Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Vice and Virtue, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality
“It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.”
Prejudices, Second Series (1920) Ch. 1
1920s
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H.L. Mencken281
American journalist and writer 1880–1956Related quotes
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
“The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist
Letter to Thomas Manning (February 15, 1802)
Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White
Volume 1 [Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1860] ( p. 336 https://books.google.com/books?id=rszxUvpszaMC&pg=PA336) <br class="br">Also in The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins by Catherine Peters ( p. 224 https://books.google.com/books?id=T0AABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA224) <br class="br">Source: The Woman in White (1859)
“A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.”
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist
“We always may be sure that every man-made thing arises from a problem as a purposeful solution.”
George Kubler (1912–1996) American art historian
Source: The Shape of Time, 1982, p. 8.
“The world sure isn’t kind to the man who tries to be gentle and thoughtful.”
Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons
Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 40 (p. 113)
“I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man.”
Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 9.
“A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
On Publishing
Writers at Work (1977)
Context: A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.