Be Taken Seriously Quotes & Sayings

As a woman writing SF, I felt I had to think and write like a man in order to be taken seriously. — Heidi Ruby Miller

I also don't think that parents should pay for their children's graduate or law school. Helping a student with a four-year bachelor's degree is very generous, but an advanced degree should be considered a personal responsibility. That will ensure that the coursework is taken very seriously and makes the young person take ownership of their degree. and when they graduate, it's a shared accomplishment that the whole family can be proud of. But do not encourage graduate school just for graduate school's sake. Work experience is much more valuable if the decision come down to that. — Dana Perino

Only in academia did people talk such bullshit and expect to be taken seriously — Josh Lanyon

My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us. — John Hughes

Of course I'm not supposed to admit that there is triannual torrential sobbing in my office, because it's bad for the feminist cause. It makes it harder for women to be taken seriously in the workplace. It makes it harder for other working moms to justify their choice. But I have friends who stay home with their kids and they also have a triannual sob, so I think we should call it even. I think we should be kind to one another about it. I think we should agree to blame the children. — Tina Fey

I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean, how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor, which is part of what I try to do too. — Eugene Chadbourne

For someone to be taken seriously it was valuable to have the appearance of someone who deserved to be taken seriously. — Frederik Pohl

I feel like women still deal with dressing appropriately for the office. It's by choice - you don't want to sexualize yourself too much. You want to be respected. You want to be taken seriously, and there's certain things in our culture, if you do, if you wear, you won't be taken seriously. — Elisabeth Moss

It is very difficult to be taken seriously when you're introduced at a party to somebody as the fourth Mrs. Rex Harrison. — Rachel Roberts

I knew I had to write a good screenplay to be taken seriously, and I knew I needed to present Mississippi on visuals instead of just saying, 'Hey I wanted to film it in Mississippi.' It would seem like it was a hometown boy just wanting to be home. — Tate Taylor

We are made to be immortal, and yet we die. It's horrible, it can't be taken seriously — Eugene Ionesco

Clinton is the first female to be taken seriously for the highest office in the land. She has the credentials, the stamina and she is a good campaigner. Her detractors in both parties like to say she can't win, but they may be proven wrong. — Helen Thomas

So I feared not just the violence of this world but the rules designed to protect you from it, the rules that would have you contort your body to address the block, and contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, and contort again so as not to give the police a reason. All my life I'd heard people tell their black boys and black girls to "be twice as good," which is to say "accept half as much." These words would be spoken with a veneer of religious nobility, as though they evidenced some unspoken quality, some undetected courage, when in fact all they evidenced was the gun to our head and the hand in our pocket. This is how we lose our softness. This is how they steal our right to smile. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

People see me as Kylie the singer. It would be a dream for me to be taken seriously as an actress. — Kylie Minogue

This need to be always in guard was an unmeasured expenditure of energy, the slow siphoning of essence. It contributed to the fast breakdown of our bodies. So I feared not just the violence of the world but the rules designed to protect you from it, the rules that would have you contort your body to address the block, and contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, a contort again so as not to give the police a reason. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I know a lot of crime writers feel very underrated, like they're not taken seriously, and they want to be just thought of as writers rather than ghettoised as crime writers, but I love being thought of firmly as a crime writer. — Sophie Hannah

We need to interrogate "reverence," for idolization can be another way one is objectified and not really taken seriously. — Bell Hooks

And isn't that what all boys want and all men, too? Just to be taken seriously? — Philip Reeve

I'm 19 years old. I think I'm doing a pretty good job ... Basically from my heart I really just want to say it really should be about to music. It should be about the craft that I'm making. This is not a gimmick and I'm an artist and I should be taken seriously. — Justin Bieber

You can't cheer when political officials punish the expression of views you dislike and then expect to be taken seriously when you wrap yourself in the banner of free speech in order to protest state punishment of views you like and share. — Glenn Greenwald

Sometimes doubting is not a lack of faith, but an expression of it. Sometimes to doubt is to merely insist that God be taken seriously not frivolously, to insist that our faith is placed in and upheld by something other than seeming conjuring tricks. — Mark Buchanan

