Which people of history do you find especially annoying and/or boring?

I would have to say Louis the Fourteenth ranks very high on my list...an arrogant, overbearing, really kinda ordinary and unintelligent guy who called himself "the "Sun King" (how modest) and also said--"I am the state."

I'll never understand why he commands such attention--yes, he built Versailles and reigned a long time, but overall his entire reign and his corrupt court I find annoying and boring. I don't even like looking at pictures of him in that ridiculous wig and smirk on his face.

ronald reagen - his stoopidity and senility made him boring, (hateful) hitler, carter was pretty boring but a good guy though.

Haha, that's funny Ivan. Thee are too many historical figures I don't like but Charles Darwin is up there. I don't think I should mention any presidents...it'll just look bad.

Napoleon Bonaparte considered his Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand to be very annoying. In an infamous 1809 letter he wrote "vous ętes de la merde dans un bas de soie", one of the great insults of all time.

I've read that Talleyrand was pretty good with the insult himself. Of course, not as good as Churchill, who must rank number one:
"He's a modest man, with much to be modest about..."

What does this mean, translated? My French is poor--in fact, it's nonexistant.

Also , bit, why do you dislike Darwin ? He's always seemed kinda interesting to me.

His theory is bullshit

Originally posted by rendova
What does this mean, translated?

"...you are s*** in a silk stocking..."

Originally posted by Bit/Byte
His theory is bullshit

Could you present evidence of why the idea of 'evolution by natural selection' is invalid?

Also, this thread is about annoying and/or boring historical figures; a judgment on their personality, not their ideas.

Darwin is the athiests Jesus

While their are annoying and even hateful figures in history there are no boring figures. Boring figures soon disappear from the historical record.

I see your point, Frogger, but it seems to me that some people are famous or remembered because of a simple accident of birth or because they held an office.

Like the Vanderbilt scions--apart from the father, the first Cornelius, the others in the family did little but spend money, build monstrously big and ugly houses, and just generally waste both their fortune and their lives. (apart from the Vanderbilt who built Biltmore, that is).

Or Chester Arthur--I cannot recall offhand a single thing this man did while in office--I know he did something--I just can't recall what it is, or neither can the other 99.99% of the population, I'll wager.

Still tho, there's probably a few who find him thrilling--like his family.:)

Immanuel Kant, I guess...


My dear sweet muther alwayz told me "I Kant never did ANYTHING!"



Well, bein' young and foolish, I laffed, 'cuz althouth I. Kant wuz only a philosopher, I wuz perty SURE he HAD ta have done SUMTHIN'...



Still, I alwayz recommend ta the youngun's that they LISTEN ta their parents jest in case modern science one day DUZ prove that I. Kant never DID, in fact, do anythin'...

Immanuel Kant was fantastically boring. It is said he never ventured more than a few miles from his hometown of Königsberg his entire life. Slogging through his Critique of Pure Reason was pure agony for me. Come to think of it, Adam Smith and Karl Marx could put an amphetemine-crazed insomniac to sleep as well.

While Kant may be hard to read (he wrote for his colleagues and not the general public), he is far from boring. He was the first of the German intellectuals and his theory of Ding-an-Sich was one of the cornerstones of modern philosophy.

Originally posted by rendova
Which people of history do you find especially annoying and/or boring?

Well, thinking about this, I still come up dry. Not knowing these people, even reading about their exploits or traveling through their journals I still do not fully know them. There aren't so much "boring" or "annoying" characters in history to me; it is more a measurement of their quirks and personality. As such, I cannot find someone who is an excruciatingly insipid and bland human being that still retains status as a major historical figure. Some are just more engaging and accomplished than others. I'm not much of the judgmental type at that, making this hard even further.

Oopz, anuther BAD SPELL, I guess...


"My dear sweet muther alwayz told me "I CAN'T never did ANYTHIN', not I Kant!"


Hey, most of that philosophy stuff is all Greek ta me...



;)

By the by, if yer ever totally bored 'n nuthin' ta do, I recommend readin' Russell 'n Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" til there's anuther Schwarzenegger movie or sumthin'...



;)

How about someone who keeps answering'Cowards die many times before their deaths;the valiant never taste of death but once............