Dull famous quotes

Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.
-- A. A. Gill

#People #Dull #Facts

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
-- A. E. Housman

#Perception #Literature #Dull

I know that you should always say yes to adventures or you'll lead a very dull life.
-- A. J. Jacobs

#Adventure #Dull #Should

A dull speaker, like a plain woman, is credited with all the virtues, for we charitably suppose that a surface so unattractive must be compensated by interior blessings.
-- A. P. Herbert

#Blessing #Unattractive #Dull

All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
-- Abraham Cowley

#World #Dull #Noise

There is a black which is old and a black which is fresh. Lustrous black and dull black, black in sunlight and black in shadow.
-- Ad Reinhardt

#Black #Shadow #Dull

What a dull world if we knew all about geese!
-- Aldo Leopold

#World #Dull #Geese

Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
-- Aldous Huxley

#Luxury #Literature #Dull

"Exciting" is a dull world to describe the wrestling business.
-- Alexander Nderitu

#Wrestling #World #Dull

The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.
-- Alexander Pope

#Lying #Dull #Cunning

No one has ever explained why it is that parents and guardians consider dull people such safe matrimonial investments for their young charges. Even granting the unsound assumption that dull people are more apt to be content with their own matrimonial fetters, they are certainly more apt to be the cause of discontent in others.
-- Alice Duer Miller

#People #Parent #Dull

I picture heaven as a vast library, with unlimited volumes to read. And paintings and statues to examine galore. I picture it as a great doorway to learning...rather than one great dull answer to all our questions
-- Anne Rice

#Heaven #Library #Dull

Very nice couplet, although there are dull stretches.
-- Antoine Rivarol

#Art #Nice #Dull

. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.
-- Arthur C. Clarke

#Long #Would Be #Dull

If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.
-- Barbara Bush

#Basketball #Weakness #Dull

[On a dull party:] It was a fête worse than death.
-- Barbara Stanwyck

#Party #Dull #Wit

I love chaos.... It's the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.
-- Ben Shahn

#Elements #World #Dull

There is scarcely any popular tenet more erroneous than that which holds that when time is slow, life is dull.
-- Benjamin Disraeli

#Dull #Life Is

Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.
-- Benjamin Hoff

#Dull #Information #Way

Too much shine, can dull the soul
-- Big K.R.I.T.

#Shining #Soul #Dull

Java development without a little heresy would be a dull place, and a dangerous one.
-- Bruce Tate

#Design #Dull #Littles

One thing must be avoided at all costs: narrow-mindedness, pedantry, dull pettiness.
-- Bruno Schulz

#Cost #Dull #Pedantry

I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more.
-- Bryan Procter

#Sea #Dull #Environment

Where life is colorful and varied, religion can be austere or unimportant. Where life is appallingly monotonous, religion must be emotional, dramatic and intense. Without the curry, boiled rice can be very dull.
-- C. Northcote Parkinson

#Life #Emotional #Dull

Mental health is seen as a massive drag to have to write about - worthy, dull. Something you should 'have' to read / write about.
-- Caitlin Moran

#Writing #Dull #Mental Health

Likewise 'radical'. I'm only radical because the architectural profession has got lost. Architects are such a dull lot - and they're so convinced that they matter.
-- Cedric Price

#Dull #Matter #Architect

It's better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it.
-- Charles Bukowski

#Style #Dull #Dangerous

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
-- Charles Darwin

#Funny #Dull #Insult

Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?
-- Charles de Lint

#Would Be #Dull #Mystery

Ghosts were just a way that some stupid people dealt with their dull lives.
-- Charles de Lint

#Stupid #People #Dull

All originality and no plagiarism makes for dull preaching.
-- Charles Spurgeon

#Dull #Originality #Plagiarism

I think too many comic book covers are way too busy, crammed with far too much information, both visual and verbal, that just becomes a dull noise.
-- Chip Kidd

#Book #Thinking #Dull

With dates I like to cater a girl. We do whatever she likes. If she was open to what I wanted to do, it probably wouldn't be a dull date, because I am a jock.
-- Chris Brown

#Girl #Dating #Dull

Here we may mount from this dull Earth, and viewing it from on high, consider whether Nature has laid out all her Cost and Finery upon this small Speck of Dirt.
-- Christiaan Huygens

#Cost #Earth #Dull

If you cannot see the bright side of life, polish the dull side.
-- Christina Dodd

#Dull #Sides #Polish

The duty of a toastmaster is to be so dull that the succeeding speakers will appear brilliant by contrast.
-- Clarence Budington Kelland

