Boredom is an absence of plans, of prospects. You circle around yourself, at a loose end. Waiting, but not for anything specific: not expecting anything, but indefinitely suspended in empty time. The bored body reclines, gets up restlessly, jerks its arms about, steps out in one direction then another, stops suddenly, starts again, fidgets. It is trying desperately to fill each second. Boredom is an empty rebellion against immobility; nothing to do, not even looking for something to do. You despair of yourself when bored. You tire of everything straight away, because it is on your own initiative. That faces you with the immense, unbearable ordeal of recognizing the poverty of your desires. Boredom is dissatisfaction repeated every second, disgust with beginnings: everything is wearisome from the start, because it’s you who starts it.
— Fréderic Gros, A Philosophy of Walking
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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, The End of an Age
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