Allwork and no play,
Makes Jack a dull boy. [ Proverb ]
Piety enjoins no man to be dull. [ South ]
Dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance. [ William Shakespeare ]
A dull ass near home needs no spur. [ Proverb ]
Sin is too dull to see beyond himself. [ Alfred Tennyson ]
Dull, conceited hashes,
Confuse their brains in college classes;
They gang in stirks, and come oot asses,
Plain truth to speak. [ Burns ]
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use,
As though to breathe were life. [ Alfred Tennyson ]
Tomorrow; never yet was born
In earth's dull atmosphere a thing so fair
Never tripped, with footsteps light as air,
So glad a vision over the hills of morn. [ Julia C. R. Dorr ]
Lend me thy clarion goodness! let me try
To sound the praise of merit ere it dies.
Such as I oft have chanced to espy,
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. [ Shenstone ]
Reason the hoary dotard's dull directress,
That loses all, because she hazards nothing;
Reason! the timorous pilot, that, to shun
The rocks of life, forever flies the port. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. [ Shenstone ]
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her
And be her sense but as a monument. [ William Shakespeare ]
It is a good knife, it was made at Dull-edge. [ Proverb ]
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death? [ Gray ]
Anger makes dull men witty, but keeps them poor. [ Bacon ]
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd unfledged comrade. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]
Twas a public feast and public day -
Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer.
And everybody out of their own sphere. [ Byron ]
Oh, help thou my weak wit, and sharpen my dull tongue! [ Spenser ]
All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy! [ Cowley ]
The jealous is possessed by a fine mad devil
and a dull spirit at once. [ Lavater ]
And all labor without any play, boys. Makes Jack a dull boy in the end. [ H. A. Page ]
Solitude either develops the mental powers, or renders men dull and vicious. [ Victor Hugo ]
I never was on the dull, tame shore, but I loved the great sea more and more. [ Barry Cornwall ]
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. [ William Shakespeare ]
Every base occupation makes one sharp in its practice and dull in every other. [ Sir P. Sidney ]
Genius, the Pythian of the beautiful, leaves its large truths a riddle to the dull. [ Bulwer Lytton ]
The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie. [ Pope ]
Nature, as It grows again toward earth, is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy. [ William Shakespeare ]
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death? [ Gray ]
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]
There is scarcely any popular tenet more erroneous than that which holds that when time is slow, life is dull. [ Beaconsfield ]
If you ever saw a crow with a kingbird after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively listener. [ Holmes ]
How charming is divine philosophy! not harsh nor crabbed, as dull fools suppose, but musical as is Apollo's lute! [ Milton ]
The reason why so few women are touched by friendship is, that they find it dull when they have experienced love. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Love is ever busy with his shuttle, is ever wearing into life's dull warp bright gorgeous flowers and scenes Arcadian. [ Longfellow ]
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as the blazing meteor when it descends to the earth is only a stone. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Perpetual solitude, in a place where you see nothing to raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation falls into dull and insipid. [ Lady Montagu ]
With stupidity and sound digestion man may front much; but what in these dull, unimaginative days are the terrors of conscience to the diseases of the liver! [ Carlyle ]
Recreation is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt, - as good no scythe as no edge. [ Bishop Hall ]
The poet's delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]
What a comfort a dull but kindly person is at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring any more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our mind. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]
All was ended now, the hope and the fear and the sorrow, all the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, fill the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Sweet recreation barred, what doth ensue but moody and dull melancholy, kinsman to grim and comfortless despair; and at their heels, a huge infectious troop of pale distemperatures and foes to life. [ William Shakespeare ]
If the secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader. [ Thackeray ]
God creates out of the dry, dull earth so many flowers of such beautiful colors, and such sweet perfume, such as no painter nor apothecary can rival. From the common ground God is ever bringing forth flowers, golden, crimson, blue, brown, and of all colors. [ M. Luther ]
Some very dull and sad people have genius though the world may not count it as such; a genius for love, or for patience, or for prayer, maybe. We know the divine spark is here and there in the world: who shall say under what manifestations, or humble disguise! [ Anne Isabella Thackeray ]
To men addicted to delights, business is an interruption; to such as are cold to delights, business is an entertainment. For which reason it was said to one who commended a dull man for his application: No thanks to him; if he had no business, he would have nothing to do.
[ Steele ]
We meet with few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between, these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth. [ La Bruyere ]
Every moment instructs, and every object; for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence until after long time. [ Emerson ]