Boring quotes
The Sanity Inspector
troubling about." Yet if a bore calls on me, prevents me from going
out or attending to my affairs, I lose patience and cannot endure it
for half an hour.
--Vauvenargues, 1746
One can be bored until boredom becomes a mystical experience.
--Logan Pearsall Smith, 1931
The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is
underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, and would soon
bring to an end all the static Utopias and the farmyard civilization
of the Fabians.
--W.R. Inge, 1948
Ironically, those people that complain of boredom tend to be
incredibly boring people.
- Mark Twain
Boredom is ... a vital consideration for the moralist, since
at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
-- Bertrand Russell
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a
tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an
endless standing in line.
-- H. L. Mencken
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
Frank Lynch
are wishing for war. The wish is not always sincere; the greater
part are content with sleep and lace, and counterfeit an ardour which
they do not feel; but those who desire it most are neither prompted by
malevolence nor patriotism; they neither pant for laurels, nor
delight in blood; but long to be delivered from the tyranny of
idleness, and restored to the dignity of active beings."
-- Samuel Johnson: Idler #21
"Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and ... the
unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they
know how to use. To set himself free from these incumbrences, one
hurries to Newmarket; another travels over Europe; one pulls down
his house and calls architects about him; another buys a seat in the
country, and follows his hounds over hedges and through rivers; one
makes collections of shells; and another searches the world for
tulips and carnations."
-- Samuel Johnson: Idler #30
Frank Lynch
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page is at
http://www.samueljohnson.com/
The Sanity Inspector
boring.
--La Rochefoucauld, _Maxims_, 1665
Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the
assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never
can return.
-- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Dolores
company."
-Gian Vincenzo Cravina
"Boredom is rage spread thin."
-Paul Tillich
"A man can stand almost anything except a succession of ordinary days."
-Goethe
---Dolores
The Sanity Inspector <choll...@mindspring.com> wrote
> bruce
Dolores
being a bore to oneself."
-Gerald Brenan
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
-Ellen Parr
"The art of life is to show your hand. There is no diplomacy like candor. You
may lose by it now and then, but it will be a loss well gained if you do.
Nothing is so boring as having to keep up a deception."
-E. V. Lucas
"The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater
than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no
other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party of more than two, the
epic poem, and the science of metaphysics."
-H. L. Mencken
Dolores, who thinks boredom is an interesting subject...
Dolores
nothing is."
-Thomas Szasz (1920 - ____), US pscychiatrist, educator, The Second Sin
"By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has
manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier
civilizations have ever fathomed."
-Lewis Mumford (1895 - 1990) US urban planner, historian.
"The Conduct of Life," "The Challenge of Renewal," 1951
"One must choose in life between boredom and suffering."
-Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766 - 1817), French-Swiss woman of letters,
novelist In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software,
1994
---Dolores
Robert M. Wilson
-- Lord Byron, 'Don Juan'
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson,
If parents would only realize how they bore their own children!
-- George Bernard Shaw
Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.
-- Voltaire
The average male gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom
becomes a sort of natural state to him.
-- H. L. Mencken
"Dolores" <tt...@capital.net> wrote in message
news:9h09js$rbg$1...@newsfeed.logical.net...
just_pas...@my-deja.com
unexpected: the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves
the novel and is bored by repetition. - W. H. Auden: The Dyer's Hand
A big problem is that men and women often do not agree on what is
boring. Men can devote an entire working week to discussing a single
pass-interference penalty; women find this boring, yet can be
fascinated by a four-hour movie with subtitles wherein the entire plot
consist of a man and a woman yearning to have, but never actually
having, a relationship. Men hate that. Men can take maybe 45 seconds
of yearning, and then they want everybody to get naked. Followed by a
car chase. A movie called "Naked People in Car Chases" would do really
well among men. - Dave Barry
We're in the boredom killing business. - Howard Beale, "Network"
(1976)
Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are
boring somebody. - Helen Gurley Brown
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the
bore. - Samuel Butler
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
Boredom helps one to make decisions. - Colette
The only way to read a book of aphorisms without being bored is to
open it at random and, having found something that interests you,
close the book and meditate. - Prince de Ligne
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with,
insists on boring future generations. - Charles de Montesquieu
Every time I try to define a perfectly stable person, I am appalled by
the dullness of that person. - J. D. Griffin
It is only a step from boredom to disillusionment, which leads
naturally to self-pity, which in turn ends in chaos. - Manly Hall
When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves. - Eric
Hoffer
There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness. -
Aldous Huxley
The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored
people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing. -
William Ralph Inge
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people,
they think it's their fault. - Henry Kissinger
Highly educated bores are by far the worst; they know so much, in such
fiendish detail, to be boring about. - Louis Kronenberger
The more scholastically educated a man is generally, the more he is an
emotional boor. - David Herbert Lawrence
The devil's name is dullness. - Robert E. Lee
The long dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or
middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the Devil.
