Boredom Quotes - Page 23

• Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature.

  Edgar Degas

  Overcoming, Contemplating

  Edgar Degas' notebook entry (1858), as quoted in "The Notebooks of Edgar Degas" edited by Theodore Reff, 1976.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Boredom is vastly underrated. Boredom means that nothing is trying to kill you every day.

  Robin Hobb

  Mean, Trying, Underrated

  47 Copy quote

• Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Gusto, Should, Happens

  20 Copy quote

• There are people who think death a fate worse than boredom.

  Helen DeWitt

  Fate, Thinking, People

  "The Last Samurai". Book by Helen DeWitt, 2016.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• My drive to put myself on the line comes from boredom. From that feeling when you go to bed and think, 'What did I do today?' It doesn't have to be something monumental, just a feeling that you really tried to look at something, or look into something.

  Dylan Moran

  Thinking, Feelings, Bed

  "This much I know". Interview with Ursula Kenny, www.theguardian.com. March 6, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I was a child, I wanted to watch things that made me laugh. It's attacking boredom, as simple as that. I was 19 when I first went to a comedy club - I wanted to do it, so I gave it a try and that was it. I found my office.

  Dylan Moran

  Children, Simple, Laughing

  "Comedian Dylan Moran: 'What am I looking forward to? Incontinence and memory loss'". Interview with Nosheen Iqbal, www.theguardian.com. December 22, 2009.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of course, we can distinguish between males and females; we can also, if we choose, distinguish between different age categories; but any more advanced distinction comes close to pedantry, probably a result of boredom. A creature that is bored elaborates distinctions and hierarchies. According to Hutchinson and Rawlins, the development of systems of hierarchical dominance within animal societies does not correspond to any practical necessity, nor to any selective advantage; it simply constitutes a means of combating the crushing boredom of life in the heart of nature.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Crush, Heart, Mean

  14 Copy quote

• We pay for security with boredom, for adventure with bother.

  Peter De Vries

  Adventure, Pay, Bother

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Without a Stitch in Time: A Selection of the Best Humorous Short Pieces”, p.32, University of Chicago Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We know what boredom is: it is a dull
  Impatience or a fierce velleity,
  A champing wish, stalled by our lassitude,
  To make or do. In the strict sense, of course,
  We invent nothing, merely bearing witness
  To what each morning brings again to light

  Richard Wilbur

  Morning, Light, Wish

  Richard Wilbur (2006). “Collected Poems 1943-2004”, p.83, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• As I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.

  Harper Lee

  Education, Believe, School

  Harper Lee (2014). “To Kill a Mockingbird”, p.23, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gambling, Employment, World

  4 Copy quote

• All things here appear to me to trudge on in one and the same round: we rise in the morning that we may eat breakfast, dinner andsupper and to bed again that we may get up the next morning and do the same: so that you never saw two peas more alike than our yesterday and to-day.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Morning, Two, Yesterday

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, Anas, Writings 1760-1770”, p.439, Cosimo, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Crush, Travel, Tourists

  Jamaica Kincaid (2000). “A Small Place”, p.18, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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, not of scene or of routine. To be able to break out of its dark brown sameness.

  Moss Hart

  Dark, Poverty, Rich

  5 Copy quote

• Longevity is something I never gave a second thought to. I guess it's the shadow of growing up in post WWII, but I never believed I would live past 20. Here I am though... a senior citizen... my voice and heart are stronger than ever, but boredom is the greatest enemy so I have to be careful not to slip over the edge.

  Eric Burdon

  Senior, Growing Up, Heart

  4 Copy quote

• My girlfriend's packed her bags and moved out to another town, she couldn't stand the boredom when the video broke down.

  Ray Davies

  Girlfriend, Art, Media

  Song: State of Confusion

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes I dread loneliness more than bores. Other times, the reverse.

  Mason Cooley

  Loneliness, Sometimes, Dread

  5 Copy quote

• Long-term boredom can't lead to anything good.

  Nicholas Hoult

  Long, Term, Long Term

  "Nicholas Hoult: 'The paparazzi don't care about me'" by Shahesta Shaitly, www.theguardian.com. January 26, 2013.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• People can insert thoughts into your mind. This is more dangerous for psychic people. Use concentration exercises and read to combat this; boredom is an easy way to be drained.

  Frederick Lenz

  Exercise, Psychics, People

  4 Copy quote

• Even the rich aren't often happy. Their wealth is at best only a temporary distraction. It doesn't make them immune to emotional and mental suffering, or to disease and death. They too must deal with loneliness, the deaths of loved ones and the frustrations and boredom of old age.

  Frederick Lenz

  Inspirational, Loneliness, Buddhism

  Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull.

  Vance Havner

  Church Service, Twelve, Dull

  13 Copy quote

• I’m very interested in sublimation. I love the way Francis Bacon talked about the grin without the cat, the sensation without the boredom of its conveyance… I’ve always wanted to be able to convey figurative imagery in a kind of shorthand, to get it across in as direct a way as possible. I want there to be a human presence without having to depict it in full.

  Cecily Brown

  Cat, Want, Able

  9 Copy quote

• unless I can shake myself free of my dog, my flag,
  of my desk, my mind, I find life a bit of a drag.
  Not always, mind you. Usually I'm like my frying pan
  useful, graceful, sturdy and with no caper, no plan.

  Anne Sexton

  Dog, Mind, Contentment

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though the theories of plate tectonics now provide us with a modus operandi, they still seem to me to be a periodic phenomenon. Nothing is world-wide, but everything is episodic. In other words, the history of anyone part of the earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror.

  D. V. Ager

  Science, Long, Soldier

  4 Copy quote

• A man who experiences no genuine satisfaction in life does not want peace. Men court war to escape meaninglessness and boredom, to be relieved of fear and frustration.

  Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferre

  War, Frustration, Men

  5 Copy quote