
“The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.”
Oxford dictionary of quotations
Peter Bell the Third (1819), Pt. VII, st. 11
“The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.”
Oxford dictionary of quotations
“If you aren't giving people something to talk about, you've become too dull.”
Source: The Mermaid Chair
Poem: "The Wit" In: A.E. Currie. New Zealand Verse, (1906), p. 198
Source: A Passage to India (1924), Ch. 14
Context: Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself", or, “I am horrified,” we are insincere.
Written at an Inn at Henley (1758), st. 6. Compare: " From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,— Path, motive, guide, original, and end", Samuel Johnson, Motto to the Rambler, No. 7
By Still Waters (1906)