Søren Kierkegaard: Why Is Happiness So Elusive?

Why is happiness so elusive?

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. They fare as did the dwarf who kept guard over a captured princess in his castle. One day he took a midday nap. When he woke up an hour later, the princess was gone. Quickly he pulled on his seven-league boots; with one stride he was far beyond her.

—Parables of Kierkegaard, ed. by Thomas C. Oden (1978)