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.
There are three side effects of acid: enhanced long-term memory, decreased short-term memory, and I forget the third.
You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people.
I think that sometimes you do something that makes a small group of people laugh, which is all we were trying to do; we were just trying to make each other laugh.
No, my friend, I am not drunk. I have just been to the dentist, and need not return for another six months! Is it not the most beautiful thought? --Poirot
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