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dull
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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
so I woke up from sheer boredom.
The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull.
                -- Andy Purshottam
This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked.  When we can
speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong;  senseless,
spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked;  {beef,
beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
pinhead;  asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple;  brute, lumbering, oafish;
half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
individually and in combination, isn't it a little <fill in the blank> to be
limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
A full belly makes a dull brain.
                -- Ben Franklin

                [and the local candy machine man.  Ed]
... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually
we were all forced to turn to it.  By the summer of '85, the valley had more
satellite dishes per capita than an Eskimo village on the north slope of
Alaska.

Mine was one of the last to go in.  I had been nervous from the start about
the hazards of too much input, which is a very real problem with these
things.  Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels
all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams
into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull.
-- Hunter Thompson, "Full-time scrambling", _Generation of Swine_
Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken
him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him.  Such an excess of
stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
                -- Samuel Johnson
History books which contain no lies are extremely dull.
Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
exciting Camden, New Jersey.
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast
to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists,
a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also
just stupid.
                -- J.D. Watson, "The Double Helix"
The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer
and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown
suit in the city.  Colleges may be to blame.  English majors are encouraged,
I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not
dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the
quad.  And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors,
and they are squeamish about technology to this very day.  So it is natural
for them to despise science fiction.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction"
        Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there
may be in Science.  As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system.
Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results.  And listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers.  Avoid loud and
aggressive persons, for they are sales reps.
        If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised,
for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched.
Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real
hassle and could change your fortunes in time.
        Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of
bugs.  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive
for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations.  Strive for
proportionality.  Especially, do not faint when it occurs.  Neither be cyclical
about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed.
        Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points.  Gracefully pass
them on to the youth at the next desk.  Nurture some mutual funds to shield
you in times of sudden layoffs.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings
-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly.  Murphy's Law runs the
Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt <Curl>B*n dS = 0.
        Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you
can conceive of to try.  With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken
line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary.  Be linear.  Strive
to stay employed.
                -- Technolorata, "Analog"
Now I lay me back to sleep.
The speaker's dull; the subject's deep.
If he should stop before I wake,
Give me a nudge for goodness' sake.
                -- Anonymous
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
                -- Edgar Allen Poe, "Science, a Sonnet"
There once was a Sailor who looked through a glass
And spied a fair mermaid with scales on her... island.
Where seagulls flew over their nest.
She combed the long hair which hung over her... shoulders.
And caused her to tickle and itch.
The sailor cried out "There's a beautiful... mermaid.
A sittin' out there on the rocks."
The crew came a running, all grabbing their... glasses.
And crowded four deep to the rail.
All eager to share in this fine piece of... news.
...
"Throw out a line and we'll lasso her... flippers.
And soon we will certainly find
If mermaids are better before or be... brave
My dear fellows," The captain cried out.
And cursing with spleen.
This song may be dull, but it's certainly clean.
                -- "The Clean Song", Oscar Brandt
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine                And then one day you find
Staying home to watch the rain                Ten years have got behind you
You are young and life is long                No one told you when to run
And there is time to kill today                You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter                Hanging on in quiet desperation
                                                is the English way
Never seem to find the time                The time is gone, the song is over
Plans that either come to nought        Thought I'd something more to say...
Or half a page of scribbled lines
                -- Pink Floyd, "Time"
  The scene is dull. Tell him to put more life into his dying.
  -Samuel Goldwyn
He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.
                -- Samuel Johnson
Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured.  For instance,
the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their
fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the
Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally
read.  [...]  The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time
by the number of my breathings, of which there are 15 in a minute.  They
are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with 15 fingers
successively.  The counting is reserved for the fidgets.  These observations
should be confined to persons of middle age.  Children are rarely still,
while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes altogether.
                -- Francis Galton, 1909
The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds
the other fellow of a dull one.
                -- Sid Caesar
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
He lets go of that and chooses this.
Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil?
Must I fear what others fear?  What nonsense!
Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.
In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace,
But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.
Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool.  Oh, yes!  I am confused.
Others are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Others are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.
Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.
<Knghtbrd> Even with overbrights, Quake's color palette is full of dull,
           flat colors
<LordHavoc> knghtbrd: quake's palette is very vibrant unless you use gamma
            correction
<LordHavoc> well actually I agree, it's nowhere near as vibrant as Unreal
<Deek> Q3 on the other hand...NEON.
<LordHavoc> Q3 is just ridiculous
<Deek> Q3 takes the medieval church-dungeon and puts it in Vegas.
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair.  My advice to you is to have
nothing whatever to do with it.
                -- W. Somerset Maughm, his last words
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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