Boredom has long been viewed as more than just a trivial annoyance – many great minds have treated it as a fundamental source of mischief, vice, or suffering. The claim that “boredom is the only evil on the planet” may sound hyperbolic, but it echoes a rich vein of philosophical, psychological, and cultural thought. Below, we explore this idea through multiple lenses: classic philosophers who warned of boredom’s dangers, contemporary psychology findings on boredom’s effects, cross-cultural attitudes toward boredom, and insights from notable writers and artists who have battled the “demon” of ennui. Throughout, one finds a striking theme: boredom, in its emptiness, can breed both destructive evil and creative renewal, depending on how we respond to it.
Philosophical Arguments: Boredom as a Root of Evil
For centuries, philosophers have identified boredom (often tied to idleness or ennui) as a catalyst for evil and suffering. Here are a few influential perspectives:
- Blaise Pascal (1623–1662): The French philosopher and theologian argued that much of mankind’s troubles come from our inability to sit alone with nothing to do. In his Pensées, Pascal famously wrote that “all the misfortunes of men arise from one thing only, that they are unable to stay quietly in their own chamber.” Boredom drives people to constant diversion and “mindless distraction,” which Pascal saw as the root of reckless behavior and moral folly. If we could tolerate quiet solitude instead of fleeing it, we might avoid many evils .
- Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855): The Danish existentialist was perhaps the most explicit: “Boredom is the root of all evil.” In Either/Or (1843), Kierkegaard defines boredom as a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness, not just lack of diversion . This vacuum of meaning “can initiate motion” in alarming ways . Kierkegaard notes that when Adam was alone he became bored – hence Eve was created – but soon Adam and Eve grew bored together, and ever since, the world’s boredom has only increased . In Kierkegaard’s view, this tedium spurs people into restless activity and mischief. “Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil,” he writes, “no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads.” To Kierkegaard, our frantic busyness and “compulsive entertainment” are really attempts to escape an existential emptiness – a desperate “repulsion” from boredom’s abyss .
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860): The pessimist philosopher saw boredom as proof of life’s vanity. Schopenhauer argued that human life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom . When we lack what we desire, we suffer; yet when our needs are met, we don’t find bliss – we find boredom, a new form of suffering. “Life swings back and forth like a pendulum between pain and boredom,” he wrote . In The Vanity of Existence, Schopenhauer goes further: boredom is not just another hassle – it reveals the emptiness of life itself. “This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life?” he asks . If life had intrinsic worth, mere existence would fulfill us and “there would be no such thing as boredom” . Thus, Schopenhauer grimly concludes, boredom is a kind of metaphysical evil, an omnipresent shadow that confirms life’s hollowness whenever we are not struggling or striving .
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): Nietzsche had a more nuanced (and sometimes wry) view of boredom’s role, but he too acknowledged its peril. In Twilight of the Idols, he quipped: “Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in vain.” This witty aphorism suggests that boredom is an indomitable force – even divine beings cannot defeat it. In a satirical passage, Nietzsche imagines God creating mankind because heaven was too boring; then, when humans themselves grew boring, God created woman – and “boredom did indeed cease from that moment, but many other things ceased as well!” . Jokes aside, Nietzsche recognized boredom’s power to drive existential dread and questionable behavior. He observed that humans will choose suffering, illusion, or conflict over enduring a void of boredom – “man will desire oblivion rather than not desire at all,” he writes in On the Genealogy of Morals. In other words, the horror vacui (fear of emptiness) is so strong that people prefer any stimulation – even immoral or self-destructive – to the “calm, sedate” nature of boredom.
In sum: From the perspective of these thinkers, boredom is far from harmless. It is “the despairing refusal to be oneself,” as Kierkegaard put it – a state of mind that undercuts meaning and tempts the bored person into folly or vice. Whether it’s Pascal’s gambler who can’t sit still, Kierkegaard’s aimless aesthete, Schopenhauer’s jaded soul, or Nietzsche’s misbehaving deity, the message is the same: when we cannot tolerate the vacancy of boredom, we unleash other evils to fill the void.
