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Humdrum Quotes

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Humdrum Quotes

“When we feel that our default thinking is creeping up on us and starts stifling our minds, we must break the shell of our habits. If rehashed thoughts and bland humdrum are smothering the upshot of subdued cravings, we must create space for the budding of a new dawn. By unsealing all the windows of our mental dungeon, we loosen up our rusty thinking and cut ties with the useless prerogatives of the past. ("Corporeal prison")”

HumdrumNew DawnBuddingCorporeal PrisonDefault ThinkingMental DungeonPrerogativesRehashed ThoughtsRusty Thinking
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“When some incident has shattered the career you’ve mapped out for yourself, a folly, a crime or a misfortune, you mustn’t think you’re down and out. It may be a stroke of luck, and when you look back years later you may say to yourself that you wouldn’t for anything in the world exchange the new life disaster has forced upon you for the dull, humdrum existence you would have led if circumstances hadn’t intervened.”

IfsThinkingWorldYearsLooksMayExistenceCareersCrimeCircumstancesDown AndLuckDisasterDullFollyMisfortunesStrokesNew LifeIncidentsShatteredHumdrum
Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“The rich plankton of pop heroes and pop villains on which we Americans are accustomed to feed, the daily media soup of sports figures, ax murderers, politicians, and rock singers, the ever-running river of celebs, heavies, and oddballs that we use to spice up our own relatively humdrum lives has of late become a very watery gruel. Where have all the good guys and bad guys gone? Why does everyone out there look so gray?”

LooksDoeUseRunningGuySportsGoneRichRocksMediaFiguresHeroPoliticianLateRiversPopsSingersGrayVillainSoupMurdererAccustomedBad GuysSpicesGood GuyHumdrumOddballsCelebsPlankton
Book:Talking woman
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“Anyone who has attempted to create knows the hellishness of it, which consists in the final inescapability from it. Knows that anything, however deadly humdrum to drug the senses, is preferable to it. Knows the gigantic effort to get started on the boundless, unwieldy, shapeless material; the forest of hesitations; of what to keep and what to throw out; the running-out terror and reluctance in one of finishing.”

KnowsRunningEffortCreativityMaterialsDrugFinalsTerrorSensesForestsFinishingBoundlessHesitationReluctanceHumdrum
Author:Caitlin Thomas
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“I know historians aren't supposed to fall in love with their own theories, but I was head over heels about the notion of an entire band of female French agents, like a nineteenth-century Charlie's Angels. Only better. It made the Pink Carnation's organization look positively humdrum.”

KnowsLooksMadeFallCenturyTheoryBandAngelFemaleOrganizationFalling In LoveNotionAgentsHistorianHeelsPositivelyCharlieNineteenth CenturyHumdrumHead Over HeelsCarnationsCharlie's Angels
Book:The Deception of the Emerald Ring
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“I have known female whores who spoke very bitterly of their calling. "If they don't like my face, they can put a cushion over it. I know it's not that they're interested in." But to the boys this profession never seemed shameful. It was their daytime occupations for which they felt the need to apologize. In some instances, these were lower class or humdrum or, worst of all, unfeminine. At least whoring was never that.”

IfsKnowsNeedsFacesFeltKnownClassBoysWorstCallingFemaleProfessionInstanceSpokesOver ItOccupationApologizingShamefulDaytimeCushionsLower ClassHumdrum
Author:Quentin Crisp
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“Adventure is humdrum and routine unless one assimilates it, unless one relates it to a central core which grows within and gives it contour and significance. Raw experience is empty, just as empty as the forecastle of a whaler as in a chamber of a counting house; for it is not what one does, but in a manifold sense, what one realizes that keeps existence from being vain and trivial.”

GivingDoeHouseGrowsRealizingExistenceAdventureEmptyCoreRelateVainSignificanceRoutineChamberCountingManifoldHumdrum
Author:Lewis Mumford
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“Sabbath ceasing means to cease not only from work itself, but also from the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control of our lives as if we were God, from our possessiveness and our enculturation, and, finally, from the humdrum and meaninglessness that result when life is pursued without the Lord at the center of it all.”

