Not flippant

Usage examples of earnest.

I came to you in most serious earnest, imagining, as I find true, that your son had never dared to acquaint you with a match so much inferior to him in point of fortune, though the reputation of the lady will suffer it no longer to remain a secret.

But if the shortness of time should prevent you from complying with this, my earnest desire, and the trial must, of necessity, and to my unspeakable sorrow, be prolonged to another session, then, my lords, I trust you will not consider me, by anything I have said, as precluded from adopting such means of defence as my counsel may judge most advisable for my interest.

Sir Alured, with all his foibles, and with all his faults, was a pure-minded, simple gentleman, who could not tell a lie, who could not do a wrong, and who was earnest in his desire to make those who were dependent on him comfortable, and, if possible, happy.

Surely, in these names, and such as these, there can be no uplift or inspiration to young men toward that unselfish service and earnest work which alone shall help toward the amelioration of the world.

Jefferson Davis, his earnest championship of universal amnesty, and his expressed sympathy with the grievances of the old ruling element of the slave States, had created a kindly impression in that section.

As they were rowed back to where the Golden Bough was anchored, Llewellyn and Winterton were in deep and earnest conversation.

In the experience of earnest Christians, a personal belief in the resurrection of Christ, vividly conceived in the imagination and taken home to the heart, is chiefly effective in its spiritual, not in its argumentative, results.

In this earnest ascription of spirituality to the leaves Lanier recalls Ruskin.

Sterling had told Saint Just were workshops for the conference attendees had begun in earnest after luncheon, so that the hallways on the conference floor were alternately deserted or crowded with women going here, coming from there.

I made up my mind to go to Russia, and began my preparations in good earnest.

Kirk asked discreetly, with a glance at the science station, where ho Bem was engaged in earnest discussion with Spock.

Francis Tyne was a thin, earnest youth with a biggish head and fine colorless hair.

But no other horse on Billabong could see the way Bobs went when he was in earnest.

Mine earnest vehement botcher, And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you: But if you get you not away the sooner, I shall confute you with a cudgel.

As an earnest of my endeavour to do so I knelt down on the green sward, in the shadow of the Boteler turret, and I prayed that I might come to be of use on the earth, and that I might be helped to rise above my own wants and interests, to aid forward whatever of good or noble might be stirring in my days.