Psychological Insights: Boredom, Destructive Behavior, and Dissatisfaction
Modern psychology largely confirms what the philosophers intuited: chronic boredom can indeed lead to troubling outcomes. Far from a trivial mood, boredom has been linked to everything from aggression and addiction to apathy and depression. Researchers today investigate boredom as a serious emotional state – one that can spur people to harm themselves or others, or signal an “existential dissatisfaction.” Key findings include:
- Boredom and Aggression: Recent studies have uncovered a dark link between boredom and sadistic or aggressive behavior. In 2020, a team of psychologists conducted nine experiments across different countries to see if boredom could actually cause people to hurt others for enjoyment . The results were striking. People who reported being chronically bored also scored higher on measures of sadism, such as enjoying cruelty or internet trolling . In one experiment, participants made to watch a dull, 20-minute video were far more likely to “kill” insects (actually harmlessly) in a grinder than participants who watched an engaging video . Nearly all the few who chose to shred innocent maggots came from the bored group . In another test, bored individuals were twice as likely to take money away from someone else (out of spite) compared to non-bored individuals . Across these studies, researchers concluded that boredom can motivate people to harm others just for a sense of excitement or control . This effect was strongest in those with latent sadistic tendencies, but it was evident across various contexts. In short, “boredom can motivate people to harm others to experience pleasure” – a chilling scientific confirmation of the old proverb that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
- Risky and Self-Destructive Behaviors: Boredom doesn’t only externalize as aggression; it can also turn inward, leading to risky or harmful habits. Psychologists have found boredom to be a significant factor in substance abuse, reckless driving, problem gambling, and other thrill-seeking behaviors. Feeling understimulated, people may chase adrenaline or numbness to escape the void. One study bluntly called boredom a “public health problem” because of its correlation with risk-taking and violence . Boredom proneness (a personality trait for those who frequently feel bored) has been associated with higher rates of anxiety, depression, and drug addiction in numerous studies. The bored mind, craving stimulation, is tempted to “self-medicate” with anything that breaks the tedium – even if it’s dangerous. As one science writer observed, boredom can drive us to “seek an increase in understanding” or growth, but if we lack healthy outlets, we may choose destructive ones by default . This dual potential makes boredom a kind of crossroads for behavior.
- Existential Emptiness and “The Void”: Beyond specific bad behaviors, psychologists note that prolonged boredom often signals a deeper existential malaise. The feeling of “utter emptiness” that Kierkegaard described is recognized in psychology as well. Viktor Frankl, the existential psychologist, wrote about the “existential vacuum” – a pervasive sense of meaninglessness in modern life that manifests primarily as boredom . Frankl observed that many people, especially in affluent or highly routine societies, feel a chronic void (often once basic needs are met). This void expresses itself as boredom, and in turn “leads to distress.” Without a sense of purpose or engagement, boredom becomes a kind of spiritual pain. It’s no coincidence that loss of meaning and high boredom go hand in hand. Psychologists now distinguish “apathetic boredom,” a particularly toxic form in which the person feels lethargic, helpless, and depressed. Indeed, excessive boredom can be both a symptom and a cause of depression – a feedback loop where nothing feels interesting, leading to despair, which further deadens one’s ability to find interest. As psychoanalyst Erich Fromm and others noted, modern society’s abundance of leisure and stimuli can paradoxically leave people alienated and bored, lacking any deeply satisfying pursuits. In this sense, boredom is not just momentary lack of fun – it’s entwined with our need for meaning, challenge, and connection. When those needs go unmet, boredom creeps in, bringing restlessness or despair.
- The Creative Flip Side: It’s worth noting that psychology also identifies an upside to boredom when harnessed properly. Some research suggests that moderate, sustained boredom can foster creativity and problem-solving, as the mind wanders and daydreams. In experiments, participants who first did a boring task (like copying numbers from a phone book) later came up with more creative ideas than those who were kept busy with engaging tasks. Boredom, in these cases, acted as a “wellspring of imaginative play,” as one writer put it . This aligns with anecdotal wisdom that downtime and even mild boredom can spur inventive thinking (many artists and scientists have reported ideas arising out of tedious moments). However, the crucial difference is in one’s response: if boredom is embraced with curiosity and reflection, it can lead to insight or innovation; if it’s met with mere distraction or indulgence, it may lead to mischief. Psychologist Adam Phillips even argued that a capacity for boredom is essential to developing a well-rounded inner life – it teaches patience and introspection . So while boredom unchecked can be “the only evil,” boredom understood can be a catalyst for growth. This ambivalence will echo in our concluding thoughts, but first, let’s see how various cultures have viewed boredom’s role.