- C. S. Lewis
The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting
goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become
endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no
matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your
dreams. - Og Mandino
Against boredom, even the gods themselves struggle in vain. -
Friedrich Nietzsche
The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom. - Arthur
Schopenhauer
It has now come to this: that to want only what is enough is a sign of
both boorishness and of utter destitution. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell. - George
Bernard Shaw
In art, truth that is boring is not true. - Isaac Bashevis Singer
A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you. - Bert
Leston Taylor
Dolores
"...busy as hell...
"I don't think hell is connected with busyness...Hell is more like boredom, or
not having enough to do, and too much time to contemplate one's deficiencies."
-Dorothy Gilman, Author
---Dolores
Dolores
> "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
> -Ellen Parr
I just found this same quote attributed to Dorothy Parker at
http://www.memorablequotations.com/parker.htm
Does anyone know which attribution is correct, Dorothy Parker or Ellen Parr?
---Dolores
felix
-John Berryman
felix
Sam Hobbs
wrote:
A search on Google gets about 2000 hits. Out of the first fifty or
sixty, there are no good citations. Ellen Parr is cited more often
than Dorothy Parker. My guess would be Ellen Parr. I think Dorothy
occasionally gets cited for stuff that sounds like she should have
said it even when it is someone else.
In other words, I haven't a clue that is based on anything other a
best guess.
Sam
Dolores
Thanks, Sam. I think your guess may be right.
Now I'm wondering about the dates in which the two authors lived.
I'll have to follow that up when I get a chance.
I find this interesting.
ObQ - "Utter originality is, of course, out of the question."
-Ezra Pound
David C. Kifer
Just ran across this, while rereading an interesting tale. It's
a little longer than most quotes, but I think it's worth it:
People have reality-dampers.
It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used
and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid
Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around
several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose
was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen
in unexplored valleys. It *is* used. And one of its functions is to
make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.
Because if this was *not* the case, then human beings, faced with
the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big
stupid grins, similar to those worn by certain remote tribesmen who
occasionally get raided by the authorities and have the contents of
their plastic greenhouses very seriously inspected. They'd say "Wow"
a lot. And no one would do much work.
Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy
all the time might start to *think*. Part of the brain exists to stop
this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience
boredom in the middle of marvels.
--Terry Pratchett, _Small Gods_, [Pratchett's *italics*]
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]
Dolores
> People have reality-dampers.
> It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used
> and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid
> Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around
> several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose
> was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen
> in unexplored valleys. It *is* used. And one of its functions is to
> make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.
> Because if this was *not* the case, then human beings, faced with
> the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big
> stupid grins, similar to those worn by certain remote tribesmen who
> occasionally get raided by the authorities and have the contents of
> their plastic greenhouses very seriously inspected. They'd say "Wow"
> a lot. And no one would do much work.
> Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy
> all the time might start to *think*. Part of the brain exists to stop
> this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience
> boredom in the middle of marvels.
> --Terry Pratchett, _Small Gods_, [Pratchett's *italics*]
"The glory of novelty is short-lived; after four days, respect is gone."
-Gracian
---Dolores
Dolores
> a little longer than most quotes, but I think it's worth it:
> People have reality-dampers.
> It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used
> and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid
> Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around
> several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose
> was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen
> in unexplored valleys. It *is* used. And one of its functions is to
> make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.
> Because if this was *not* the case, then human beings, faced with
> the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big
> stupid grins, similar to those worn by certain remote tribesmen who
> occasionally get raided by the authorities and have the contents of
> their plastic greenhouses very seriously inspected. They'd say "Wow"
> a lot. And no one would do much work.
> Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy
> all the time might start to *think*. Part of the brain exists to stop
> this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience
> boredom in the middle of marvels.
> --Terry Pratchett, _Small Gods_, [Pratchett's *italics*]
"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for
granted."
-Aldous Huxley
---Dolores, who has concluded that this fact is the great equalizer, since it
means that no matter how much a person has, he can never be happier than the
next guy...
William C Waterhouse
"Dolores" <tt...@capital.net> writes:...
> > "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
> > -Ellen Parr
>
> I just found this same quote attributed to Dorothy Parker at
> http://www.memorablequotations.com/parker.htm
>
> Does anyone know which attribution is correct, Dorothy Parker or Ellen Parr?
It doesn't really sound like Parker to me. Probably someome
was vaguely remembering Parker's couplet in "Inventory":
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Of course this still leaves us wondering who Ellen Parr is.
She did not write any books that I can find listed, but of
course she might be a newspaper columnist or something. Does
the name sound familiar to anyone?
William C. Waterhouse
Penn State
Dolores
I was wondering myself.
---Dolores
Daniel P. B. Smith
With respect to scientific movements there seems to exist something
like Newton's third law of motion: action equals reaction. You
cannot move-in the sense of starting a movement-unless you have
something to push against. The explanation of this law, I think,
lies in the relation of movements to public attention. Science can
actually, by the empirical method, so I am disposed to believe, lift
itself by its own boot straps, but the result is not what we call a
"movement" because motion can be defined only with respect to a
frame of reference. A movement must move with respect to something,
and progress must move away from something, if the movement is to
command observational attention. It is therefore the business of the
founders of new schools, the promoters and propagandists, to call
persistent attention to what they are not, just as one political
party is forever emphasizing the short-comings of the other.
--Edwin G. Boring, "The Psychology of Controversy"
--
Daniel P. B. Smith
Email address: dpbs...@world.std.com
"Lifetime forwarding" address: dpbs...@alum.mit.edu
Frank Bohan
William C Waterhouse <w...@math.psu.edu> wrote in message
news:9har6j$1a...@r02n01.cac.psu.edu...
> In article <9h1jlq$p70$1...@newsfeed.logical.net>,
> "Dolores" <tt...@capital.net> writes:...
> > > "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for
curiosity."
> > > -Ellen Parr
> >
> > I just found this same quote attributed to Dorothy Parker at
> > http://www.memorablequotations.com/parker.htm
> >
> > Does anyone know which attribution is correct, Dorothy Parker or
Ellen Parr?
I have it as Ellen Parr. One from Dorothy Parker..........
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
--Dorothy Parker (Inventory)
The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to
know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and
hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Curiosity may have killed Schrodinger's cat. -- ???
===
Frank Bohan
ś If you want to grow thinner diminish your dinner
Dolores
Yes, that is TRULY boring! LOL
I read it over 3 times to try to get the point of it.
There's an analogy in there somewhere.
Law of Motion...Movement...Pushing against...Talking against.
Even the author's name is boring!
Perhaps he could have said this better?
I dunno.
ObQ:
"Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make clear."
-Joseph Joubert
---Dolores, who originally heard the quote differently, but can't remember the
author:
"Words are like lenses. They obscure everything (or "that which"?) they do not
make clear." (Has anyone any info on this quote?)
SteveMR200
What is the short meaning of the long speech?
--Johann Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)
_The Piccolomini [1799], Act I, Scene II
--
Steve
Frank Bohan
If you were searching for a word to describe the conversations that
go on down a mine, boring would spring to your lips. Oh God! They're
very boring. If you ever want to hear things like "Hello, I've found
a bit of coal". "Have you really?". "Yes, no doubt about it, this
black substance is coal all right." "Jolly good, just the thing
you're looking for". It's not enough to keep the mind alive, is it?
-- Peter Cook
It appears on close examination, that work is less boring than
amusing oneself. -- Charles Baudelaire
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle
hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses
is a menace to its own capacity. Fuss, the god of the Southern
Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, happened once to
meet in the realm of Chaos, the god of the Centre. Chaos treated
them very handsomely and they discussed together what they could do
to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas everyone else
had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so
on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of
boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the
seventh day, Chaos died. -- Chuang Tzu
===
Frank Bohan
ś Mixed Messages: Take the bull by the horns of a dilemma