"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is a proverb that means without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring. It is often shortened to "all work and no play".[1]

History

Though the spirit of the proverb had been expressed previously, the modern saying first appeared in James Howell's Proverbs (1659).[2][3][4] It has often been included in subsequent collections of proverbs and sayings.[5]

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.

In film and television

  • In David Lean's 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai, Colonel Saito explains the meaning of the proverb before offering red cross parcels to his prisoners of war, hoping they will now work more diligently on building the bridge.
  • In 1969, the British television series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) had an episode titled "All Work and No Pay".
  • In Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining, the proverb is used to illustrate how the film's central figure, named Jack, has lost his mind when his wife discovers that he procrastinated and had written the sentence over and over again on hundreds of pages with a typewriter. Jack had been trying to write an unspecified project, but instead wrote this proverb repeatedly using the formatting of the script (including its headings).[6]
  • 2015 documentary film All Work All Play

In music

References

  1. ↑ "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  2. ↑ 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).
  3. ↑ 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) ...
  4. ↑ "work, n.", Oxford English Dictionary (3 ed.), Oxford University Press, 2023-03-02, doi:10.1093/oed/2591891995, retrieved 2023-11-24
  5. ↑ "James Howell Quotes and Quotations". Famous Quotes and Authors.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2010. Retrieved 2011-01-21.
  6. ↑ Hooton, Christopher (2015-06-11). "Read the alternative phrases to 'All work and no play makes Jack a". The Independent. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
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