror.

Barbara Demick

Movies make teenagers have quippy answers for every question. Nothing seems to faze them, and they're like, 'Oh, whatever.' You're not like that when you're a teenager. You're really earnest. Things really feel like life or death. And you kind of oscillate between emotions at one time. It's very emotionally draining being a teenager.

Bel Powley

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

Bela Lugosi

I think the earnestness of what we're saying and what other bands like us are totally saying - or other queer bands - is 'We exist.'

Ben Hopkins

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

Benjamin Disraeli

This Government has found occasion to express, in a friendly spirit, but with much earnestness, to the Government of the Czar, its serious concern because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia.

Benjamin Harrison

Sometimes when you really try to be earnest, everything disappears. If you really try to make a romantic movie, the first thing that goes out the window is the romance or real passion. It suddenly becomes cute-ville or cozy-ville. It's another world other than life.

Bill Pullman

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Blaise Pascal

In terms of my career, it began in earnest when I was living in Boston. I started doing my own films, working initially as an editor and editing assistant - briefly - at WGBH, as an editor on other people's movies, trying to get some experience under my belt, but eventually just doing my own short films, doing them my way.

Brad Anderson

Particularly during the late 1960s, a large number of American skyjackers earnestly believed that Fidel Castro's Cuba was an egalitarian, post-racial utopia.

Brendan I. Koerner

Here's a confession: I hate parenting books. I hate the ones that are earnest and repetitive.

Bruce Feiler

With Sleater-Kinney, we have a lot of earnest fans, and we were an earnest band.

Carrie Brownstein

My parents are just really down-to-earth, earnest, hardworking people that don't want for anything. I think that really served me because when you put more value on experience than things, then you're going to go out and have experiences.

Carrie Coon

It is my earnest hope that all parties across the political spectrum will bear Hong Kong's long-term interests in mind, apply their political wisdom, and seek a consensus through open and rational communication with people of different views.

Carrie Lam

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

There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.

Charles Horton Cooley

Occasionally, some brother sings very earnestly through his nose, often disturbing those around him, but it does not matter how the voice sounds to the ears of man. What is important is how the heart sounds to the ears of God.

Charles Spurgeon

When you're being earnest, people think you're being sarcastic, and when you're being sarcastic, they think you're being earnest. The moral in all this, of course, is that people should never attempt to communicate.

Charlie Brooker

People tend to think I'm a lot more earnest than I am.

Charlie Brooker

That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

Charlie Chaplin

I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They're so earnest about it. But that's true of so many things.

Christopher Guest

'The Green Lantern' seems a little calculated to me. It's like, 'We've got to get on this gay bandwagon and make this character gay.' Like anything else, there's earnest expressions in the culture and then there's kind of bandwagoning.

Christopher McCulloch

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

Sprawling, earnest, and ambitious - its modest title is 'The Future' - Al Gore's new book embodies both the virtues and the flaws of its author. But those hardy souls who slog past the weaknesses will be rewarded by a book that is brave, original and often fun.

Chrystia Freeland

It's amazing how much you can learn if your intentions are truly earnest.

Chuck Berry

For me and my entire generation, we took on this kind of sarcastic, ironic, snarkiness because it seemed the most extreme reaction to the earnestness of hippies.

Chuck Palahniuk