The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
Interpretation
Humans have an exceptional ability to find others tedious compared to other animals.
This quote by H. L. Mencken humorously suggests that the capacity for boredom amongst humans is uniquely high. It implies that while animals may have their own forms of social interaction, humans possess a distinct and often comical tendency to find each other dull, highlighting a quirk of human nature that involves social fatigue and the search for stimulation.
In practice
This quote could be used to lighten the mood in a conversation about social gatherings.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts.
Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way to deal with the world is to laugh - because if you don't laugh you're going to cry and never stop crying - that's probably what's responsible for the Jews having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep, learned more than anyone else how to laugh.
I'm sorry, if you were right, I'd agree with you.
It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh.
I think if I took therapy, the doctor would quit. He'd just pick up the couch and walk out of the room.
Murray sounds like a blindfolded man riding a unicycle on the rim of the pit of doom, the men actually facing the danger are all so taciturn that you might as well try interviewing the cars themselves.
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