Cultural Perspectives: Boredom as Dangerous vs. Enlightening
A 16th-century engraving by Hieronymus Wierix personifying Acedia – the spiritual boredom or sloth that early Christian monks feared. In this depiction, a listless figure is tempted by the “noonday demon” of apathy. Such art reflects a long tradition of seeing boredom as a deadly vice.
Culture profoundly shapes how we interpret boredom. What one era or society calls a curse, another might see as a necessary state of being. Below are a few cultural perspectives on boredom and its value or peril:
- Acedia – The “Noonday Demon” in Christian Thought: In early Christian monastic culture, boredom was not merely dull – it was outright dangerous to the soul. The Desert Fathers (3rd–4th century monks in Egypt) identified a sin called acedia, often translated as spiritual sloth or listlessness. Acedia was more than laziness; it was a state of dejection, lethargy, and boredom with one’s duties, which made monks want to give up prayer and discipline . It usually struck in the blazing noon hours, earning the nickname “the demon of noontide.” Church writers like Evagrius and John Cassian ranked acedia as a primary vice that could lead to every other sin – much like Kierkegaard’s claim about boredom. Medieval theologians took it seriously: St. Thomas Aquinas described acedia as the “sorrow of the world” that “weighs down the soul” and “the enemy of spiritual joy.” Acedia made prayer and virtue seem pointless, opening the door to temptations. This concept eventually merged with the deadly sin of sloth (when Pope Gregory I reorganized the sin list in the 6th century, acedia was folded in) . However, the fear of acedia persisted through the Middle Ages – literature and art personified it as a monstrous figure lulling people into despair . In Renaissance art (as in Wierix’s engraving above), Acedia is often depicted as a person sleeping or neglecting duty while little demons hover. The cultural message was clear: boredom could be morally ruinous. An idle mind invited the devil. Even today, echoes of this survive in the proverb “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” or “Idleness is the mother of all vices.” Traditional Catholic teaching still warns against sloth in the sense of failing to use one’s time and talents. Thus, in Western religious culture, boredom has long been cast as a vice to battle, not a trivial mood.
- Eastern Philosophies – Embracing Emptiness: In contrast, many Eastern traditions have viewed periods of boredom or emptiness in a more constructive light. Buddhist and Hindu philosophies teach the value of stillness and contentment with the present, which can reframe boredom entirely. Rather than seeing boredom as an evil to eliminate, these traditions often treat it as a mind-state to observe and transcend. A modern Buddhist-inspired perspective says: “In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is perceived as a pathway to self-awareness. Boredom itself is not detrimental to the soul – it is the manner in which we respond to it that determines whether it becomes a positive or a negative influence in our lives.” In other words, boredom is a test: if met with mindfulness, it can become an invitation to deeper insight rather than mischief. Zen Buddhism, for example, involves long hours of meditation where boredom and restlessness naturally arise; practitioners are taught to notice these feelings nonjudgmentally and let them pass. The result, often, is a breakthrough – a calm on the other side of boredom that reveals inner peace or understanding. Some Buddhist teachers even say “Boredom is the feeling of a mind begging for engagement – give it awareness instead of escape.” Likewise, in yoga or Hindu thought, the restless “monkey mind” that cries boredom is something to gently discipline. Ancient sages recognized that constant stimulation leads to burnout, and that sitting with one’s self (even if initially boring) is crucial for spiritual growth. This is not to romanticize Eastern cultures as never bored, but traditional teachings certainly don’t demonize boredom the way Western morality did. There is a sense that boredom, properly channeled, can lead to enlightenment (or at least to creativity, as many Eastern art forms embrace repetition and stillness). Thus, cultural context flips the script: what a medieval monk fled as temptation, a Zen monk might welcome as an opportunity to practice patience and detachment.
