C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Dullness
The worst of it is, dullness is catching.
There are some heads which have no windows, and the day can never strike from above; nothing enters from heavenward.
For of a truth stupidity is strong, most strong, as the poet Schiller sings, “Against stupidity the very gods fight invictorious.”
The head of dullness, unlike the tail of the torpedo, loses nothing of the benumbing and lethargizing influence, by reiterated discharges.
What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.
A dull man is so near a dead man that he is hardly to be ranked in the list of the living; and as he is not to be buried whilst he is half alive, so he is as little to be employed whilst he is half dead.