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Aristotle • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,260)
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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,235)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,922)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,496)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,062)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,982)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,776)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,669)
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Quotations about seriousness
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Don’t take life so serious, son … it ain’t no how permanent.
Walt Kelly (1913-1973) American animator and cartoonist [Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr.]
“Pogo” [Porky Pine] (24 Jun 1950)
More discussion about this quotation: Don’t Take Life So Serious, Son … It Ain’t Nohow Permanent – Quote Investigator.
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
— By Order of the Author
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Notice” (1884)
(Source)
I have observed that in comedies the best actor plays the droll, while some scrub rogue is made the fine gentleman or hero. Thus it is in the farce of life. Wise men spend their time in mirth, ’tis only fools who are serious.
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751) English politician, government official, political philosopher [Lord Bolingbroke]
(Attributed)
Quoted in Gleason's Pictorial (Boston) (3 Dec 1853).
We must take note that the games of children are not games in their eyes; and we must regard these as their most serious actions.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 22 (1580-88)
Thank goodness, many years ago, I had a preceptor, for whom my admiration has never died, and he had a favorite saying, one that I trust I try to live by. It was: always take your job seriously, never yourself.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, New England “Forward to ’54” Dinner, Boston (21 Sep 1953)
Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow.
Arthur Stringer (1874-1950) Canadian-American novelist, screenwriter, poet
The Silver Poppy, ch. 8, epigraph (1903)
(Source)
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
‘Twas the saying of an ancient Sage, “That Humour was the only Test of Gravity, and Gravity of Humour. For a Subject which would not bear Raillery is suspicious; and a Jest which would not bear a serious Examination is certainly false Wit.”
Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, Part 1, Sec. 5 (1709)
(Source)
Often incorrectly attributed to Aristotle. Shaftesbury, according to his footnote, is paraphrasing from Aristotle quoting Gorgias Leontinus. The Latin translation is "Seria risu, risum seriis discutere" ("In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading"). Shaftesbury's second sentence is his own commentary.
In Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son (6 Feb 1752), rendered it, "Ridicule is the best test of truth."
No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist
“25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #22 (1997)
