One assumes that "The Knife" was created with the most earnest intentions (and the earnestness repeatedly blocks the author's natural theatricality).

Mr. Crowley begins his poem, I believe, with an earnest intention to explain the beauty of the Buddhist philosophy; he knows a great deal about it; he believes in it.

It was an expression of their earnest intention, and a threat but-" The telephone on his desk rang shrilly and Richards snatched it up.

But for all the earnest intentions underlying this structure, there is something oddly plain, even banal, about the reality of it.

An enduring image: Mr. Bunin playing guitar and singing, awfully but with earnest intention, Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry."

In a way, that is a tribute to the earnest intentions of the writer and producer, David W. Rintels.

Common, using a disc jockey instead of the band he recently brought to Central Park Summerstage, switched back and forth between earnest intentions and swaggering boasts.

"Fight for Life" does not always work as drama, but there's no questioning its earnest intention.

Which was his earnest intention anyway.

So in 1882, Sidgwick and his friends formed the Society for Psychical Research with the earnest intention of investigating supernatural claims.