IfsNeedsMeanLife IsResultsEffortLordWorryOur LivesModernAccomplishCeaseTensionProductiveEfficiencyCriteriaPursuedAccompanySabbathMeaninglessnessPossessivenessHumdrum
Author:Marva Dawn
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“We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.”

WayHumansWellsMayCultureUniverseStarsNumbersRocksPerspectiveInfinitePositive AtheismBillionsCirclesHuman LifeMetalsGalaxyPonderingCosmologyLarge NumbersMilky WayHunkHumdrum
Author:Carl Sagan
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“That's all I've ever dreamed of, Mr. Bones. To make the world a better place. To bring some beauty to the drab humdrum corners of the soul. You can do it with a toaster, you can do it with a poem, you can do it by reaching out your hand to a stranger. It doesn't matter what form it takes. To leave the world a little better than you found it. That's the best a man can ever do.”

MenWorldLittlesSoulMatterHandsFormFoundCan DoCornersStrangerBonesReachingReach OutBetter PlaceYou Can Do ItBetter Than YouToastersHumdrum
Book:Collected Novels
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“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself - not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.”

WayYearsBookHardDonePastBeliefProcessPrinciplesDesignHard WorkFlowLogicIntelligentSacredConclusionAgentsDataConsiderationFortyOver The PastIntelligent DesignBiochemistryHumdrum
Author:Michael Behe
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“School was more than academics; an education prepared you for the humdrum of real life: working with others, tempering one's personality to assimilate with the group but without losing your individual identity, understading the factors of logic, reasoning, and debate. For a person - vampire or human - to succeed in the world, unlocking the mysteries of the universe was insufficient. One would also need to grasp the mysteries of human nature.”

WorldNeedsHumansPersonsRealSchoolUniverseIndividualGroupsMysteryHuman NatureIdentityPersonalitySucceedLosingLogicPreparedDebateReal LifeFactorsVampireReasoningInsufficientHumdrumUnlockingWorking With Others
Book:The Van Alen Legacy: Number 4 in series
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“Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.”

PeopleKindSaidSoulMightEvilSinAcceptingDarknessCreativeWorshipMassEverydaySinnerDragonsOriginalityBadnessHumdrumVetinariWithout A TraceDarkness Of The Soul
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that.”

FactsPoliticalUniverseStarsAtheismHumilityPlanetsFundamentalsVery GoodIntelligenceCornersBillionsStuckRoutineObscureGalaxyConceitCenter Of The UniverseHumdrum
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits. Later on, a Henry Ford might introduce an era of intensely production-minded captains of industry, but the Harrimans, Morgans, Fricks, and Rockefellers were far more interested in the exciting manipulation of huge masses of intangible wealth than in the humdrum business of turning out goods.”

RealityMightAgeInterestWealthHugeIndustryHeroMassCapitalismExcitingStructureProductionsCreditGoldenFinanceErasGoodsManipulationIntroducingCaptainsGolden AgeIntangibleHumdrumCaptains Of Industry
Author:Robert Heilbroner
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“The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.”

MenWorldHumansMayStillsIdeasRealInspirationDesireFaithHouseAcceptingVisionMankindBrokenUniversalRemainsPropertyDemocraticChristian InspirationalSocialismIntimateOfficialsOne ManHeartedPrivate PropertyDeliveranceMagnetBroken HeartedDomesticityHumdrum
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“What could you do better for your children and your children's children than to record the story of your life, your triumphs over adversity, your recovery after a fall, your progress when all seemed black, your rejoicing when you had finally achieved? Some of what you write may be humdrum dates and places, but there will also be rich passages that will be quoted by your posterity.”

WritingMayChildrenStoriesFallBlackRichRecordsProgressOur ChildrenAdversityRecoveryTriumphYour ChildrenPassagesRejoicePosterityHumdrumTriumph Over Adversity
Author:Spencer W. Kimball
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“Have you ever stopped to think what fun this business of living can be? If you haven't, and if you are one of those who insist upon believing that life is humdrum, grim and boring, then I'm afraid this department is not for you. For I don't believe any such thing. I know that we can all free ourselves and live our lives fully, zestfully and joyfully!”

IfsThinkingKnowsBelieveLife IsFunOur LivesHavensDon't BelieveBoringDepartmentGrimHumdrum
Author:Dorothy Draper
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