<P> "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 . </P> <P> 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 (1659), and was included in later collections of proverbs . It also appears in Howell's Paroimiographia (1659), p. 12 . </P>

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