- Modern “Boredom-phobia”: In today’s globalized consumer culture, a new attitude toward boredom has emerged – one of near total aversion. We live in an age of infinite entertainment and digital distraction, where being bored is increasingly rare, yet somehow widely feared. Sociologists note that modern Western society in particular is “obsessed with eradicating boredom, as if it were Ebola or global poverty”, filling every moment with screens and noise . The expectation now is that we should never be bored – any hint of idle time should be immediately filled with a smartphone game, a social media scroll, music, TV, or multitasking. This contrasts starkly with earlier eras when boredom was accepted as part of daily life (or even a sign of privilege – only those not struggling for survival had time to be bored). Some cultural critics argue that our intolerance of boredom is itself making us shallower. As philosopher Bertrand Russell warned in 1930, “a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men”, unable to achieve great things because they’ve lost the capacity for sustained effort and contemplation . The constant stimulation culture might be staving off boredom in the short term, but it could be breeding new forms of emptiness (e.g. the epidemic of people feeling disengaged or purposeless despite being constantly “busy” online). Ironically, all our high-tech diversions may create an “existential boredom” – an overstimulated yet unfulfilled state. This is evident in phenomena like the person who has endless Netflix and YouTube content yet feels a deep boredom with life itself. Different cultures handle this differently: some Northern European cultures, for instance, promote the idea of “healthy boredom” for children – unstructured time that fosters creativity – whereas fast-paced urban cultures tend to pathologize boredom immediately. The very phrase “boring” has become a catch-all dismissal for anything that isn’t instantly gratifying. As a result, one could argue contemporary culture is in a paradoxical fight with boredom: the harder we try to eliminate it with quick thrills, the more we implicitly affirm the notion that boredom is the ultimate evil. We spend billions on the boredom-avoidance industry (from entertainment to gadgets), suggesting that, globally, many people agree with Oscar Wilde’s maxim that “there is only one unforgivable sin: boredom.”
In sum, culturally we find a spectrum: from seeing boredom as a deadly sin and breeding ground of devils, to viewing it as a doorway to insight (or at least a fact of life to be accepted), to our modern stance of hyperactively trying to banish it. Each perspective teaches something – that boredom can indeed be destructive if unchecked, but also that our response to boredom is key. Is it an evil to eliminate, or a teacher to heed? Different cultures answer in different ways.
Famous Thinkers and Artists on Boredom, Malaise, and Revolution
Philosophers and scientists are not the only ones who have fixated on boredom’s role in human life. Many writers, poets, and artists – the great observers of society – have identified boredom as a kind of silent scourge or a trigger for drastic change. They often portray it as malaise, monster, or muse. Here are a few notable voices:
- Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867): The French poet of urban modernity (Les Fleurs du Mal) gave ennui (profound boredom or languor) a starring role in his depiction of moral decay. In the preface poem “To the Reader,” Baudelaire systematically lists vices like lust, greed, and cruelty, then reveals their hidden father: Ennui. “Baudelaire considers Ennui, or boredom, the worst sin… He argues that Ennui is the ‘father of other sins,’ leading people to commit acts like murder and arson when they are bored.” In the poem, Baudelaire personifies boredom as a “delicate monster” that would “willingly annihilate the earth… and, in a yawn, swallow the world” . He calls Ennui “more ugly, more wicked, more filthy” than all other transgressions . This “refined monster” sits idle, dreaming of guillotines and carnage out of sheer listlessness . The final lines famously address the reader: “— Hypocrite reader, — my fellow, — my brother!” – implicating all of us in this universal human condition of boredom and its attendant evils . Baudelaire’s stark view was that modern society’s greatest ill is its spiritual boredom, a void that we fill with vulgarity and brutality. He saw the fashionable cynicism and ennui of the Parisian bourgeois as a breeding ground for corruption. In short, “Boredom is the devil’s instrument” in Baudelaire’s art, making us “so bored that we would gladly burn down the house just to feel the heat.” His work has influenced countless later artists to explore themes of emptiness and desperate escapism.
- Oscar Wilde (1854–1900): The ever-witty Wilde coined epigrams about virtually everything, boredom included. He agreed with Baudelaire in essence, quipping that “There’s just one horrible thing in the world, only one unforgivable sin: boredom.” This line (spoken by a character in The Picture of Dorian Gray) captures Wilde’s devil-may-care philosophy: one can be immoral and be forgiven, but to be boring is unpardonable! In Wilde’s works, characters often do outrageous things to stave off boredom. Dorian Gray, for instance, plunges into a life of sensual excess partly out of dread of a dull, ordinary existence. Wilde’s aristocrats live in fear of ennui – they trade barbs and pursue scandals largely to amuse themselves. The author’s own life mirrored this credo as well; Wilde treated boredom as the true failure of life and pursued novelty and wit at all costs. There’s a dark side implied in his humor: if boredom is the worst sin, one might justify any behavior to avoid it. This philosophy is embodied by Wilde’s hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton, who muses that “the only thing one never regrets are one’s mistakes” – better to err flamboyantly than to be drab. Wilde’s emphasis on boredom as “unforgivable” shows how deeply the fear of a dull life ran in the creative milieu of the 19th century. It wasn’t just moralists, but also dandies and aesthetes, who treated boredom as a cardinal sin (at least socially and aesthetically speaking). To be bored or (worse) to be boring was to waste the gift of life – a sentiment that still resonates in artistic circles today.
