Boredom

Boredom

Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a bore had been used in the sense of "to be tiresome or dull" since 1768. The French term for boredom, ennui, is sometimes used in English as well.

Read more about Boredom.

Famous quotes containing the word boredom:

    “At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant; in youth, they are omnipresent; in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    “Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom.—A theme for a great poet would be God’s boredom on the seventh day of creation.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “There are moments when, faced with our lack of success, I wonder whether we are failures, proud but impotent. One thing reassures me as to our value: the boredom that afflicts us. It is the hall-mark of quality in modern men.”
    —Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)