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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

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"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is a proverb. It means that without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring. The exact origins of the phrase remain unclear, though it was recorded as early as 1659.

It is said by the Japanese prison commander in the movie, The bridge on the River Kwai. (1957). Well before “The Shining”. It is also said by Oliver Hardy in the 1933 movie Sons of the Desert.

History

Though the spirit of the proverb had been expressed previously, the modern saying first appeared in James Howell's Proverbs (1659).[1][2] It has often been included in subsequent collections of proverbs and sayings.[3]

Some writers have added a second part to the proverb, as in Harry and Lucy Concluded (1825) by the Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth:

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,
All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.

The line appears in The Sea Lions: Or, The Lost Sealers, an 1849 novel by James Fenimore Cooper, when the Sea Lion captain Roswell Gardiner considers ordering a day off for his crew in observance of the Sabbath.[4]

The line also appears in the 1962 novel Big Sur, by Jack Kerouac in reference to the author being interrupted by some rowdy teens while he tries to write down a recent dream.

In Tom Sharpe's 1974 novel Porterhouse Blue, the proverb is used by Mrs. Biggs in a lightly didactic capacity.

In the 1980 film The Shining, the line was typed repeatedly on paper by Jack Torrance who was played by Jack Nicholson. The same sheets were also seen briefly in the last act of Doctor Sleep, the 2019 sequel to The Shining.

References

  1. ^ Howell, James (1659). Paroimiographia. Proverbs, or, old Sayed Sawes & Adages in English (or the Saxon Toung) Italian, French and Spanish whereunto the British, for their great antiquity and weight are added. London: Samuel Thomson. It is found on page 12 of the section titled Proverbs, or Old Sayed-Sawes, and Adages in the English Toung. Howell's Proverbs is bound with Howell's Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660).
  2. ^ Howell, James (1660). Lexicon Tetraglotton, an English-French-Italian-Spanish Dictionary. London: Samuel Thomson. : Whereunto is adjoined a large Nomenclature of the proper Terms (in all the four) belonging to several Arts and Sciences, to Recreations, to Professions both Liberal and Mechanick, &c. divided into Fiftie two Sections; with another Volume of the Choicest Proverbs in all the said Toungs, (consisting of divers compleat Tomes) ...
  3. ^ "James Howell Quotes and Quotations". Famous Quotes and Authors.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2010. Retrieved 2011-01-21.
  4. ^ Cooper, James Fenimore (1897). The Sea Lions: Or, The Lost Sealers. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 219.
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