TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index B > Category: Boredom

Boredom Quotes (11 quotes)

As a naturalist you will never suffer from that awful modern disease called boredom—so go out and greet the natural world with curiosity and delight, and enjoy it.
In The Amateur Naturalist (1989), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Awful (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disease (340)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Greet (7)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Never (1089)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

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.
The Conduct of Life (1951), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Class (168)  |  Device (71)  |  Early (196)  |  Fathom (15)  |  Invention (400)  |  Labor (200)  |  Labor-Saving (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Modern (402)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Success (327)

For myself, I like a universe that, includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.
Concluding paragraph, 'Can We know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt', Broca's Brain (1979, 1986), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Boring (7)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Dull (58)  |  Dullness (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fit (139)  |  Guess (67)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Include (93)  |  Inhabitation (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Static (9)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Weak (73)

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
In Rosemarie Jarski, Words from the Wise (2007), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Afterlife (3)  |  Atheist (16)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hell (32)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Spend (97)  |  Think (1122)  |  Torture (30)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

I make many of my friends by lecturing. I keep the lectures informal, if I can, with lots of discussion, and I never give the same one twice—I’d die of boredom if I did.
As quoted in interview with Frances Glennon, 'Student and Teacher of Human Ways', Life (14 Sep 1959), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Discussion (78)  |  Friend (180)  |  Informal (5)  |  Keep (104)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lot (151)  |  Never (1089)

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 1984), 42-43. First published in 'Help Your Child to Wonder', Womans Home Companion (Jul 1956), 24-27 & 46-48.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Alienation (2)  |  Antidote (9)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Ask (420)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Disenchantment (2)  |  Fairy (10)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Indestructible (12)  |  Influence (231)  |  Last (425)  |  Later (18)  |  Life (1870)  |  Preoccupation (7)  |  Preside (3)  |  Sense (785)  |  Source (101)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Strength (139)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Unfailing (6)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom.
John Mitchinson and John Lloyd, If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?: Smart Quotes for Dumb Times (2009), 217.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Ardor (5)  |  Excite (17)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shrivel (2)  |  Unknown (195)

The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.
In Arthur Schopenhauer and T. Bailey Saunders (ed., trans), The Wisdom of Life (1897), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Foe (11)  |  General (521)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pain (144)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Show (353)  |  Survey (36)  |  Two (936)

The thing about electronic games is that they are basically repetitive. After a while, the children get bored. They need something different. [Meccano construction toy kits] offer creativity, a notion of mechanics, discovery of the world around you.
As quoted in by Hugh Schofield in web article 'Meccano Revives French Production' (23 Dec 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Game (104)  |  Kit (2)  |  Meccano (5)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Notion (120)  |  Offer (142)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Toy (22)  |  World (1850)

There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fright (11)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hell (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Surely (101)  |  Torment (18)

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 any one part of the earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror.
In The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (1973), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Consist (223)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  History (716)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Short (200)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Still (614)  |  Terror (32)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wide (97)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.