17 Quotes About Boredom

Boredom is that feeling where you want your mind to be stimulated, but it just can’t happen.

Sometimes it’s because there’s a “been there, done that” feeling associated with whatever you’re doing. Other times, the boredom stems from unhappiness and dissatisfaction at work, in relationships or at home.

Being bored in the workplace is especially common. A Gallup poll found that 71 percent of American workers are “actively disengaged” or “not engaged” in their jobs. The reasons for that feeling can be many, as workers might feel no challenge or meaning in what they do. It could also be due to a repetitive nature of the work.

Whatever the reason, boredom impacts productivity and is just downright annoying.

The jury is out on the impacts of boredom, as some studies say that constant boredom leads to bursts of creativity, while at least one other study shows that chronic boredom leads to early death. That’s quite a discrepancy, isn’t it?

No matter whether being bored enhances your creative capabilities or is indicative of your impending demise, you probably really don’t like being bored.

So here are some quotes about the challenges of boredom and how to overcome being bored:

Boredom Quotes… Because What Else Are You Doing Right Now?

“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.”
― Albert Camus, author

“I think there is something beautiful in reveling in sadness. The proof is how beautiful sad songs can be. So I don’t think being sad is to be avoided. It’s apathy and boredom you want to avoid. But feeling anything is good, I think. Maybe that’s sadistic of me.”  – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, actor

“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.” – Neil Gaiman, author

“When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. The idea here is to exact a full look at the worst. The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor.

Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one’s mental equilibrium. It is your window on time’s infinity. Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.” – Joseph Brodsky, poet

“You don’t burn out from going too fast. You burn out from going too slow and getting bored.” – Cliff Burton, musician

“Boredom: the desire for desires.”  – Leo Tolstoy, author

“Boredom between two people doesn’t come from being together physically. It comes from being apart mentally and spiritually.” – Richard Bach, author

“Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui — these are the true hero’s enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real.” – David Foster Wallace, author

“Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don’t like the way things are, they aren’t interesting enough for you, so you decide — and boredom is a decision — that you are bored.” – Bertrand Russell, philosopher

“Texting is addicting. Once you get emotionally involved with constant outside stimulation assaulting your brain, it is hard to stop looking at your machine every two minutes. Without rapid fire words appearing on a screen, you feel bored, not part of the action.”  – Bill O’Reilly, political commentator

“Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.” – Dale Carnegie, self-help author

“Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‘yours,’ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you. “- Eckhart Tolle, self-help author

“Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty —  his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” – Aldous Huxley, author

“Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.” – Wendell Phillips, a 19^th-century abolitionist and lawyer

“Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.” – Rumi, a 13^th-century Persian poet

“In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.” – Michael Crichton, author

“If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher