# Quote — Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd

> We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he’s doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won’t, can’t, or doesn’t dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e.g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can’t learn, or be intelligent about, what he’s not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere. (Another large part of stupidity is stubbornness, unconsciously saying, “I won’t. You can’t make me.”)

- Author: [Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md)
- Book: [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md)
- Page: 71
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Goodman#Growing_Up_Absurd_(1956)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/we-define-boredom

## More from this book

> We certainly have at present the dismal situation that the most imaginative men are directed by a group, the top managers, who are among the least.

p. 94 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/we-certainly-have.md)

> The ancient dream of man to fly among the stars and go through the could and look down on the lands and seas has degenerated in its realization to the socialized and apathetic behavior of passengers who hardly look out the windows.

p. 144 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/the-ancient-dream.md)

> To consider powerful souls as if they were a useful public resource is quite foreign to our customs. In a small sense it is undemocratic, for it assumes that some people really know better in a way that must seem arbitrary to most. In a large sense it is certainly democratic, in that it makes the great man serve as a man.

p. 153 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/to-consider-powerful.md)