Tiresome Life Quotes & Sayings

Man ought always to have something that he prefers to life; otherwise life itself will seem to him tiresome and void. — Johann Gottfried Seume

If you cannot fashion your life as you would like,
endeavour to do this at least,
as much as you can: do not trivialize it
through too much contact with the world,
through too much activity and chatter.
Do not trivialize your life by parading it,
running around and displaying it
in the daily stupidity
of cliques and gatherings
until it becomes like a tiresome guest.
("As Much As You Can") — Constantine P. Cavafy

Indeed, a parallel history of Europe could be written which viewed family life and regular work as the essential Continental motor of civilization. Then war and revolution would need to be seen by historians as startling, sick departures from that norm of a kind that require serious explanation, rather than viewing periods of gentle introversy as mere tiresome interludes before the next thrill-packed bloodbath. — Simon Winder

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found. — Samuel Beckett

If Molly had not been so entirely loyal to her friend, she might have
thought this constant brilliancy a little tiresome when brought into
every-day life; it was not the sunshiny rest of a placid lake, it was
rather the glitter of the pieces of a broken mirror, which confuses
and bewilders. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to be aware and alert in the present moment, the mind flings us into tawdry and tiresome elaborations of past and future. This craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere, permeates the body, feeling, perceptions, will - consciousness itself. It is like the background radiation from the big bang of birth, the aftershock of having erupted into existence. — Stephen Batchelor

Real life is disobliging. People like to think, or feel, in black and white. Having to assess the relative values of all those intermediate greys is tiresome and perplexing. — Colin Watson

At such moments Gilberte's plaits used to brush my cheek. They seemed to me, in the fineness of their grain, at once natural and supernatural, and in the strength of their constructed tracery, a matchless work of art, in the composition of which had been used the very grass of Paradise. To a section of them, even infinitely minute, what celestial herbary would I not have given as a reliquary. But since I never hoped to obtain an actual fragment of those plaits, if at least I had been able to have their photograph, how far more precious than one of a sheet of flowers traced by Vinci's pencil! To acquire one of these, I stooped - with friends of the Swanns, and even with photographers - to servilities which did not procure for me what I wanted, but tied me for life to a number of extremely tiresome people. — Marcel Proust

But in those solitary Masses they began to be aware that once again they were mistresses of their fate, after having renounced not only their family name but their own identity in exchange for a security that was no more than another of a bride's many illusions. They alone knew how tiresome was the man they loved to distraction, who perhaps loved them but whom they had to continue nurturing until his last breath as if he were a child, suckling him, changing his soiled diapers, distracting him with a mother's tricks to ease his terror at going out each morning to face reality. And nevertheless, when they watched him leave the house, this man they themselves had urged to conquer the world, then they were the ones left with the terror that he would never return. That was their life. (4.113) — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In his business, he observed human nature and came to certain conclusions about it. The conclusions lacked wisdom and originality; in fact, they were tiresome. But they were important to McGarrity because he had figured them out for himself. In the first years of their marriage, he had tried to tell Mae about these conclusions, but all she said was, "I can imagine." Sometimes she varied by saying, "I can just imagine." Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her, and she was unfaithful to him. — Betty Smith

The last great escape. I was done gambling, done betting on a ship that would never come in. I would cash in my chips while I was ahead. I didn't want to suffer the growing old, didn't want to wait until my memory went. It was all so tiresome. I would just go out in a blaze of glory before the parasites of sadness got at me and made me bitter. After that's the American way: take your own life before everything else takes it from you. — Brian James

Raising teenage sons and daughters is a long and tiresome journey. With God's help the final outcome will be worthwhile. — Ana Monnar

We should travel on in the way of obedience to all God's commands, even the difficult as well as the easy; denying all our sinful inclinations and interests. The way to heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel up hill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh. We should follow Christ; the path he travelled, was the right way to heaven. We should take up our cross and follow him, in meekness and lowliness of heart, obedience and charity, diligence to do good, and patience under afflictions. The way to heaven is a heavenly life; an imitation of those who are in heaven, in their holy enjoyments, loving, adoring, serving, and praising God and the Lamb. — Jonathan Edwards

You long for life and try to settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how tiresome, how insolent your outbursts are, and at the same time, how scared you are! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say imprudent things and are constantly afraid of them and apologizing for them. You declare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate yourself with us. You declare that you are gnashing your teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as to amuse us. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are evidently well satisfied with their literary value. You may perhaps really have suffered, but you have no respect whatsoever for your own suffering. You may be truthful in what you have said but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest vanity you bring your truth to public exposure, to the market place, to ignominity. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of my life I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things. — Charles Dickens