- Friedrich Nietzsche & the Übermensch Ideal: (Though a philosopher, Nietzsche also inspired artists, so worth noting here.) Nietzsche saw creative potential in boredom’s disruption. He wrote, “Boredom is that disagreeable ‘windless calm’ of the soul that precedes a joyous voyage and spirited winds.” In other words, periods of boredom can be the calm before the creative storm – a lull during which new visions germinate. This idea influenced many modernists who sought to transmute their existential boredom into art. However, Nietzsche also warned that most people handle boredom poorly, seeking mindless comforts rather than using it to grow. He praised those who could embrace boredom as a test of will, a chance to cultivate depth (what he might consider steps toward becoming an Übermensch, or higher individual). This nuanced take – boredom as both a threat and an opportunity – filtered into the work of countless writers influenced by Nietzsche.
- Søren Kierkegaard & the “Rotation Method”: We met Kierkegaard earlier condemning boredom as the root of evil. In Either/Or, he also satirizes the desperate ways people try to avoid boredom. He describes the “rotation method,” wherein an aesthete constantly changes activities, relationships, and even residence, hoping to keep boredom at bay – only to find it catching up no matter where he rotates. This concept has echoed through literature as a critique of the modern restless spirit. Writers from Anton Chekhov to Albert Camus have created characters who flit from one indulgence to another, haunted by an inescapable ennui. The rotation method essentially diagnoses a cycle many recognize today: the need for the latest novelty (from gadgets to partners) to avoid sitting alone with oneself. It underscores how boredom can drive a person to radical and futile extremes – an idea that fuels many a tragic narrative.
- 20th-Century Rebels and Revolutionaries: In the 20th century, a number of cultural movements explicitly framed boredom as an enemy to be destroyed – sometimes by revolution. The Situationist International of the 1950s–60s, for example, railed against “the boredom of everyday life” under capitalism. Guy Debord (whose very name evokes bordeom) wrote of modern cities where people are “bored to death” by work and consumption, and argued that this alienation would spur people to revolt and create “situations” of real, unmediated life. One Situationist slogan proclaimed: *“We are bored in the city. We really have to strain to still discover mysteries…Boredom is counter-revolutionary.” The idea was that a truly liberated society would be one where no one is forced into dull, repetitive labor or passive spectating – life would become an adventure. Similarly, in literature, Beat Generation writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg broke social rules in part as an answer to post-war boredom and conformity. “The only people for me are the mad ones,” Kerouac wrote – those who “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles,” rather than lead half-asleep lives. Even punk rock in the 1970s took up an anti-boredom ethos (the Ramones howling “I wanna be sedated” ironically pointed to being bored and numb). Across these examples, boredom is portrayed as the prime villain of modern life – a force that must be fought with art, risk, or upheaval. The remedy is often extreme: shock the bourgeoisie, break the rules, chase any real feeling over the zombification of boredom. Of course, these responses carried their own dangers (self-destruction, antisocial behavior), but they show how artists and radicals alike have often agreed on one thing: mundane boredom is intolerable, and if it is the norm, then “whatever is not boring” starts to look like salvation, however wild or dangerous it may be.
- Contemporary Voices – The Burden of Boredom: In recent decades, artists and thinkers continue to grapple with boredom in our information-saturated age. The late novelist David Foster Wallace worried that endless entertainment had not cured boredom but made us more afraid of it – turning life into a constant (and losing) battle to outrun ennui. His novel The Pale King delves into the tedium of IRS accountants as a profound existential setting, suggesting that heroism today might consist in the ability to withstand and find beauty in boredom. Wallace once noted that people will do anything to avoid the “abyss of silence” – even absently watch TV for hours – yet “boredom is maybe the most important possible experience,” because through it we confront the fundamentals of our being. Likewise, philosopher Lars Svendsen wrote A Philosophy of Boredom analyzing how boredom pervades modern culture and might be “the undeclared problem of our era.” And poet Joseph Brodsky, in a notable 1989 Harvard commencement speech, advised graduates that boredom would be “the worst pitfall” of their newly comfortable lives. His counterintuitive advice: “When hit by boredom, go for it. Let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom… The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.” Brodsky believed facing boredom head-on – truly experiencing that pain of meaningless time – was the only way to learn who you are beyond distractions . He called boredom “your window on time’s infinity… if you shut it, you miss the lesson.” Such perspectives show a turning point: rather than simply fleeing boredom or launching a revolution against it, some modern thinkers urge us to endure and examine it, as a path to self-knowledge.
