Schopenhauer on boredom

"The inner vacuity and emptiness we see stamped on innumerable faces is a consequence of mental dullness. It betrays itself in a constant and lively attention to all events in the external world, even the most trivial. This vacuity is the real source of boredom. It always craves external excitement to set the mind and spirits in motion. In regard to the sources of excitement it is not at all fastidious, as testified by the miserable and wretched pastimes to which people have recourse. ... The principal result of this inner vacuity is the craze for society, diversion, amusement, and luxury of every kind which lead many to extravagance and so to misery. Nothing protects us so surely from this wrong turning as inner wealth, the wealth of the mind, for the more eminent it becomes, the less room does it leave for boredom. The inexhaustible activity of ideas, their constantly renewed play with the manifold phenomena of the inner and outer worlds, the power and urge always to make different combinations of them, all these put the eminent mind, apart from moments of relaxation, quite beyond the reach of boredom."—Schopenhauer