Dull Witted Quotes

It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing; they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose. ~ Robertson Davies

Hegel did not deceive himself about the revolutionary character of his dialectic, and was even afraid that his Philosophy of Right would be banned. Nor was the Prussian state entirely easy in its mind for all its idealization. Proudly leaning on its police truncheon, it did not want to have its reality justified merely by its reason. Even the dull-witted King saw the serpent lurking beneath the rose: when a distant rumor of his state philosopher's teachings reached him he asked suspiciously: but what if I don't dot the I's or cross the T's? The Prussian bureaucracy meanwhile was grateful for the laurel wreath that had been so generously plaited for it, especially since the strict Hegelians clarified their master's obscure words for the understanding of the common subjects, and one of them wrote a history of Prussian law and the Prussian state, where the Prussian state was proved to be a gigantic harp strung in God's garden to lead the universal anthem. Despite its sinister secrets Hegel's philosophy was declared to be the Prussian state philosophy, surely one of the wittiest ironies of world history. Hegel had brought together the rich culture of German Idealism in one mighty system, he had led all the springs and streams of our classical age into one bed, where they now froze in the icy air of reaction. but the rash fools who imagined they were safely hidden behind this mass of ice, who presumptuously rejoiced who bold attackers fell from its steep and slippery slopes, littl ~ Franz Mehring

The public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves very important. ~ Leo Tolstoy

And please, whatever you do, don't tell us that what we do, either in love or lust, is unnatural. For one thing if what you mean by that is that animals don't do it, then you are quite simply in factual error.
There are plenty of activities or qualities we could list that are most certainly unnatural if you are so mad as to think that humans are not part of nature, or so dull-witted as to believe that 'natural' means 'all natures but human nature': mercy, for example, is un¬natural, an altruistic, non-selfish care and love for other species is unnatural; charity is unnatural, justice is unnatural, virtue is unnatural, indeed - and this surely is the point - the idea of virtue is unnatural, within such a foolish, useless meaning of the word 'natural'. Animals, poor things, eat in order to survive: we, lucky things, do that too, but we also have Abbey Crunch biscuits, Armagnac, selle d'agneau, tortilla chips, sauce béarnaise, Vimto, hot buttered crumpets, Chateau Margaux, ginger-snaps, risotto nero and peanut-butter sandwiches - these things have nothing to do with survival and everything to do with pleasure, connoisseurship and plain old greed. Animals, poor things, copulate in order to reproduce: we, lucky things, do that too, but we also have kinky boots, wank-mags, leather thongs, peep-shows, statuettes by Degas, bedshows, Tom of Finland, escort agencies and the Journals of Anaïs Nin - these things have nothing to do with reproduction and everything to do with ~ Stephen Fry

I was also afraid to the point of illness of being ridiculous, and therefore slavishly worshipped routine in everything to do with externals; I loved falling into the common rut, and feared any eccentricity in myself with all my soul. But how could I hold out? I was morbidly developed, as a man of our time ought to be developed. And they were all dull-witted and as like one another as a flock of sheep. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

History comforts the dull-witted,"" the young Malazan said.
Beneth barked a laugh as he reached the gate. "And whose words are those, Pella? Not yours."
The guard's brows rose, then shrugged. "I forget you're Korelri sometimes, Beneth. Those words? Emperor Kellanved. ~ Steven Erikson

He belongs to the class of simple-hearted, practical, and dull-witted people, prompt in carrying out orders, who like discipline better than anything in the world, and so are convinced that it is their duty to beat people. ~ Anton Chekhov

Few men are true masters over their women. In truth, I would eye with suspicion any woman who acts as if that is the truth. Either she lies, or she is so dull-witted or weak-spirited that she will make you a tedious wife. ~ Hannah Howell

