One of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one’s life. Even if man had no monetary, or any other reward, he would be eager to spend his energy in some meaningful way because he could not stand the boredom which inactivity produces.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Some of the biggest bores I’ve ever known are men who have been highly successful in business, particularly self-made heads of big companies. Before the first olive has settled into the first martini, they pour the stories of their lives into the nearest and sometimes the remotest ears capturable…. These men have indeed paid the price of success. To rise to the top of a big company often takes a totality of effort, concentration and dedication. Others, too, have to pay part of the price. Wife and children are out of mind even when in sight. … .
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while.
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
The world is eaten up by boredom. You can’t see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn’t even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be for ever on the go. And so people are always “on the go.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French Author
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not a poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything.
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
One can be bored until boredom becomes a mystical experience.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
The devil’s name is dullness.
—Robert E. Lee (1807–70) Confederate General during American Civil War
Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Boredom is not an end-product, is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You’ve got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads. There is a time for play and a time for work, a time for creation and a time for lying fallow. And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean—when boredom seems the very stuff of life.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Highly educated bores are by far the worst; they know so much, in such fiendish detail, to be boring about.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American Writer, Poet, Critic, Editor.
Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
All man’s troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
As for boredom … I notice that it leaves me as soon as I am doing something that has got to be done.
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933) American Biographer, Poet, Essayist, Writer
Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.
—Guy Debord (1931–94) French Philosopher
Boredom is rage spread thin.
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965) American Lutheran Theologian, Philosopher
America is said to have the highest per capita boredom of any spot on earth! We know that because we have the greatest number of artificial amusements of any country.
People have become so empty that they can’t even entertain themselves. They have to pay other people to amuse them, to make them laugh, to try to make them feel warm and happy and comfortable for a few minutes, to try to lose that awful, frightening, hollow feeling—that terrible, dreaded feeling of being lost and alone.
—Billy Graham (1918–91) American Baptist Religious Leader
The war between being and nothingness is the underlying illness of the twentieth century. Boredom slays more of existence than war.
—Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American Novelist Essayist
Boredom is the legitimate kingdom of the philanthropic.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art.
—Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British Poet, Literary Critic
It is the sin that believes in nothing,
cares for nothing,
seeks to know nothing,
interferes with nothing,
enjoys nothing,
hates nothing,
finds purpose in nothing,
lives for nothing,
and remains alive
because there is nothing for which it will die.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) British Crime Writer
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Boredom, like necessity, is very often the mother of invention.
—Unknown
Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
In the ancient recipe, the three antidotes for dullness or boredom are sleep, drink, and travel. It is rather feeble. From sleep you wake up, from drink you become sober, and from travel you come home again. And then where are you? No, the two sovereign remedies for dullness are love or a crusade.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Boredom is the deadliest poison.
—William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008) American TV Personality, Author
Grasp your opportunities, no matter how poor your health; nothing is worse for your health than boredom.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
Somebody’s boring me; I think it’s me.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author
No society ever seems to have succumbed to boredom. Man has developed an obvious capacity for surviving the pompous reiteration of the commonplace.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
Banality is a symptom of non-communication. Men hide behind their cliches.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
He is an old bore; even the grave yawns for him.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852–1917) English Actor, Theater Personality
Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
The most terrible thing about materialism, even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offer a prospect of deliverance.
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90) English Journalist, Author, Media Personality, Satirist
Each day provides its own gifts.
—Martial (40–104) Ancient Roman Latin Poet
If you are bored with life, if you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things—you don’t have enough goals.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.
—Viggo Mortensen (b.1958) Danish American Actor
A dull ax never loves grindstones.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer