“It should not be surprising that [Benjamin] Franklin worked on the Declaration of Independence. In this document, of course, we learn that everyone enjoys an inalienable right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ What many of us don’t know, though, is that ‘the pursuit of happiness’ is secretly connected to the ownership of property. In his Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690), John Locke, the great British philosopher, claimed that everyone has a right to ‘life, liberty, and property.’ This statement lies behind the famous sentence in our declaration. This covert connection between happiness and property confirms what Franklin proposed throughout his work: the true road to earthly joy is through the accumulation of stuff.”

—Eric G. Wilson, Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, 2008.