"This house," said the real estate salesman, "has both its good points and its bad points. To show you I'm honest, I'm going to tell you about both. The disadvantages are that there is a chemical plant one block south and a slaughterhouse a block north...

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" (Satchel Paige)

Economist Richard Layard believes that although people are getting wealthier and living more comfortably, they're not getting happier. He argues in Happiness: Lessons from a New Science that a "zero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and that this rate race is a big source of unhappiness...