Dullness Quotes - Page 2

• Art is not some inessential frippery - it is the nation's means of intelligently regarding itself. To cripple or stigmatize the arts is to doom one's nation to a life of incuriosity, dullness, literalness and the worst kind of rank materialism.

  George Saunders

  Art, Mean, Kind

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• How strange too and unfamiliar to think that one had been loved, that one's presence had once had the power to make a difference between happiness and dullness in another's day.

  Graham Greene

  Thinking, Differences, Making A Difference

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

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• There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.

  Frank Capra

  Movie, Inspiring, Sin

  Recalled on his death in People, 16 Sep 1991.

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• Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

  Walter Bagehot

  Government, Political, Excellence

  Walter Bagehot, Norman St. John-Stevas (1959). “Walter Bagehot: A Study of His Life and Thought, Together with a Selection from His Political Writings”, London : Eyre & Spottiswoode

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• He lay back for a little in his bed thinking about the smells of food . . . of the intoxicating breath of bakeries and dullness of buns. . . . He planned dinners, of enchanting aromatic foods . . . endless dinners, in which one could alternate flavour with flavour from sunset to dawn without satiety, while one breathed great draughts of the bouquet of old brandy.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Sunset, Thinking, Smell

  EVELYN WAUGH (1958). “VILE BODIES & BLACK MISCHIEF”

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• An efficiency-regime cannot be run without a few heroes stuck about it to carry off the dullness - much as plums have to be put into bad pudding to make it palatable.

  E. M. Forster

  Running, Hero, Pudding

  "What I Believe". Essay by E. M. Forster, "The Nation", July 16, 1938.

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• The book designer strives for perfection; yet every perfect thing lives somewhere in the neighborhood of dullness and is frequently mistaken for it by the insensitive.

  Jan Tschichold

  Book, Perfect, Designer

  Jan Tschichold, Robert Bringhurst, Hajo Hadeler (1991). “The form of the book: essays on the morality of good design”, Hartley & Marks Publishers

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• It is part of the pholosophic dullness of our time that there are millions of rational monsters walking about on their hind legs, observing the world through pairs of flexible little lenses, periodically supplying themselves with energy by pushing organic substances through holes in their faces, who see nothing fabulous whatever about themselves.

  Martin Gardner

  Monsters, Energy, Lenses

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• What we call doubt is often simply dullness of mind and spirit, not the absence of faith at all, but faith latent with the lives we are not quite living, God dormant in the world to which we are not quite giving our best selves.

  Christian Wiman

  Self, Giving, Doubt

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• With color, for the price of a pot of paint, people can express their own style and individuality. But, as with style, a gift for color has to be developed by experiment. If you don't dare, you are doomed to dullness.

  Shirley Conran

  Self Esteem, Color, People

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• Yet, even for us, there is left some loveliness of environment, and the dullness of tutors and professors matters very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters at Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in Waynfleete's chapel, or lie in the green meadow, among the strange snakespotted fritillaries, and watch the sunburnt noon smite to a finer gold the tower's gilded vanes, or wander up the Christ Church staircase beneath the vaulted ceiling's shadowy fans, or pass through the sculptured gateway of Laud's building in the College of St. John.

  Oscar Wilde

  Lying, College, Oxford

  Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.231, Wordsworth Editions

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• Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.

  Edith Sitwell

  God, Reality, Vulgarity Is

  "Taken Care Of" by Edith Sitwell, (Ch. 19), 1965.

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• Our wickedness shall not overpower the unspeakable goodness and mercy of God; our dullness shall not overpower God's wisdom, nor our infirmity God's omnipotence.

  John of Kronstadt

  Forgiveness, Christian, Mercy Of God

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• What have I gained by health? Intolerable dullness. What by mode meals? A total blank.

  Charles Lamb

  Health, Meals, Blank

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• Eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Loss, Self Improvement, Drink

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.126, Applewood Books

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• The calm man is not the man who is dull. You must not mistake Sattva for dullness or laziness. The calm man is the one who has control over the mind waves. Activity is the manifestation of inferior strength, calmness, of the superior.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Mistake, Men, Mind

  Swami Vivekananda (2016). “Raja Yoga: Conquering the Internal Nature”, p.68, Advaita Ashrama

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• The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able to mediate these associations and connections, and in the dullness in discovering such transitions which the other shows.

  William James

  Teacher, Philosophy, Educational

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• You cannot sell a man who isn't listening; word of mouth is the best medium of all; and dullness won't sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.

  William Bernbach

  Business, Men, Listening

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• Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. Prayer includes moments of ecstasy and also dullness, mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation. In other words, prayer has features in common with all relationships that matter.

  Philip Yancey

  Prayer, Believe, Irritation

  Philip Yancey (1995). “The Jesus I Never Knew”, p.298, Harper Collins

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• Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.

  George Santayana

  Real, Believe, Sadness

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• But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Sight, Understanding

  Francis Bacon (2012). “The Great Instauration”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• The devil's name is dullness.

  Robert E. Lee

  Names, Boredom, Devil

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• Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!

  Boris Pasternak

  Sleep, Long, Understanding

  Roger Martin du Gard, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Gabriela Mistral (1971). “Roger Martin du Gard: Gabriela Mistral ; Boris Pasternak”

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• The things that we preceive as beautiful may be different, but the actual characteristics we ascribe to beautiful objects are similar. Think about it. When something strikes us as beautiful, it displays more presence and sharpness of shape and vividness of color, doesn't it? It stands out. It shines. It seems almost iridescent compared to the dullness of other objects less attractive.

  James Redfield

  Beautiful, Thinking, Color

  James Redfield (2009). “Celestine Insights - Limited Edition of Celestine Prophecy and Tenth Insight”, p.31, Hachette UK

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• Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.

  Howard Zinn

  Mean, Artist, Justice

  Howard Zinn (2012). “The Historic Unfulfilled Promise”, p.65, City Lights Publishers

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