The unexpected success is an opportunity, but it makes demands. It demands to be taken seriously. It demands to be staffed with the ablest people available, rather than with whoever we can spare. It demands seriousness and support on the part of management equal to the size of the opportunity. And the opportunity is considerable. — Peter F. Drucker

There's no more place in the euro zone for well-meaning laxness when dealing with deficits and failings. If the demands on Greece aren't taken seriously, we'll get stuck in quicksand. In the worst case, this would make it acceptable for one tranche to not be paid out. It is in the Greeks own interest not to test that. — Peer Steinbruck

Being large and muscular, you are not taken very seriously as an actor. When bigger roles come up and the actor needs to be muscular they tend to cast a regular sized actor and get him to hit the weight program as opposed to hiring an actor who's already muscular and developed in that area. — James Preston Rogers

University presidents should be loud and forceful in defending the university as a social good, essential to the democratic culture and economy of a nation. They should be criticizing the prioritizing of funds for military and prison expenditures over funds for higher education. And this argument should be made as a defense of education, as a crucial public good, and it should be taken seriously. But they aren't making these arguments. — Henry Giroux

I think that the Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum.. you can't understand English literature and culture without it. But insofar as theology studies the nature of the divine, it will earn the right to be taken seriously when it provides the slightest, smallest smidgen of a reason for believing in the existence of the divine. Meanwhile, we should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns. — Richard Dawkins

I have struggled to be taken seriously as a female athlete. I have struggled to find my worth outside of winning. I have struggled to accept parts of myself. Now I'm recognizing the beauty in those parts as well as beauty in the times when things didn't go my way. — Lynsey Dyer

There are many types of preventive health care services that are covered, things like blood pressure medication, for example. And women are merely asking that their health be taken just as seriously. — Sandra Fluke

The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their 'vital interests' are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or the 'conscience' of the civilized world. — James A. Baldwin

You want your art to be hip and seem cool to people, but a great deal of what passes for hip or cool is now highly commercially driven. And some if it is important art. I think 'The Simpsons' is important art. On the other hand, it's also, in my opinion, relentlessly corrosive to the soul and everything is parodied and everything is ridiculous. Maybe I'm old but for my part I can be steeped in about an hour of it and then I have to walk away and look at a flower.
If there's something to be talked about, that thing is this weird conflict between what my girlfriend calls the 'inner sap,' the part of us that can really wholeheartedly weep at stuff and the part of us that has to live in a world of smart, jaded, sophisticated people and wants very much to be taken seriously by those people. — David Foster Wallace

Glancing at Danika, I notice she isn't wearing her normal 'look at me, all proper' style. Instead she has on jeans, a red t-shirt with the image of a smiling mushroom on it, and a pair of tennis shoes.
"Wow, you look ... different."
She cast a peek down at her clothes. "This was always my preferred style, but I thought I had to dress prim and proper to be taken seriously. But you know what I realized when I met you?"
"What?"
She takes a step forward, placing her hand over my heart. "It's not about appearances, it's about heart. — Brandy Nacole

The token females of most superhero teams often had to suppress their femininity in order to be taken seriously by their male compatriots. When heroines like Invisible Girl or Wasp do display an interest in traditionally female pursuits like love, fashion or the latest hairstyle, their male teammates chide them for being frivolous females. — Mike Madrid

Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science. — James Bryant Conant

People do not want more noise in their social media streams. They want entertainment, uplifting conversations, and products that last. Most importantly, they want to be taken seriously. — Cendrine Marrouat

[W]omen will never be taken seriously until they accept full responsibility for their sexuality. — Camille Paglia

In the real world, it is hard to be taken seriously as a woman. Use your brain and be smart about your choices. There's nothing wrong with being a good girl - it's actually very attractive and sexy. — Faith Hill

The Miami Dolphins have to be taken seriously. Here's a team that seems to be jelling. — Al Michaels

Aside from rabid Islamists, no one who wishes to be taken seriously can publicly say anything bad about the old Jews of Europe without sounding like reactionary troglodytes. — Jack Schwartz

You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I know fashion can be intensely goofy, but it is something I've always taken pretty seriously. — John Malkovich