Conclusion: From “Only Evil” to Opportunity for Insight
Is boredom truly the only evil on the planet? Taken literally, of course not – the world has many evils. But as we’ve seen, there’s a compelling case that boredom lies at the root of much of the world’s needless suffering and mischief. Philosophers and poets from Pascal to Baudelaire make a strong argument that when humans cannot find meaning or stimulation, they often create false meaning through vice, cruelty, or chaos. Modern psychology backs this up: a bored mind can turn aggressive or self-destructive, and a bored society can drift into nihilism. In this sense, boredom might not be the only evil, but it is a uniquely pervasive and insidious one – a quiet instigator behind other evils. It is the itch that drives us to rash actions, the void that demands to be filled “by any means necessary.”
And yet, as several thinkers also remind us, boredom’s story has another side. Within the curse of boredom lies the potential for profound change – for creativity, reflection, even spiritual awakening – if we approach it properly. The same emptiness that can breed evil can also spur us to search for purpose. As the DailyOm meditation insightfully noted, “Boredom can become the motivation that drives you to learn, explore… and harness the boundless creative energy within.” Many breakthroughs (in art, science, personal growth) have been born from stretches of boredom that forced someone to think differently or push into new territory.
Thus, the “only evil” could, paradoxically, be a disguised teacher. The difference lies in how we respond: Do we, like the bored masses in Fleurs du Mal, let ennui seduce us into the slaughterhouse of folly? Or do we, like a meditating monk or a patient artist, use a bout of boredom to interrogate our own souls and realign our lives with what truly matters?
In a world of limitless distractions, the challenge of boredom is more pressing than ever. The evidence suggests that fearing boredom and compulsively avoiding it can itself become a source of pathology – we might entertain ourselves to death, but still feel empty. Perhaps the ultimate lesson is balance: to recognize boredom’s dangerous allure (so we don’t mindlessly fall into its trap of destructive relief-seeking), but also to harness its signal (so we can address the lack of meaning it reveals). After all, if boredom is the vacuum of the soul, it tells us that something needs filling – not necessarily with noise and activity, but with purpose, passion, or presence.
In conclusion, boredom has been castigated as “the root of all evil” for good reason: when we refuse to face the void, the things we choose to fill it with can be truly evil. But if we do face that void, we might discover that boredom is not a demon to flee, but a frontier to cross. On the other side of boredom’s despair can lie clarity, creativity, and even joy – the very opposites of evil. As one proverb states, “Boredom is the womb of creativity as well as the playground of the devil.” The task for each of us is to ensure it births the former, not the latter.
Sources:
- Pascal, Blaise – Pensées, fragment on diversion (1660) .
- Kierkegaard, Søren – Either/Or (1843), on boredom and despair .
- Schopenhauer, Arthur – Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), “Vanity of Existence,” on boredom as proof of life’s emptiness ; see also Aeon essay on Schopenhauer .
- Nietzsche, Friedrich – Twilight of the Idols (1888), aphorism “Against boredom the gods themselves struggle in vain” .
- “The Dark Side of Boredom” – Psychology Today (Sept 2020), reporting studies linking boredom to sadistic aggression .
- Goetz, Thomas – “Find meditation really boring? (2022)” – Psyche magazine, on spiritual boredom and acedia .
- Borchard, Therese – “Boredom Can Be a Door to New Growth” (LifeHelper, 2025), quoting DailyOM on Hindu/Buddhist view of boredom .
- eNotes editorial on Baudelaire’s “To the Reader”, explaining ennui as “the father of all sins” .
- Baudelaire, Charles – “Au Lecteur (To the Reader)” from Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), various translations .
- Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), epigram on boredom as the only unforgivable sin .
- Atlas Obscura – “Before Sloth Meant Laziness, It Was Acedia” (2017), background on desert monks and acedia .
- Frankl, Viktor – Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), concept of the existential vacuum manifesting as boredom .
- Brodsky, Joseph – “In Praise of Boredom” (Commencement speech, 1989), advice to embrace boredom .
- Russell, Bertrand – The Conquest of Happiness (1930), on the importance of enduring boredom .