All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy


"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.

History

Though the spirit of the proverb had been expressed previously, the modern saying appeared first in James Howell's Proverbs in English, Italian, French and Spanish, and was included in later collections of proverbs. It also appears in Howell's Paroimiographia, p. 12.
Some writers have added a second part to the proverb, as in Harry and Lucy Concluded by the Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth:

Uses in popular media

The proverb has been used widely throughout popular media, notably including James Joyce's 1914 short story "Araby" to Jack Kerouac's 1962 novel Big Sur, the 1933 Laurel & Hardy film Sons of the Desert, the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai, the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go, and the 1980 horror film The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick. In Kubrick's film the main character, Jack Torrance, is found to have abandoned the play he was writing in favor of typing this sentence over and over onto reams of paper. A number of other works have subsequently included a direct homage to the scene.
It was also referenced in The Office in 2008.
In the Harvey Street Kids episode "Clinging in the Rain", this was parodied as "All rain and no play makes Dot a dull girl.".
In the hit horror show Twin Peaks episode “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer”, this was parodied as “All work and no play makes Ben and Jerry dull boys.”.