Happiness is as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond our grasp; but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

This popular quote is commonly misattributed to Nathaniel Hawthorne or Henry David Thoreau. However, the earliest appearances of this quote, in periodicals in the mid-1800s, all attributed an anonymous author. More than 100 years later, in 1971, the saying was mistakenly ascribed to Hawthorne in a collection of poems called "Tender Moments." It is thought that the quote is often connected to the author Nathaniel Hawthorne because Hawthorne penned a similar sentiment in his notebooks, published in 1868. Here is the similar passage by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness, without dreaming of it; but likely enough it is gone the moment we say to ourselves, “Here it is!” like the chest of gold that treasure-seekers find.