Wit & Attitude Quote by Rube Goldberg

Happiness, Goldberg implies, is less a steady climate than a weather pattern - and anyone claiming perpetual sunshine is either lying or too dim to notice the clouds. The jab at "idiots" lands with the sly cruelty of a cartoonist who built a career on showing how human beings over-engineer simple tasks: we want life to run like a well-oiled machine, and we’re perpetually shocked when it sputters. His stammering, conversational rhythm ("I, I... uh... you know") matters here. It’s not a manifesto; it’s a shrug from someone who’s watched enough of the world to distrust grand emotional slogans.

The subtext is a quiet defense of emotional complexity. Depression isn’t treated as an exotic malfunction but as a necessary counterweight, a calibration tool. Those "little moments" aren’t romanticized, just normalized - as if he’s saying that a life without dips would also lack traction, contrast, and, crucially, self-awareness. That’s a surprisingly bracing stance from a humorist, because it refuses the cheery bargain entertainment often offers: laugh now, feel better forever.

Context sharpens the edge. Goldberg lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, and the rapid mechanization of daily life. His work mocked the fantasy that more machinery equals more control. This quote extends that satire inward: the same craving for seamless efficiency infects our feelings. He’s granting permission to be intermittently miserable - not as a tragedy, but as proof you’re paying attention.