"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is a 17th-century 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". It was newly popularized after the phrase was featured in the 1980 horror film, The Shining. The phrase is also pronounced in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
History Though the spirit of the proverb had been expressed previously, the modern saying first appeared in writing in Welsh writer and historian James Howell's Proverbs (1659). 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). It has often been included in subsequent collections of proverbs and sayings.
Some writers have added a second part to the proverb, as in Harry and Lucy Concluded (1825) by the Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth:
See also Occupational burnout Overwork Work–life balance 996 working hour system 007 working hour system
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