#Dull #Succeed #Brilliant

A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality.
-- Clifton Fadiman

#Dull #May #Milk

Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.
-- Clive James

#Wisdom #Fiction #Dull

Like a Volvo, Bjorn Borg is rugged, has good after-sales service, and is very dull.
-- Clive James

#Tennis #Dull #Borg

Perfection, in anything, is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection.
-- Colleen McCullough

#Perfection #Imperfection #Dull

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
-- Dean Acheson

#Dull #Politics #Requirements

Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting.
-- Derren Brown

#Magic #Dull #Tricks

Never fear being vulgar, just boring, middle class or dull.
-- Diana Vreeland

#Class #Dull #Boring

I've nothing against people who love truth. Apart from the fact that they make dull companions.
-- Diane Setterfield

#People #Dull #Facts

I stupidly ignored education completely. I found it dull and I preferred to cause chaos and have fun. I regret this massively now.
-- Dominic Cooper

#Fun #Regret #Dull

At an early age, you started hearing it: It's a virtue to be "well-rounded." ... They might as well have said : Become as dull as you possibly can be.
-- Donald O. Clifton

#Age #Dull #Might

He seems to have become a part of my life and I'm disappointed if I don't see him. If I get to the end of the day without seeing someone who reminds me of him, I feel as if a dull shadow has fallen over me.
-- Dorothy Koomson

#The End Of The Day #Shadow #Dull

Do the dull things right so the extraordinary things will not be required too often.
-- Earl Weaver

#Dull #Extraordinary Things #Extraordinary

Nobody likes to hear it, because it's dull, but the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same - pitching.
-- Earl Weaver

#Winning #Dull #Pitching

If I had followed my better judgment always, my life would have been a very dull one.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs

#Dull #Judgment

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.
-- Edward Albee

#Half #Dull #Faculty

Among many reasons for being stupid it may be urged, it is being like other people, and living like one's neighbours, and indeed without it, it may be difficult to love some neighbours as oneself: now seeing the necessity of being dull, you won't, I hope, take it amiss that you find me so ...
-- Elizabeth Montagu

#Stupid #People #Dull

The camembert with its venison scent defeats the Marolles and Limbourg dull smells; It spreads its exhalation, smothering the other scents under its surprising breath abundance.
-- Emile Zola

#Smell #Scent #Dull

Early to bed and early to rise makes a person dull, boring, and despised.
-- Ernie J Zelinski

#Funny #Bed #Dull

A desirable advertisement will be reasonable, but never dull ... original, but never self-conscious ... imaginative, but never misleading.
-- Fairfax M. Cone

#Self #Dull #Advertising

Well-washed and well-combed domestic pets grow dull; they miss the stimulus of fleas.
-- Francis Galton

#Missing #Pet #Dull

I don't want to do architecture that's dry and dull.
-- Frank Gehry

#Dry #Dull #Want

Be anything you want to be, but don't be dull.
-- Frank Robinson

#Writing #Dull #Want

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

#Stupid #Dull #Problem

Love stories are written in millimeters and milliseconds with a fast, dull pencil whose marks you can barely see, they are written in miles and eons with a chisel on the side of a mountiantop
-- Gabrielle Zevin

#Sides #Stories #Dull

I loved fairy tales as a kid. I've always been drawn to fantasy. They're always exciting. There's never a dull moment. I just love the embellishments and the magical stuff. It's such fun to work with and to re-imagine your own way.
-- Gail Carson Levine

#Fun #Kids #Dull

It's only when you suddenly stop perspiring that your forearms go dull.
-- George Antheil

#Dull

Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?
-- George Eliot

#Witty #Dull #Deeper

Mathematical high culture collides with pop culture and all hell breaks loose! Harris takes us on a wild ride--never a dull moment!
-- Gregory Chaitin

#Culture #Dull #Hell

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
-- H. L. Mencken

#Faith #Men #Dull

There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
-- H. L. Mencken

#Dull #Subjects

I am simply looking for a companion with whom to spend my days, a companion who will cherish as much as I the stupidity of living in the moment, and spend every dull, amazing second with me.
-- Heidi Julavits

#Stupidity #Live In The Moment #Dull

The language has got to be fully alive - I can't bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don't see why any reader should put up with it.
-- Helen Dunmore

#Writing #Alive #Dull

Everything can be learned, including, to a very large extent, to be what you are not. You can learn to be pretty if you are plain, charming if you are dull, thin if you are fat, youthful if you are aging, how to write though you are inarticulate, how to make money though you are not good with figures.
-- Henry Anatole Grunwald

