The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness means man’s right to live for himself, to
choose what constitutes his own private, personal, individual happiness and to
work for its achievement, so long as he respects the same right in others. It
means that man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another
man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide
what is to be the purpose of a man’s existence nor prescribe his choice of
happiness.
Observe, in this context, the intellectual precision of the Founding Fathers:
they spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness—not of the right to
happiness. It means that a man has the right to take the actions he deems
necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean that others must make
him happy.