Dull Quotes - Page 35

• In the winter, things are dead and dull, but then there is an explosion of life. That's what He promises people who believe in His Son. That's what all the Robertsons are banking on.

  Si Robertson

  Believe, Son, Winter

  4 Copy quote

• Life is short, and we are dull, and eternal things are necessary, and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious.

  Richard Baxter

  Teaching, Life Is Short, Soul

  Richard Baxter (1830). “The practical works of ... Richard Baxter, with a life of the author and a critical examination of his writings by W. Orme”, p.122

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We know what boredom is: it is a dull
  Impatience or a fierce velleity,
  A champing wish, stalled by our lassitude,
  To make or do. In the strict sense, of course,
  We invent nothing, merely bearing witness
  To what each morning brings again to light

  Richard Wilbur

  Morning, Light, Boredom

  Richard Wilbur (2006). “Collected Poems 1943-2004”, p.83, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• One can't dull a project better than by discussing it repeatedly.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Projects, Discussing

  4 Copy quote

• Work is a dull thing; you cannot get away from that. The only agreeable existence is one of idleness, and that is not, unfortunately, always compatible with continuing to exist at all.

  Rose Macaulay

  Work, Existence, Get Away

  Rose Macaulay (1926). “A Casual Commentary”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• All work and no play makes jack. With enough jack, Jack needn't be a dull boy.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Money, Boys, Play

  12 Copy quote

• Congress has scarcely any thing to employ them, and complain that the place [Washington, D.C.] is remarkably dull.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Complaining, Congress

  4 Copy quote

• My brain is dull, my sight is foul,
  I cannot write a verse, or read--
  Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl,
  And let us have a lark instead.

  Thomas Hood

  Sex, Writing, Sight

  Thomas Hood, Frances F. Broderip (1860). “Memorials: In 2 Vol”, p.339

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• At the age of twelve I was finding the world too small: it appeared to me like a dull, trim back garden, in which only trivial games could be played.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Garden, Games, Childhood

  4 Copy quote

• Would I if I could by pushing a button would I kill five
  thousand Chinamen if I could save my brother from
  anything. Well I was very fond of my brother and I
  could completely imagine his suffering and I replied
  that five thousand Chinamen was something I could not
  imagine and so it was not interesting. One has to
  remember that about imagination, that is when the
  world gets dull when everybody does not know what
  they can or what they cannot really imagine.

  Gertrude Stein

  Brother, Imagination, Interesting

  "Everybody's Autobiography". Book by Gertrude Stein, Chapter 3, 1937.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Conversationis like the table of contents of a dull book.... All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayedin it. Listen to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking, the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.

  Stendhal

  Book, Ignorance, Thinking

  15 Copy quote

• Without the assistance of eating and drinking, the most sparkling wit would be as heavy as a bad soufflé, and the brightest talent as dull as a looking-glass on a foggy day.

  Alexis Soyer

  Drinking, Glasses, Would Be

  Alexis Soyer (1851). “The Modern Housewife: Or, Ménagère. Comprising Nearly One Thousand Receipts, for the Economic and Judicious Preparation of Every Meal of the Day, and Those for the Nursery and Sick Room; and Minute Directions for Family Management in All Its Branches. Illustrated with Engravings Including the Modern Housewife's Unique Kitchen, and Magic Stove”, p.400

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time,
  Tiering the same dull webs of discontent,
  Clipping the same sad alnage of the years.

  Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Time, Kings, Years

  Edwin Arlington Robinson (2015). “Delphi Poetical Works and Plays of Edwin Arlington Robinson (Illustrated)”, p.111, Delphi Classics

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed.

  David Hume

  Past, Mirrors, Faithful

  David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1992). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature”, p.10, Hackett Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world has always needed human beings who refuse to believe that history is nothing but a dull, monstrous selfrepetition, a selfperpetuating, meaningless game, only varied in outer garb, who cannot be converted from their conviction that history signifies progress in morality, that our race is ascending on an invisible ladder from an animal nature towards divinity, from brutal violence to the wisely ordering intellect, and that the ultimate stage of complete understanding is already close at hand, indeed has almost been attained.

  Stefan Zweig

  Believe, Animal, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• Cheat me not with time,
  with the dull ache of flesh,
  for all flesh turns,
  even the loveliest
  ankle and frail thigh,
  to bitterest dust.

  Hilda Doolittle

  Time, Dust, Ankles

  Hilda Doolittle, Louis L. Martz (1986). “Collected Poems 1912-1944”, p.287, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• So I cradle this average violin that knows
  Only forgotten showtunes, but argues
  The possibility of free declamation anchored
  To a dull refrain.

  John Ashbery

  Music, Average, Violin

  John Ashbery (1986). “Selected Poems”, Penguin Group USA

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despitethe fact that the American Revolution was successful--realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime--while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.

  Irving Kristol

  Children, Successful, Political

  12 Copy quote

• No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.

  Franz Grillparzer

  War, Cutting, Knives

  4 Copy quote

• I have listened to much dull and heavy conversation in America, but rarely to any that I could strictly call silly (if I except the every where privileged class of very young ladies).

  Frances Trollope

  Silly, America, Class

  Frances Trollope (2014). “Domestic Manners of the Americans”, p.36, Oxford University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nourishing the soul is the process of drinking at the life stream, coming back to one's true self, embracing the whole of one's experience - good, bad, or ugly; painful or exalted; dull or boring.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Drinking, Self, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• People who live in quiet, remote places are apt to give good dinners. They are the oft-recurring excitement of an otherwise unemotional, dull existence. They linger, each of these dinners, in our palimpsest memories, each recorded clearly, so that it does not blot out the others.

  M. E. W. Sherwood

  Memories, People, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• I'm a very dull passenger. I don't speak. I don't have sex. No alcohol. I don't do drugs. The thing that I like about flying is that I feel like I can really concentrate. I used to write many things, and many ideas for my movies belong to this moment where I'm not anywhere specifically in terms of time and space and geography. I am suspended, and this suspension fits me very well.

  Pedro Almodovar

  Sex, Writing, Ideas

  "Pedro Almodóvar Talks I’M SO EXCITED, the Role of Sex and Death in His Work, Making the “Gayest Film” He’s Done in 20 Years, and More". Interview with Sheila Roberts, collider.com. June 24, 2013.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life is too short to spend it being angry, bored, or dull.

  Barbara Johnson

  Life Is Too Short, Bored, Angry

  Barbara Johnson (2000). “Boomerang Joy: Joy That Goes Around, Comes Around”, p.43, Zondervan

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are people who buy pictures because they were difficult to do, and are done. Such pictures are often only a record of pain and dull perseverance. Great works of art should look as though they were made in joy. Real joy is a tremendous activity, dull drudgery is nothing to it.

  Robert Henri

  Perseverance, Art, Pain

  Robert Henri (1960). “The art spirit”, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source