#Writing #Dull #Aging

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Disappointment #Silence #Dull

A dull ax never loves grindstones.
-- Henry Ward Beecher

#Boredom #Dull #Grindstone

O Lord God, we pray that we may be inspired to nobleness of life in the least things. May we dignify all our daily life. May we set such a sacredness upon every part of our life, that nothing shall be trivial, nothing unimportant, and nothing dull, in the daily round.
-- Henry Ward Beecher

#Dull #May #Inspired

If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical.
-- Herbert Read

#Life #Literature #Dull

Perhaps it is this theory of all work and no play that has made the Marxist such a very dull boy.
-- Herbert Read

#Boys #Play #Dull

Quick music sounds dull unless every note is articulated.
-- Herbert von Karajan

#Sound #Dull #Notes

I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.
-- Hilaire Belloc

#Book #Writing #Dull

It has been discovered that with a dull urban population, all formed under a mechanical system of State education, a suggestion or command, however senseless and unreasoned, will be obeyed if it be sufficiently repeated.
-- Hilaire Belloc

#Suggestions #Population #Dull

All work and no play make any forensic pathologist a dull boy.
-- Hill Harper

#Boys #Play #Dull

Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start
-- Horace

#Dull #Capture #Reader

Dull winter will re-appear.
-- Horace

#Winter #Dull

Knicks and dull edges are abominations, so use knives and hatchets for nothing but they were made for.
-- Horace Kephart

#Knives #Use #Dull

With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.
-- Hunter S. Thompson

#Depressing #Alternatives #Dull

When I wrote the first [Bond novel] in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened... when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, [James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard.
-- Ian Fleming

#Men #Names #Dull

If You Want To Rebel Against Society, Don’t Dull The Blade
-- Ian MacKaye

#Rebel #Dull #Want

To see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.
-- Isaac Watts

#Air #Inward #Dull

Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random sentiments floating on top.
-- Italo Calvino

#Grease #Floating #Dull

She carried the burn of the sun on her body. It was for all of those wasted, dull years.
-- J.M.G. Le Clézio

#Years #Body #Dull

When you live your whole life in a prison freedom can be so dull
-- Jaden Smith

#Dull #Prison #Whole Life

A story about my life would be utterly dull.
-- James McAvoy

#Would Be #Stories #Dull

I sit and pass judgment on myself: this is dull, this is unclear, this is insignificant: ergo I am dull, I am unclear, I am insignificant.
-- Janet Burroway

#Dull #Judgment #Insignificant

As people get older they have these rigid patterns that they impose on themselves, and it kills them. They become dull, they become dead to new experience, they become afraid, biased, and bigoted. It's really simply to do with refusing new experience.
-- Jeanette Winterson

#People #Dull #Patterns

I hate baseball. It's dull. Nothing happens. It's like watching grass - no, Astroturf - grow
-- Jeff Jarvis

#Baseball #Hate #Dull

Every day is important for us because it is a day ordained by God. If we are bored with life there is something wrong with our concept of God and His involvement in our daily lives. Even the most dull and tedious days of our lives are ordained by God and ought to be used by us to glorify Him.
-- Jerry Bridges

#Bored #Important #Dull

Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions.
-- Jim Butcher

#Would Be #Answers #Dull

Music [is] the third rail of life. You grabbed it to shock yourself out of the dull drag of hours. To feel something. To burn with all the emotions you didn't get to experience in the ordinary run of school, TV, and loading the dishwasher after dinner.
-- Joe Hill

#Running #School #Dull

Tis chiefly taste, or blunt, or gross, or fine, Makes life insipid, bestial, or divine. Better be born with taste to little rent Than the dull monarch of a continent; Without this bounty which the gods bestow, Can Fortune make one favorite happy? No.
-- John Armstrong

#Dull #Littles #Taste

Display advertising and the movies, though they may dull the wits, certainly stimulate the eyes.
-- John Dos Passos

#Eye #Dull #May

An enthusiast may bore others, but he has never a dull moment himself.
-- John F. Kieran

#Boredom #Dull #May

I drink the wine of aspiration and the drug of illusion. Thus I am never dull.
-- John Galsworthy

#Wine #Drug #Dull

Mathematics was hard, dull work. Geography pleased me more. For dancing I was quite enthusiastic.
-- John James Audubon

#Dancing #Dull #Mathematics