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Quotations about Boredom
He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires — ennui. ~Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett
ENNUI Plain doldrums with a French dressing. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Altogether New Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz, 1914
Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it. ~Bertrand Russell, "Causes of Unhappiness: Boredom and Excitement," The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
Boredom is an emptiness filled with insistence. ~Leo Stein
But the war between being and nothingness is the underlying illness of the twentieth century. Boredom slays more of existence than war. ~Norman Mailer, interview with Steven Marcus, 1963, for The Paris Review, theparisreview.org
...the machine age has enormously diminished the sum of boredom in the world. ~Bertrand Russell, "Causes of Unhappiness: Boredom and Excitement," The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
LADY FREDERICK BEROLLES. You wear excellently, Paradine.
MR. PARADINE FOULDES. Thanks.
LADY FREDERICK. How do you manage it?
FOULDES. By getting up late and never going to bed early, by eating whatever I like and drinking whenever I'm thirsty, by smoking strong cigars, taking no exercise, and refusing under any circumstances to be bored.
~W. Somerset Maugham, Lady Frederick, 1907
I am never bored anywhere: being bored is an insult to oneself. ~Jules Renard
We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom. We have come to know, or rather to believe, that boredom is not part of the natural lot of man, but can be avoided by a sufficiently vigorous pursuit of excitement.... every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel. ~Bertrand Russell, "Causes of Unhappiness: Boredom and Excitement," The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is. ~Thomas Szasz
Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true. ~William Ralph Inge
Ennui, perhaps, has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst... ~C. C. Colton
One of the essentials of boredom consists in the contrast between present circumstances and some other more agreeable circumstances which force themselves irresistibly upon the imagination... Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement. ~Bertrand Russell, "Causes of Unhappiness: Boredom and Excitement," The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
There is an element of boredom which is inseparable from the avoidance of too much excitement, and too much excitement not only undermines the health, but dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty. ~Bertrand Russell, "Causes of Unhappiness: Boredom and Excitement," The Conquest of Happiness, 1930
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