The assertion that 'culture' explains human variation will be taken seriously when there are reports of women war parties raiding villages to capture men as husbands, or of parent cloistering their sons but not their daughters to protect their sons' virtue, or when cultural distributions for preferences concerning physical attractiveness, earning power, relative age and so on show as many cultures with bias in one direction as in the other. — John Tooby

Whoever can't laugh doesn't deserve to be taken seriously... — Thomas Bernhard

If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Economic equity is an enormous empowerment of women. Having jobs that provide income means that women can be a more effective force, a more equal force, in the political process. Women with income take themselves more seriously and they are taken more seriously. — Betty Friedan

Silence is the Mother of Truth, for the silent man was ever to be trusted, while the man ever ready with speech was never taken seriously. — Luther Standing Bear

It may not always feel wonderful. but you're out there doing it. You're running while others are just walking. Or sitting around. I mean, come on - you're out there running, for goodness sake. You're to be taken seriously. — Deborah Reber

I don't have a problem with many uses of the word genre, just certain ones. I have the most trouble when these labels are used to prevent discussion, to prevent a work from being taken seriously as literature. When we say "genre," we generally mean "something crappy," something that would be sold in an airport. — Michael Chabon

Romantic souvenirs had a way of attaching themselves to one when one wanted to move on, but they were not to be taken seriously. — Hermann Hesse

I believe that we all need to do charitable work. It should be taken seriously in the area of education, as someone from the industry. — Goldie Hawn

I just want to be a nice girl from the Midwest - I don't want to have to act like a heavy to be taken seriously, and I resent that I have to be so pushy and political sometimes just to do my job. — Cindy Crawford

Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously ... — L.M. Montgomery

A Bawse knows that if you want to be taken seriously, you need to show people who you are, and then keep showing them. — Lilly Singh

His dad had always told him that the red-faced were blusterers, not to be taken seriously. 'But if you see a bloke who's pale and shaking, son,' Bert's father had instructed, 'then run like blazes, because he might flamin' kill you. — Kerry Greenwood

It's nice to be taken seriously. — Henry Selick

I don't have a burning desire to be taken seriously as an actor. I don't have a master plan in that way. — Ben Stiller

The greatest fear of those who rule is not the opposition but not to be taken seriously. — Gunduz Vassaf

One should not exaggerate the importance of trifles. Life, for instance, is much too short to be taken seriously. — Nicolas Bentley

It would be kind of ill to see Rachel McAdams win an Oscar [for Spotlight] - I don't think people give her credit for her range, she started in a kind of character with younger demographic-aged films and really made a push to be taken more seriously and got a lot of opportunities and knocked it out the park. But I feel like Jennifer Jason Leigh deserves one, maybe not just for Hateful Eight but for [Anomalisa] and everything. Like, I tried to watch Adaption again, that's rough! — Bun B.

Life is too important to be taken as a joke, but too ridiculous to be taken seriously. — Ashleigh Brilliant

To be censored is one sure way of knowing you have been taken dead seriously. It also speaks to the continuing power of the printed word, almost fifteen hundred years after that amazing invention. — Felice Picano

I do not mean that there is anything intellectually contemptible in being formally "godless"
that is, in rejecting all religious dogmas and in refusing to believe in the God those dogmas describe.
One might very well conclude, for instance, that the world contains far too much misery for the pious idea of a good, loving, and just God to be taken very seriously, and that any alleged creator of the universe in which children suffer and die hardly deserves our devotion.
It is an affective
not a strictly logical
position to hold, but it is an intelligible one, with a certain sublime moral purity to it; I myself find it deeply compelling; and it is entirely up to each person to judge whether he or she finds any particular religion's answer to the "problem of evil" either adequate or credible. — David Bentley Hart

If Christians could be trained to provide solid evidence for what they believe and good answers to unbelievers' questions and objections, then the perception of Christians would slowly change. Christians would be seen as thoughtful people to be taken seriously rather than as emotional fanatics or buffoons. The gospel would be a real alternative for people to embrace. — William Lane Craig

Polly was a writer of many deadlines. There were the ignorable deadlines, the not-to-be-taken-too-seriously deadlines: the deadlines-before-the-deadlines deadlines, and finally, the no-kidding-around deadlines. She set these various dates, she'd told him, to fool herself. — Martha Grimes

One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships. — Arthur C. Clarke

Who would ever want to read a novel about a punk and a drunk! Everybody knew a couple or a dozen; they were not to be taken seriously; nuisances and trouble-makers, nothing more; like queers and fairies, people were bell-sick of them; whatever ailed them, that was their funeral; who cared? - life presented a thousand things more important to be written about than misfits and failures. — Charles Jackson

If you're worried you have a psychosis, you probably don't, but even if you do, there's help for it. Fighting with anxiety makes it worse; instead, accept the anxiety, and it will become less scary. Take a moment to breathe and take stock of your surroundings. Remember what's real. Say, "This sucks, but it will pass." We aren't responsible for our thoughts, we are only responsible for what we do with them. Mental health care can and should be taken as seriously as physical health care. A diagnosis is not a bad thing. — Mara Wilson

The man who has successfully solved the problem of his relations with the two worlds of data and symbols is a man who has no beliefs. With regard to the problems of practical life he entertains a series of working hypotheses, which serve his purposes, but are taken no more seriously than any other kind of tool or instrument. In other words, symbols should never be raised to the rank of dogmas, nor should any system be regarded as more than a provisional convenience. — Aldous Huxley

If you want to be taken seriously, always check your fly. — Corey Taylor

For a woman to be taken as seriously as a man she must be three times as effective. Happily, this is not difficult.
Simone de Beauvoir — Gale Martin

How do you find your mount, Miss de Lacy?"
Amy found it a slug. It was clear Rowanford had taken her caution too seriously. This horse would be ideal for a non-equestrian grandmother. "I feel very safe," she said.
"Excellent. I shall take good care of you, Miss de Lacy. Have no fear."
Amy sighed and wished there was a convenient piece of furniture to heft to prove she was not as fragile as she appeared. — Jo Beverley

The Romans may be known for many things, but humor isn't one of them. As usual, this interpretation relies on a prima facie reading of Jesus as a man with no political ambitions whatsoever. That is nonsense. All criminals sentenced to execution received a titulus so that everyone know the crime for which they were being punished and thus be deterred from taking part in similar activity. That the wording on Jesus's titulus was likely genuine is demonstrated by Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, who notes that "if [the titulus] were invented by Christians, they would have used Christos, for early Christians would scarcely have called their Lord 'King of the Jews'."[..] the notion that a no-name Jewish peasant would have received a personal audience with the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who had probably signed a dozen execution orders that day alone, is so outlandish that it cannot be taken seriously. — Reza Aslan

In hindsight, I know that high school is a festering pit of boredom and hormones, not to be taken as seriously as it seemed while I was there. It is earthly purgatory before you enter the better parts of your life: you've got one foot in heaven and the other in hell. — Alida Nugent

Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is too much. — Susan Sontag

Academic credentials are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having your ideas taken seriously. If a famous professor repeatedly says stupid things, then tries to claim he never said them, there's no rule against calling him a mendacious idiot - and no special qualifications required to make that pronouncement other than doing your own homework.Conversely, if someone without formal credentials consistently makes trenchant, insightful observations, he or she has earned the right to be taken seriously, regardless of background. — Paul Krugman

There is a great deal of illusion in a work of art; one could go farther and say that it is illusory in and of itself, as a "work." Its ambition is to make others believe that it was not made but rather simply arose, burst forth from Jupiter's head like Pallas Athena fully adorned in enchased armor. But that is only a pretense. No work has ever come into being that way. It is indeed work, artistic labor for the purpose of illusion-and now the question arises whether, given the current state of our consciousness, our comprehension, and our sense of truth, the game is still permissible, still intellectually possible, can still be taken seriously; whether the work as such, as a self-sufficient and harmonically self-contained structure, still stands in a legitimate relation to our problematical social condition, with its total insecurity and lack of harmony; whether all illusion, even the most beautiful, and especially the most beautiful, has not become a lie today. — Thomas Mann

Politicians who wear little tennis socks with the balls at the back should not be taken seriously. — Mo Rocca

What do you think of boybands?"
I avoided eye contact, put my hands in my pockets, and shrugged.
"Not my thing, really." What was he getting at?
He chortled, and continued. "They are all the same. They've all got a lead singer whose head is stuck up his own arse, then a hard one who gets into trouble, an ugly one who wants to be taken seriously, and always, without exception, there's a gay one. — Eddie De Oliveira

most holders of authority were bigoted, illogical and not to be taken seriously. I — Bertrand Russell

I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect — Fernando Pessoa

If we adopt the principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others
more stringent ones, in fact
plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil — Noam Chomsky

But when you're a teenage boy, you can be narrow-minded about things that are girlie, things that are frivolous, things that are pop. Boys always want to be taken seriously, and they always want to transcend the tawdry emotion of the pop singer
it's a fairly standard response to the rigors of young manhood ... This isn't so different from how people talk about culture now. Rock epics are for boys; pop hits are for girls. When you're a boy, pop is scary because it's a maneater. You sing along with a pop song, you turn into a girl. That takes some degree of emotional risk. — Rob Sheffield

To be taken seriously about doing something creative and probably travel a lot. That was my motivation. I knew I was good, I knew I could write. I also knew you could get laid really easily. — David Bowie

Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously. — Iris Murdoch

If you just go out and try to make money by starting a business, you're going to come up with something that's just like what everyone else has done. But if you look at the world and see opportunities that can be taken more seriously, then you come up with a great idea. — Blake Mycoskie

What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored. — Eric Hoffer

I don't think life is to be taken too seriously. Take it too seriously, and it'll getcha. — Paul Prudhomme

Long dismissed as children's stories or 'myths' by Westerners, Australian Aboriginal stories have only recently begun to be taken seriously for what they are: the longest continuous record of historic events and spirituality in the world. — Karl-Erik Sveiby

The incarnation is a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers ... Until we too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it, we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken. — Frederick Buechner

People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity.
Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves. — Ruskin Bond

I never really thought about being a role model. I started really young, so at 10 years old, I was still very much the person who needed role models. I wasn't really prepared to be one, but it's always something that I've taken very seriously. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

There is a time for scientists and movie stars and those who have flown the atlantic to restrain their opinions lest they be taken more seriously than they should be. — Edward Teller

To expect alien technology to be just a few decades ahead of ours is too incredible to be taken seriously. — Paul Davies

Dorothy Day, of blessed memory, did not like to be called (as she often was, for good reason) a saint, because it usually meant that she was not being taken seriously. She heard it as an accusation - a device ostensibly distinguishing her from ordinary people so as to simultaneously discount her words and deeds while exempting others from moral responsibility to speak and act. — William Stringfellow

You think it's all rather too "New Age" to be taken seriously, eh?'
'Not at all.'
'But it's an ancient discipline ... '
'New Age disciplines invariably are,' Beede said, disparagingly, 'but in the modern world they lack context - we just pick them up and then toss them back down again, we consume them. They have no moral claim on us. No moral value. And without that they're rendered meaningless, fatuous, even. — Nicola Barker

Andy Clark has several books you can find on Amazon, including 'Natural Born Cyborgs' and 'Being There.' I particularly recommend 'Being There' to anybody who still thinks the Cartesian separation of mind and body should be taken seriously. — Karl Schroeder

Stand-up is an art but since it's humor and it's funny - a lot of guys that don't think it's art are probably coming from the angle that they don't want to take it so seriously. I've always looked at it as an art but I don't look at it as a pretentious art. I understand it has to be taken lightly because it is just comedy in the end, but the good stand-up comics are someone with something to say. — Mitch Hedberg

If the Japanese want to be taken seriously as world financial powers, they'd better quit using the same tailor as variety show chimps. — P. J. O'Rourke

I have a great body, I really do. But I want to be taken seriously as an artist, and wearing anything that shows it off will be a distraction from the music. That's how my signature uniform, my tuxedo, came about. It's classic and timeless. You'll see me in black, white, and a pop of color on my lips. That pop adds a little magic. — Janelle Monae

I was emotional. I wanted to be taken seriously. I was pretty emo. I was reciting Shakespeare monologues when I was 10. I still know the whole 'To be, or not to be ... ' monologue, because I knew it when I was 10. — Constance Wu

And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie