Chapter 4: The Mirage of Happiness
"Generally speaking, happiness is good only where it is due; where sadness is due, it is better to be sad. To make happiness itself, independent of its objects, the chief goal of government is a recipe for infantilization (...). We do not want to banish engineers of growth only to see them replaced by the engineers of bliss. (...) To go from the pursuit of growth to the pursuit of happiness is to turn from one false idol to another. Our proper goal, as individuals and as citizens, is not just to be happy but to have reason to be happy. To have the good things of life -- health, respect, friendship, leisure -- is to have reason to be happy. To be happy without these things is to be in the grip of a delusion: the delusion that life is going well when in fact it is not."
