Earnestness

Earnestness refers to the quality of being earnest; sincerity; seriousness.

Quotes

• Without earnestness no man is ever great, or does really great things. He may be the cleverest of men; he may be brilliant, entertaining, popular; but he will want weight. No soul-moving picture was ever painted that had not in it depth of shadow.
  • Peter Bayne, Lessons from My Masters: Carlyle, Tennyson and Ruskin (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1879), p. 17.

• Up, then, with speed, and work;
  Fling ease and self away;
  This is no time for thee to sleep,
  Up, watch and work and pray!
  • Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1857), "Live", p. 242.

• Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.
  • Christian Nestell Bovee, Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1862), Volume I, p. 161.

• There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness.
  • Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850), Ch. XLII: "Mischief", p.429.

• A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance", in Essays: First Series (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1850), p. 41.

• He who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces, as, to idle spectators who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity.
  • John Foster, Essays in a Series of Letters to a Friend (Hartford: Lincoln and Gleason, 1807), Essay II: "On Decision of Character", Letter III, p. 111.

• Child of earth and earthly sorrows—child of God and immortal hopes—arise from thy sadness, gird up the loins of thy mind, and with unfaltering energy press toward thy rest and reward on high.
  • Elias Lyman Magoon, Proverbs for the People (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1849), Ch. XIV: "Perseverance (Continued)", p. 208.

• This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest; and that which is true of this world is truer still of the world to come.
  • Frederick William Robertson,Sermons Preached at Brighton (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899), First Series, Sermon II: "Parable of the Sower" (preached June 6, 1849), p. 42.

• My God, help me always resolutely to strive, and, through life and death, to force my way unto Thee.
  • Christian Scriver, Gotthold's Emblems, translated by Robert Menzies (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1857), p. 145.

• Before becoming someone’s wife, I need to be a daughter first. I owe it to the one who gave me birth and life.
  • Sanu Sharma, Daughter

• Meeting you like this after so many years, I felt as if my heart had returned with me.
  • Sanu Sharma, Bhaujoo

• Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
  And thou an angel's happiness shalt know.
  • Carlos Wilcox, "The Religion of Taste", Stanza CVII, in Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox (Hartford: Edward Hopkins, 1828), p. 208.