Boredom

The sentiment more than any other intolerable, boredom or ennui, as says the Genius in the Operetta Dialogo di Torquato Tasso e del suo Genio familiare(Dialogue between Tasso and his familiar Genius), is not “anything other than the pure desire for happiness; not satisfied by pleasure, and not openly offended by displeasure. The which desire ... is never satisfied”; and to Tasso’s question on “which remedy might help to fend off boredom”, the Genius replies: “sleep, opium, and pain. And this is the most potent of all”.

Leopardi’s reflections in the Zibaldone in part anticipate in part take up anew such ideas (but the theme is one of the most present in Leopardi’s works, from the scritti autobiografici to Pensieri):

“continuity is such an enemy of boredom that also the continuity of selfsame variety thoroughly bores” [51] – “Also the pain that springs from boredom and the sentiment of the vainness of things is more tolerable than boredom itself” [72] – “boredom is nothing other than the absence of pleasure that is the element of our existence” [172-7] – people rush to see bloody spectacles out of boredom [239] – it is possible to become inured also to boredom [280] – “the friend of truth, the light with which to disclose it, the least subject to erring is melancholy and above all boredom” [1690-1] – “Boredom is the most sterile of human  passions” [1815] – nothing can make pure boredom less tolerable [1988-90] – it is the only ill, not foreseen by nature, that we do not have in common with other animals [2219-21] – “Only of boredom we cannot complain that it has finished” [2242-3] – “Uniformity is boredom, and boredom uniformity” [2599-602] – it strikes the young more than the old [2736-9] – time seems to grow longer when we are bored [3509-14] – “it is the desire for happiness, left so to say, pure” [3713-5] – Boredom is “simple life felt to the full, tried, known, fully present to the individual” [4043, 4498] – “Boredom is not felt other than by those in whom the spirit is something” [4306-7].