The almost erotic pleasure of spending money that others have earned and saved is one reason people put up with the tiresome aspects of political life. — George Will

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue. — Xavier Dolan

Everything in life can be tiring and tiresome if we don't have the ability to look at it as if it's the first time we've ever done it. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,
By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;
Dear is the helpless creature we defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.
But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate Love - it stands alone,
Like Adam's recollection of his fall;
The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked - all 's known
And Life yields nothing further to recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven. — George Gordon Byron

In all big cities the style of life is the same. Same endless array of restaurants; same big museums with the usual suspects; same anonymity, which can be thrilling when you're young but which I found got tiresome. — Yann Martel

Life is indeed colourful. We can feel in the pink one day, with our bank balances comfortably in the black, and the grass seemingly no greener on the other side of the fence. Then out of the blue, something tiresome happens that makes us see red, turn ashen white, even purple with rage. Maybe controlling our varying emotions is just 'colour management' by another name. — Alex Morritt

I think that's such a beautiful sentiment. Love should only last as long as a very expensive and impractical bikini that looks stunning, but dissolves in the sea within days. So many pop songs tell of this terrible, tiresome love that they want to last forever. But that just makes me think of long-life milk, acrid and fake. Love should be like a movie trailer. Even if the film's a stinker, you get the best laughs and the biggest explosions in the space of two minutes. — Emma Forrest

Picture a bird perched on a thin branch, she [Miss Saeki] says. 'The branch sways in the wind, and each time this happens the bird's field of vision shifts. You know what I mean?'
I nod.
'When that happens, how do you think the bird adjusts?'
I shake my head. 'I don't know.'
'It bobs its head up and down, making up for the sway of the branch. Take a good look at birds the next time it's windy. I spend a lot of time looking out that window. Don't you think that kind of life would be tiresome? Always shifting your head every time the branch you're on sways?'
'I do.'
'Birds are used to it. It comes naturally to them. They don't have to think about it, they just do it. So it's not as tiring as we imagine. But I'm a human being, not a bird, so sometimes it does get tiring. — Haruki Murakami

Economy, like grammar, is a very hard and tiresome study, after we are twenty years old. — Lydia Maria Francis Child

But mostly, I remembered what I've always believed. What my mom taught me. That while some things are just plain awful, most things in life can be seen either tragic or comic. And it's your choice. Is life a big, long, tiresome slog from sadness to regret to guilt to resentment to self-pity? Or is life weird, outrageous, bizarre, ironic, and just stupid?
Gotta go with stupid.
It's not the easy way out. Self-pity is the easiest thing in the world. Finding the humor, the irony, the slight justification for a skewed, skeptical optimism, that's tough. — Katherine Applegate

I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an 'injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.

Even when people do accept the idea of 'injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, 'Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is 'tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing. — Jonathan Kozol

O hell, I'm sick of life - If I had any guts I'd drown myself in that tiresome water but that wouldn't be getting it over at all, I can just see the big transformations and plans jellying down there to curse us up in some other wretched suffering form eternities of it - I guess that's what the kid feels - She looks so sad down there wandering Ophelialike in bare feet among thunders. — Jack Kerouac

Cows in India occupy the same position in society as women did in England before they got the vote. Woman was revered but not encouraged. Her life was one long obstacle race owing to the anxiety of man to put pedestals at her feet. While she was falling over the pedestals she was soothingly told that she must occupy a Place Apart - and indeed, so far Apart did her place prove to be that it was practically out of earshot. The cow in India finds her position equally lofty and tiresome. You practically never see a happy cow in India. — Stella Benson

There are opportunities committed to every mother. The humble round of duties that women regard as boring and tiresome should be looked upon as a grand and noble work. Through sunshine and shadow, the mother may make straight paths for the feet of her children, toward the glorious heights above. But it is only when she seeks to follow Christ in her own life that the mother can hope to form the character of her children after God's pattern. Every mother should go often to her Savior with the prayer, "Teach us, how shall we train the child, and what shall we do to him?" She will be given wisdom. — Ellen G. White

Living appears good, long, and tiresome, but it is way too short than a single stroke of lightning. — Aniruddha Sastikar

In all these years we've been together," he said, "I don't think I know an important part of you. You keep secrets inside you. You hide. It's as though I've never seen you naked, and I've had to imagine what you look like behind the drapes."

"I'm not consciously hiding anything." After Ruth said that, she wondered whether it was true. Then again, who revealed everything - the irritations, the fears? How tiresome that would be. What did he mean by secrets?

"I want us to be intimate. I want to know what you want. Not just with us, but from life. What makes you happiest? Are you doing what you want to do? — Amy Tan