quotations about boredom
I think that the word bored does not get the attention it deserves. We speak of all sorts of terrible things that happen to people, but we rarely speak about one of the most terrible things of all : that is, being bored, being bored alone and, worse than that, being bored together.
ERICH FROMM
Love, Sexuality and Matriarchy
Dying of boredom
I'll try it all
It looks and feels great but look at what it's doing to you
But that's ok look at how it feels
DEFTONES
"Lhabia"
Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities.
SAUL BELLOW
The Adventures of Augie March
We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he’s doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won’t, can’t, or doesn’t dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e.g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can’t learn, or be intelligent about, what he’s not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere.
PAUL GOODMAN
Growing Up Absurd
She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.
ZELDA FITZGERALD
"Eulogy on the Flapper", Metropolitan Magazine, June 1922
Eventually, boredom means you will take up golf.
JEREMY CLARKSON
The World According to Clarkson
Boredom is ... a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Conquest of Happiness
Soon he felt rising in his soul a desire for desires -- boredom.
LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina
If you didn't care what happened to me,
and i didn't care for you,
we would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain,
occasionally glancing up through the rain
wondering which of the buggers to blame
and watching for pigs on the wing.
PINK FLOYD
"Pigs on the Wing, Part 1"
Boredom is simply romanticism with a morning-after thirst.
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
Average Jones
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
The Crack-Up
Boredom's a pastime that one soon acquired
Where you get to the stage, where you're not even tired
Kicking your heels 'til the time comes around
To pick up your bags and head out of town
ELTON JOHN
"Holiday Inn"
A well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.
ARTHUR C. CLARK
Childhood's End
Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Survivor
Boredom is the keynote of poverty -- of all its indignities, it is perhaps the hardest of all to live with -- for where there is no money there is no change of any kind.
MOSS HART
Act One
Boredom is the fear of self.
COMTESSE DIANE
attributed, Words from the Wise: Over 6,000 of the Smartest Things Ever Said
The tendency is to blame boredom on the environment. "This town is really dull" or "What a boring speaker." The particular town or speaker is never dull, it is you experiencing the boredom, and you can eliminate it by doing something else with your mind or energy at that moment.
WAYNE W. DYER
Your Erroneous Zones
Boredom is a powerful incentive to come up with bad ideas.
JONAH GOLDBERG
"Free-Market Boring ... Losing Consciousness", National Review, January 24, 2001
Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.
GUY DEBORD
The Incomplete Works of the Situationist International
We often forgive those who bore us, but never those whom we bore.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims