Seriousness Quotes

“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Do you take anything seriously?”
“Not if I can help it. Makes life so tedious.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“Not on a regular basis, no.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified.
'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions

“To sober up seems to many like making life “so serious,” as if seriousness precluded joy, warmth, spontaneity and fun. But there can be a delusional, blind quality to non-sober festivities. To have our eyes open soberly with all our senses and memory intact allows some of the most rewarding, soul-nourishing, and long-lasting pleasures possible.”
― Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

“I don't believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously."

[Writer’s Digest Interview (Robert Jacobs, Writer’s Digest, February 1976)]”
― Ray Bradbury

“I am so tired.
I have grown old from being serious.
I have grown ill from being serious.
I want to laugh at myself.
I want to forget myself.
I am so tired.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.”
― Oscar Wilde, John Cooper, The Importance of Being Earnest

“She couldn't avoid being serious about things she cared for, and happiness made her grave at the thought of all the things which might destroy it.”
― Graham Greene, A Gun for Sale

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this too remember; a serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I like to prowl ordinary places.
I feel sorry for us all or glad for us
all
caught alive together
and awkward in that way.

there's nothing better than the joke
of us
the seriousness of us
the dullness of us”
― Charles Bukowski, Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

“It is easy to be solemn, it is so hard to be frivolous.”
― G K Chesterton

“The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.”
― Nicholas Butler

“What, in all very seriousness, the hell was going on?”
― Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“The men who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express except by something silly and emphatic.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I've only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a "serious" novel.”
― Roman Payne

“Albert Campion: 'I’m serious!'
Lugg: 'That’s unhealthy in itself.”
― Margery Allingham, Mystery Mile

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

“Stop holding back those desires you've been too ashamed to admit.”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“This showed once again that everyone had something different to lose in this battle. Some were concerned for their lives, and some for those they cared most about: rays, sea horses, even the chickens that ran free in the streets of the city because they couldn't all be caught in time.”
― Kai Meyer, Pirate Wars

“It is the tendency of deep feeling to subdue the manner rather than to render it too energetic.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students

“But a generation that does not aspire to seriousness, to meaning, is unworthy to walk in the shadow of those who have gone before, I mean those who have struggled and surmounted, I mean those who have aspired, I mean Rembrandt, I mean Turner, I mean Michelangelo and Matisse … I mean obviously Rothko.”
― John Logan, Red

“Those who are weak, never suck the blood of the enemy, as it is to be done with strength.”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“Another ideal runs ahead of us, a strange, tempting, dangerous ideal to which we should not wish to persuade anybody because we do not readily concede the right to it to anyone: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively - that is, not deliberately but from overflowing power and abundance - with all that was hitherto called holy, good, untouchable, divine; for whom those supreme things that the people naturally accept as their value standards, signify danger, decay, debasement, or at least recreation, blindness, and temporary self-oblivion; the ideal of a human, superhuman well-being and benevolence that will often appear inhuman - for example, when it confronts all earthly seriousness so far, all solemnity in gesture, word, tone, eye, morality, and task so far, as if it were their most incarnate and involuntary parody - and in spite of all of this, it is perhaps only with that great seriousness really begins, that the real question mark is posed for the first time, that the destiny of the soul changes, the hand moves forward, the tragedy begins.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“I touched my scalp where Sula had wrapped the cloth. It still burned, but it made me feel important. I'd been wounded in combat. Anyone could break a leg or dislocate a sholder, but how many people get shot? I could tell by the way Will was looking at me that he was impressed too and not a little bit jealous. I would have quickly traded the head wound, however, for a glass of clean water.”
― Cameron Stracher, The Water Wars

“See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.

Be non-serious.
I'm not saying not to be sincere. Be sincere, but be non-serious. Sincerity is something else; seriousness is totally different. Be sincere with existence, then you will be true; you will become part of this cosmic LEELA, this cosmic play.”
― Osho, The Beloved, Vol 1

“Question : BELOVED MASTER, IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY FOR ENLIGHTENMENT FOR A NONSERIOUS MEDITATOR?

Osho : There is only possibility of enlightenment if you are a nonserious meditator..seriousness is not health. Seriousness is a tense state of mind, it is sadness; it is not overflowing joy. 

Yes, the old traditions will tell you, "Be serious." I cannot say that to you. Why be serious? The birds singing in the morning are not serious. The stars in the night are not serious.

The flowers in their different colors and fragrances are not serious. Except man, have you anything else in existence which is serious? The oceans, the rivers, the mountains... nothing is serious, except man.

Who has made man serious? It is your old traditions which have created the idea that life is not a rejoicing, that life is not playfulness; that life has to be serious, only then can you enter into paradise, only then can you meet God. But I want to tell you, even God will not give you an audience if you reach there with a serious, long face. You have to go there like an innocent child, playful, joyous. You have to learn something of the sense of humor. 

My approach is to create a world where laughter is good, is healthy, is supported not condemned. 

I would like all our religious places to be playful.

"Leela" means playfulness. 

If the whole of existence is divine play, then our lives should also be a part of it, a divine play.

So don't be worried about meditating nonseriously; in fact, that is the right way to meditate. Meditate playfully, nonseriously..Meditation needs relaxation. Meditation needs a joyful heart. It is not work, it is play.

So you can meditate anywhere - taking a shower you can meditate, sleeping in your bed you can meditate, making love to your wife or your husband you can meditate - because meditation has no barriers, no conditions.

Meditation simply means a silent state of mind. You can do anything with the silent state of mind.

And whatever you do will become more graceful, will become more creative, will bring better flowers, better fruits. Your life will become in every dimension richer. I am all for richness, in all the dimensions of life. Money alone is not richness.

If you can meditate in the different areas of your activities you will be making different dimensions richer, deeper. But don't be serious. 

I remember, my grandfather was a very serious meditator....

I was always watching. Whenever he meditated I would disturb him. Anything was enough. Just pulling the lobe of his ear - and he is meditating - or closing his nose... And he would be furious.

I would say, "A meditator is not supposed to be so angry and so furious. And I know perfectly that when there is a customer in the shop, even meditating, you tell him to wait. This is strange. You don't get angry about that. Then you forget all your seriousness. A dog enters in the house, and you are meditating and you start pointing to the dog saying, 'Throw him out.' What kind of meditation is this?

"The best will be: don't pretend to be serious, be human, and there is no problem. You can continue to be silent and take care of the customer. You can remain silent and take care of the dog. You can remain silent and take care of me."

But all the so-called religious people are very angry people.This is because of their seriousness.

"Otherwise," I told my grandfather, "if you are really in meditation, and I come to you, you can hold my hand, you can dance with me. You can play with me and still your inner world remains silent, watchful."

Meditation is totally an undercurrent activity, so nothing touches it. There is no need to be serious.

Please don't think of meditation as seriousness. It is a very playful activity. Make it as light as possible. It should not be a burden on your heart.

It should give you wings to fly in the sky.”
― Osho

“Meditate playfully, don't meditate seriously.

'Fun' is a very religious word; 'seriousness' is very irreligious. If you want to attain to the original mind, you will have to live a very non-serious, though sincere life; you will have to transform your work into play; you will have to transform all your duties into love.”
― Osho

“Certain adults can live in the
universe of the serious in all honesty, for example, those who are denied all instruments
of escape.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

“It is human nature not to take things seriously until they become serious enough to prove that we should have taken them seriously before things got serious.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Hope Evermore: Quotes, Verse, & Spiritual Inspiration for Every Day of the Year