An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy. ~ Mao Zedong

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

Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long the kernel is to exist or not; in which, accordingly, the stunted, diseased and dull witted jailer is lord, and indicates the moment at which his distinguished prisoner shall die. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Just what we need.A dull-witted lord," Constance mused. "At least he doesn't seem menacing anymore."
Just wait,old woman, and you will learn just how menacing this dull-witted lord can be, Ranulf promised. ~ Michele Sinclair

Viscount St. John? He's got the intelligence of a goat. If this is an indication of the kind of suitors I've got simpering after me, it speaks to a significant problem with my perceived quality." "Alexandra, there are some forty bouquets in this room alone, and I've had several posies sent to the upstairs parlor because of space constraints here. I feel confident that there are several notes from gentlemen who are not dull-witted. ~ Sarah MacLean

This is not one of the bandits," she said.

Gavril looked closer at the shadow-stalker-abandoned corpse. "You are correct," he said, as if with some surprise.

She gave him a look. "Thank you. So it seems we are stuck in the middle - sorry, the edge of the steppes - with no horses and a useless wagon and a landscape populated by shadow stalkers. If they are indeed raised by some confederate of your father's, then we should be safe enough. We simply need to find this sorcerer and turn ourselves in to him to be returned to your father and resume our original mission. However, the fact that it" - Moria waved at the shadow stalker - "attempted to attack you suggests we are not safe at all. What is going on here, Kitsune?"

"I . . . I'm thinking."

"If you do it aloud, perhaps I can help. Unless you still think me a dull-witted Northerner."

"I only said that to needle you."

"You also did it in front of your father."

"As I said, it was to convince him you were not intellectually capable . . ." He stopped and scowled at her. "You're needling me now, Keeper. Playing on my guilt to make me share my thoughts."

"I do not believe I am intellectually capable of such cunning - "

"Enough. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Talk with a comfortable tempo - too fast sounds nervous and you might lose the audience, too slow can come across as dull-witted. ~ Glen Wilson

Have you noticed how few men in the peerage are young and nice-looking?" Lillian asked wryly. "Most of them are dull-witted, ancient, or possess the kind of face that should have a hook in its mouth. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Do not say (your) body is weak and so lack courage. Do not say (you) are dull-witted and cease (training). Do not say complications cause (you) to give up halfway. Do not let circumstances cause you to break off. In all things under heaven, a really determined person will find a solution. ~ Scott M. Rodell

Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
- But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about.
No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby. ~ Laurence Sterne

Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates. ~ Franz Kafka

demands the utmost in wisdom, in attack, in endurance. Violence is simple and easy, it is the sword of the stupid and dull-witted, and it always leaves chaos. To carry on a positive revolution without violence - ah, that is a challenge to intelligence! ~ Pearl S. Buck

Christians would show sense if they dispatched these argumentative Scotists and pigheaded Ockhamists and undefeated Albertists along with the whole regiment of Sophists to fight the Turks and Saracens instead of sending those armies of dull-witted soldiers with whom they've long been carrying on war with no result. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good-naturedness and morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The older Kit gets, the less confident he feels judging other people as spouses or parents. These days, driving past the home of the Naked Hemp Society, he finds himself more curious than contemptuous about their easily ridiculed New Age ways. Why shouldn't they nurse their babies till age four? Why shouldn't they want to keep their children away from factory-farmed meats, from clothing soaked in fire-retardant chemicals, from dull-witted burned-out public school teachers whose tenure is all too easily approved? Why not frolic naked in the sprinkler
under the full moon, perhaps? Why not turn one's family into a small nurturing country protected by a virtual moat? ~ Julia Glass

Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One mile farther and I come to a second grave beside the road, nameless like the other, marked only with the dull blue-black stones of the badlands. I do not pause this time. The more often you stop the more difficult it is to continue. Stop too long and they cover you with rocks. ~ Edward Abbey

