Dull Quotes - Page 23

• He is a dull observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of magic, as well as of chemistry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reality, Magic, Taught

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1460, Delphi Classics

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• One need never be dull as long as one has friends to help, gardens to enjoy and books in the long winter evenings.

  D.E. Stevenson

  Book, Winter, Garden

  D. E. Stevenson (1978). “Listening Valley”

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• Our life is like a land journey, too even and easy and dull over long distances across the plains, too hard and painful up the steep grades; but, on the summits of the mountain, you have a magnificent view—and your eyes are full of happy tears—and you want to sing—and wish you had wings! And then—you can’t stay there, but must continue your journey—you begin climbing down the other side, so busy with your footholds that your summit experience is forgotten

  Lloyd C. Douglas

  Distance, Eye, Journey

  Lloyd C. Douglas (2012). “The Robe”, p.179, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I regard large inherited wealth as a misfortune, which merely serves to dull men's faculties. A man who possesses great wealth should, therefore, allow only a small portion to descend to his relatives. Even if he has children, I consider it a mistake to hand over to them considerable sums of money beyond what is necessary for their education. To do so merely encourages laziness and impedes the healthy development of the individual's capacity to make an independent position for himself.

  Alfred Nobel

  Children, Mistake, Independent

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• Do the dull things right so the extraordinary things will not be required too often.

  Earl Weaver

  Extraordinary Things, Extraordinary

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• In Madame Bovary Flaubert never allows anything to go on too long; he can suggest years of boredom in a paragraph, capture the essence of a character in a single conversational exchange, or show us the gulf between his soulful heroine and her dull-witted husband in a sentence (and one that, moreover, presages all Emma's later experience of men). (...) This is one of the summits of prose art, and not to know such a masterpiece is to live a diminished life.

  Michael Dirda

  Art, Husband, Character

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• Some men are too dull to feel what might happen. Others torture themselves with maybes and populate their dreams with horrors more terrible than their worst enemy could inflict upon them.

  Mark Lawrence

  Dream, Fear, Men

  Mark Lawrence (2011). “Prince of Thorns”, p.74, Penguin

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• Boredom is a sign of satisfied ignorance, blunted apprehension, crass sympathies, dull understanding, feeble powers of attention, and irreclaimable weakness of character.

  James Bridie

  Ignorance, Character, Boredom

  James Bridie, Association for Scottish Literary Studies (2007). “The devil to stage: five plays”, Association for Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS)

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• What a dull universe it would be if everything in it conformed to our expectations, if it held nothing to surprise or baffle us or confound our common sense. A century ago no one foresaw the existence of black holes, an expanding universe, oceans on Jupiter's moons, or DNA. What could be more enriching than to know that we share a common origin with all living things, that we are kin to chimpanzees, redwoods and mollusks? And isn't it a source of wonder to realize that the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were created in the bellies of supernovas?

  Steven Pinker

  Ocean, Moon, Dna

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• But you want to know about the influence of books on my life, and as I've said, there was only one. Seneca. . .Maybe that sounds dull, but the letters aren't - they're witty. I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.

  Mary Ann Shaffer

  Witty, Book, Thinking

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• It's not the gentle part I have a problem with, it's the dull, stupid part.

  Gabrielle

  Stupid, Problem, Gentle

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• As I grew up, everything started getting grey and dull. I could still remember the amazing intensity of the world I'd lived in as a child, but I thought the dulling of perception was an inevitable consequence of age - just as a lens of the eye is bound gradually to dim. I didn't understand that clarity is in the mind.

  Keith Johnstone

  Children, Eye, Perception

  Keith Johnstone (1981). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.13, Routledge

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• Let hunger sharpen your awareness. Abstain liquor and frivolous recreation, which dull the mind and weaken the body.

  Laura Joh Rowland

  Mind, Body, Hunger

  Laura Joh Rowland (2007). “The Concubine's Tattoo”, p.229, Macmillan

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• It's superb to be out in the early, early morning before the sun comes up. There's this sense of being super-alive. You're in on a secret that all the dull, sleeping people don't know about. Unlike them, you're alert and aware of existing right here in this precise moment between what happened and what's going to happen.

  Tim Tharp

  Morning, Sleep, People

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• There's no need to sharpen my pencils anymore. They're sharp enough. Even the dull ones will make a mark.

  Ze Frank

  Needs, Enough, Mark

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• Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing

  Charles Bukowski

  Style, Answers, Way

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• Only a life lived in a certain spirit is worth living. It is a remarkable fact that a life lived entirely from the ego is dull not only for the person himself but for all concerned.

  Carl Jung

  Ego, Facts, Spirit

  Carl Gustav Jung (1960). “The structure and dynamics of the psyche”

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• Think of a flabby person covered with layers of fat. That is what your mind can become - flabby, covered with layers of fat till it becomes too dull and lazy to think, to observe, to explore, to discover ... not wanting to be disturbed or questioned into wakefulness.

  Anthony de Mello

  Thinking, Lazy, Mind

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• A wise person is full of questions. A dull person is full of answers.

  Paulo Coelho

  Wise, Answers, Persons

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• The great man is not so great as folks think, and the dull man is not quite so stupid as he seems. The difference in our estimates of men lies in the fact that one individual is able to get his goods into the show-window, and the other is not aware that he has any show-window or any goods.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Lying, Stupid, Men

  Elbert Hubbard (2009). “Love, Life & Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others”, p.14, The Floating Press

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• It is not, of course, the subject that is or isn't dull, but the quality of attention that we do or do not pay to it. Dull subjects are those we have failed.

  William Matthews

  Quality, Attention, Pay

  William Matthews (1989). “Curiosities”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• The world is filled with interesting things to do. Don't lead a dull life in such a thrilling world.

  Dale Carnegie

  Dull Life, Interesting, World

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• The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized.

  Tom Robbins

  Practice, Lazy, Enemy

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• People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.

  James Hilton

  Life, Mistake, Believe

  James Hilton (1941). “Three Famous Novels: Lost Horizon, Good-bye, Mr. Chips [and] Random Harvest”

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• That is why we need to travel. If we don't offer ourself to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.

  Kent Nerburn

  Dream, Eye, Our World

  Kent Nerburn (1999). “Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Women, Life and Love”, p.115, New World Library

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