In a "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon, Hobbes (the tiger) approaches Calvin, who is lounging in an armchair watching TV and obviously bored. "Whatcha doin'?" Hobbes asks Calvin, who responds: "I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness."
"I hope you're comfy," says Hobbes, rolling his eyes. Calvin responds: "You could get me something to eat."Calvin is contemplating the meaning of happiness although he's assuming the inert position - he's just going to wait and let it come to him. Like Calvin, others have tried to formulate a sense of what "happiness" means and where to get it. Here are sample impressions from those who have tried to capture its essence:
- "If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, growing double dahlias in his garden or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life 24 crowded hours of the day. - W. Beran Wolfe.
- "You must have some love in your life in order to be happy. It doesn't have to be love between man and woman. It can be love of God; it can be love of mankind. Happiness is not possible without love, although I think you can love and be very unhappy. You need to be able to give love to be happy." - Wayne Dyer.
- "Happiness is a feeling of contentment and peace of mind. Life is a mixed bag of joy and sadness, laughter and tears, pain and growth. Happy people accept the whole package, realizing that happiness is only a part of life's puzzle." - Dennis Wholey.
- "I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be `happy.' I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate.
"It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all." - Leo Rosten
- "Impatience poisons all our joys and prevents us from recognizing happiness. We are made impatient by the impression that happiness is always a little further on. We want to rush through everything to achieve it. But happiness, as a philosopher once wrote, is like a ball chased by a child - when you catch up with it, you give it a kick." - Vita Vagobonda.
- "No matter how often it is shown that money doesn't bring happiness, we're always ready to give it another chance." - Arnot L. Sheppard Jr.
- "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." - Bertrand Russell.
- "Happiness walks on busy feet." - Kitte Turmell.
- "Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open." - John Barrymore.
- "Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can be felt only if you don't set any conditions." - Arthur Rubinstein.
- "Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence." - Tom Robbins.
- "Happiness is a way station between too little and too much." - Channing Pollock.
- "Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work." - David Grayson.
- "The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so." - William Ralph Inge.
- "There is no happiness for people at the expense of other people." - Anwar el-Sadat.
- "Happiness is an inside job." - William Arthur Ward.
- "Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."
- "Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory." - Norman Vincent Peale.
- "Happiness is never stopping to think if you are." - Palmer Sondreal.
- "When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses." - Joyce Brothers.
- "Happiness is good health and a bad memory." - Ingrid Bergman.
- "Happiness isn't a destination - it's a form of travel" - Aileen Brown.
- "It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness. Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to be needed." - Storm Jameson.
- "Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length." - Robert Frost.
- "Happiness is like a cat; if you try to coax it, it will avoid you, but if you pay no attention to it, it will rub against your legs and spring unbidden into your lap." - Robertson Davies.
- "The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves." - Victor Hugo.
- "Happiness is having a scratch for every itch." - Ogden Nash.
- "Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.