"Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible"
About this Quote
Progress doesn’t just connect us; it weaponizes nuisance. Frank Moore Colby’s line lands because it flips the usual gospel of communication-as-salvation into a darker, funnier truth: the same tools that spread ideas also spread people. Not their best selves, either. The “bore” here isn’t merely someone who talks too much; it’s the type who confuses access with importance, who treats every new channel as a stage and every listener as a hostage.
Colby wrote as an educator, which sharpens the barb. Schools and universities are built on communication - lectures, speeches, committees, correspondence - and are therefore ideal ecosystems for verbose mediocrity. The quip reads like faculty-room realism: every technological leap (faster mail, cheaper printing, telephones, later radio) doesn’t automatically elevate discourse; it increases the reach and persistence of the person with nothing to say but infinite stamina to say it. “Improvement” becomes ironic. Better transmission doesn’t improve content, it improves distribution.
The subtext is a warning about asymmetry. Interesting people self-edit; bores rarely do. Give them a louder microphone and they fill the space. Colby anticipates a modern dynamic: communication advances don’t just democratize voice, they democratize interruption. The bore becomes “more terrible” because escape routes shrink. When messaging is instant and omnipresent, the bore doesn’t need a captive dinner party. He has your inbox.
It’s a compact skepticism about modernity: not anti-technology, exactly, but anti-naivete - a reminder that human behavior scales faster than wisdom.
Colby wrote as an educator, which sharpens the barb. Schools and universities are built on communication - lectures, speeches, committees, correspondence - and are therefore ideal ecosystems for verbose mediocrity. The quip reads like faculty-room realism: every technological leap (faster mail, cheaper printing, telephones, later radio) doesn’t automatically elevate discourse; it increases the reach and persistence of the person with nothing to say but infinite stamina to say it. “Improvement” becomes ironic. Better transmission doesn’t improve content, it improves distribution.
The subtext is a warning about asymmetry. Interesting people self-edit; bores rarely do. Give them a louder microphone and they fill the space. Colby anticipates a modern dynamic: communication advances don’t just democratize voice, they democratize interruption. The bore becomes “more terrible” because escape routes shrink. When messaging is instant and omnipresent, the bore doesn’t need a captive dinner party. He has your inbox.
It’s a compact skepticism about modernity: not anti-technology, exactly, but anti-naivete - a reminder that human behavior scales faster than wisdom.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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