Two suns burned in a copper sky overhead. One was large and somewhat oblong and gave off a dull orange light. The other was small and possessed a brilliant white incandescence at its core, ringed farther out by a silver corona. Large eruptions of reddish gas flowed from the surface of the orange sun, swirling through the void at a frightening pace, extending toward the smaller, bluish white sun. The flowing gases painted land and sky in startling colors, and whenever the gases wrapped entirely around the smaller sun, the void between them filled with an incandescent brilliance. The light cut the long flatness of space in half, sweeping aside all other illumination and shadow. Then the crimson gas flow would spiral inward and vanish in the blink of an eye, leaving the two suns to shine in the copper sky once more. ~ Ryu Mitsuse

It is interesting that amongst children of preschool age, the more intelligent ones tend to sleep less than the dull ones. After the age of seven this relationship is reversed, the more intelligent schoolchildren sleeping more than the dull ones. ~ Desmond Morris

He'd been a successful soldier, as these things went; he'd generally been on the winning side, and had killed more of the enemy by good if dull tactics than his own men by bad but exciting ones. ~ Terry Pratchett

Mahmoud Darwish wrote that "extreme clarity is a mystery." That sounds right to me. I don't want anyone hunting for anything ancillary to the true mystery. If that means risking being thought of as glib or dull or banal or stupid or whatever, I guess that will just have to be the way it is. ~ Matthew Zapruder

You have the right to make this determination, even if I don't appreciate it. But at times like this, I almost wish I could relax my standards. If I did, I might console myself with the possibility of using a dull, rusty needle on you someday. ~ Cathy Marie Hake

We lose a great deal, I think, when we lose this sense and feeling for the sun. When all has been said, the adventure of the sun is the great natural drama by which we live, and not to have joy in it and awe of it, not to share in it, is to close a dull door on natures's sustaining and poetic spirit. ~ Henry Beston

Long ago it had been discovered that without some crime or disorder, Utopia soon became unbearably dull. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Return trips, to this day ... are simply invitations to dull trances or leaden slumber, ~ John Irving

A strange thing happens when you are very rich, even when one's wealth is as artificial as in our society. You develop a solipsism of sorts. The world yields itself to your will. Everything becomes your reflection, and after a while looking into your own eyes is dull. ~ Hannu Rajaniemi

As he lifted his head, he saw himself in the crude metal sheets that were supposed to be mirrors. Even though the reflection was dull, he noted his ugliness and thought of Throe just now. In spite of the fact that the soldier had been out fighting all night, his handsome visage had appeared fresh as a daisy, his well-bred looks overshadowing the reality that he had slayer blood on his clothes and had been scraped and bruised.
Xcor, however, could have taken rest for two weeks straight, eaten a large meal, and fed from a fucking Chosen, and he would still appear as repulsive. ~ J.R. Ward

Great Granny Webster seemed to hate colours. Almost everything she owned was either black or dark brown. ~ Caroline Blackwood

I'm dead, Makina said to herself when everything lurched: a man with a cane was crossing the street, a dull groan suddenly surged through the asphalt, the man stood still as if waiting for someone to repeat the question and then the earth opened up beneath his feet: it swallowed the man, and with him a car and a dog, all the oxygen around and even the screams of passers-by. I'm dead, Makina said to herself, and hardly had she said it than her whole body began to contest that verdict and she flailed her feet frantically backward, each step mere inches from the sinkhole, until the precipice settled into a perfect circle and Makina was saved. Slippery bitch of a city, she said to herself. Always about to sink back into the the cellar. ~ Yuri Herrera

Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This young bounder has a life of his own. What right have you to conclude it is an unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, 'grey'?"
"Because - "
"One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests - wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows" he smiled - "are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after his own affairs. I quite grant - I look at the faces of the clerks in my own office, and observe them to be dull, but I don't know what's going on beneath. ~ E. M. Forster

Hunger.
It's like an animal trapped inside you, Thomas thought. After three full days of not eating, it felt like a vicious, gnawing, dull-clawed animal was trying to burrow its way out of his stomach. He felt every second of every minute of every hour. ~ James Dashner

Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and the right. ~ Ann Patchett

An elder sister came from the town to visit her younger sister in the country. This elder sister was married to a merchant and the younger to a peasant in the village. The two sisters sat down for a talk over a cup of tea and the elder started boasting about the superiority of town life, with all its comforts, the fine clothes her children wore, the exquisite food and drink, parties and visits to the theatre.
The younger sister resented this and in turn scoffed at the life of a merchant's wife and sang the praise of her own life as a peasant.
'I wouldn't care to change my life for yours,' she said. 'I admit mine is dull, but at least we have no worries. You live in grander style, but you must do a great deal of business or you'll be ruined. You know the proverb, "Loss is Gain's elder brother." One day you are rich and the next you might find yourself out in the street. Here in the country we don't have these ups and downs. A peasant's life may be poor, but it's long. Although we may never be rich, we'll always have enough to eat.'
Then the elder sister said her piece.
'Enough to eat but nothing but those filthy pigs and calves! What do you know about nice clothes and good manners! However hard your good husband slaves away you'll spend your lives in the muck and that's where you'll die. And the same goes for your children.'
'Well, what of it?' the younger answered. 'That's how it is here. But at least we know where we are. We don't have to crawl to an ~ Leo Tolstoy

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments. ~ Isaac Asimov

He could not change his nature, could not help being cautious, deliberate, introspective, not traits to be scorned by any means, but traits that seemed dull, bland - even to him - when compared with Davydd's hell-for-leather dazzle. ~ Sharon Kay Penman

I'm sure we'll need some- oof!" She was never to finish the thoughts she was startled by a creature that came bounding swiftly around the side of the carriage. A glimpse of floppy ears and jolly brown eyes filled her vision before the enthusiastic canine pounced so eagerly that she toppled backward from her squatting position. She landed on her rump, the impact knocking her hat to the ground. A swath of hair came loose and slid over her face, while a young tan-and black retriever leapt around her as if he were on springs. She felt a huff of dog breath on at her ear and the swipe of a tongue on her cheek.
"Ajax, no," she heard Ivo exclaim.
Realizing what a mess she'd become, all in a matter of seconds, Pandora experienced a moment of despair, followed by resignation. Of course this would happen. Of course she would have to meet the duke and duchess after tumbling on the drive like a half-witted carnival performer. It was so dreadful that she began to giggle, while the dog nudged his head against hers.
In the next moment, Pandora was lifted to her feet and caught firmly against a hard surface. The momentum threw her off balance, and she clung to St. Vincent dizzily. He kept her anchored securely against him with an arm around her back.
"Down, idiot," St. Vincent commanded. The dog subsided, panting happily.
"He must have slipped past the front door," Ivo said.
St. Vincent smoothed Pandora's hair back from her face. "Are you hurt?" His gaze ran over ~ Lisa Kleypas

Each generation becomes more addicted to the sedatives of life, to dull the pain of living. ~ Billy Graham

Somehow love gives even to a dull man the knowledge of his lover's heart. ~ Anthony Hope

The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence. I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos.
Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer.
(Thus) I alone am different from other men, but I value the nursing-mother (the Tao). ~ Lao-Tzu

To know the vintage and quality of a wine one need not drink the whole cask. It must be perfectly easy in half an hour to say whether a book is worth anything or worth nothing. Ten minutes are really sufficient, if one has the instinct for form. Who wants to wade through a dull volume? One tastes it, and that is quite enough – more than enough, I should imagine. ~ Oscar Wilde

It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect. ~ G.K. Chesterton

A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbol means nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. It was really quite simple, and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not. As I wrote that farewell column to Marley, I realized it was all right there in front of us, if only we opened our eyes. Sometimes it took a dog with bad breath, worse manners, and pure intentions to help us see. ~ John Grogan

Past and future to him were the realities; the present dull, meaningless, only significant if, as now, going back along the sands, he could say to himself: 'Later on, I shall remember. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I sa ~ Roger Zelazny

It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once. ~ Francis Galton

Bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you - will quiet your proudly critical intellect. ~ Blaise Pascal