4 Important Lessons Calvin & Hobbes Taught Us [2024]

“It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.”

Calvin and Hobbes defined my childhood, I always read Calvin and Hobbes as a kid, but I never realized that it was a comic book way ahead of its time. A lot of the content in Calvin and Hobbes was something that needed mental maturity to understand, maybe one could take moral guidance from this comic strip.

Amazing Facts About Calvin & Hobbes

Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes ran between 1985 and 1995. His comic strip managed to infuse wondering (and wandering) on a cosmic scale into the perception of life, natural resources, student life, and countless more things that are to date philosophical in nature.

Here are some amazing facts about Calvin and Hobbes:

• Calvin and Hobbes was created by cartoonist Bill Watterson, who wrote and drew the strip from 1985 to 1995.

• The strip was published in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide and was translated into over 20 languages.

• Calvin and Hobbes was known for its humor, intelligence, and philosophical musings, and it was widely regarded as one of the greatest comic strips of all time.

• Watterson was a fiercely private person who rarely gave interviews or allowed his artwork to be used for commercial purposes.

• Despite its popularity, Watterson ended Calvin and Hobbes in 1995, stating that he wanted to move on to other creative endeavors.

• The strip has continued to be popular and has inspired numerous books, websites, and other works of art.

• Watterson's artwork is known for its detailed and expressive lifework, and he is considered a master of the comic strip form.

• Calvin and Hobbes have been credited with influencing a generation of cartoonists and helping to raise the standards of comic strip art.

What was it about Calvin's character that intrigued me so much?

Whenever you read the comics, you can relate to him in different ways. But, when you start paying attention to the little details, we realize that he is one of us, we are very much like him. He is an embodiment of our childhood combined with the characteristics of our adulthood.

Quotes From Calvin & Hobbes You Will Love

Sometimes doing nothing at all is NORMAL

We live in a hectic world, where every day someone expects something from us. Doing nothing is normal, and in order to find some peace of mind, it is important to do nothing.

Just take some time out, sit under a tree and relax.

Doing nothing is peaceful, we all need to find our peace.

Nothing lasts forever, learn to appreciate the value of things when you have them

One of the most important things I have learned from life is that every second life around you changes. Not all the changes happening would affect you personally, but they are constantly reshaping the world around you.

Understanding the value of the things you have will help you measure the importance of the things you currently have.

Learning how to value does not apply only to physical items you have, but also to the good values you learn in life. It is easy to forget that everything you currently know comes from something you have done before, never forget the good things you do.

Appreciating what you have is almost as important as dreaming about the things you wish to achieve.

Nothing lasts forever, appreciate what you have now

Be creative, discover new things

A lot of us live our lives thinking we are not creative enough to enjoy life. When you start questioning your own creativity, you create barriers and obstacles that stop you from thinking outside the box.

"Imagination is a fiction created from our own reality"

One of the main reasons I choose the field of marketing as my career was to ensure that my life does not remain inside the boundaries created by the world.

Pushing out of it and inventing new ways to make your life and other people's life better is the essence of why marketing was my career for me.

Do not live your life reading other people's dictionary

This one is among my personal favorites because I have lived my whole life thinking the same way Calvin does.

In life, everything you learn is taught to you directly or indirectly by the world. What is good, bad, right, wrong, ugly, beautiful...everything we know is a perspective we gain from our experiences.

We let our experiences shape our thinking, and this meaning is something we carry around our whole lives.

Just like everything we know, even perspective must change and it's normal if it does.

It's always good to learn and live with a perspective that's different from others. We are all built to be unique, and it's the way we think that makes us that way. Don't live your life trying to memorize what others tell you, what your own judgment and live.

Sometimes you cannot change people for what they believe in, but you can change what you believe in and be in peace

One of the most important things to learn from Calvin and Hobbes comes from the great man himself, Bill Watterson. The lesson is simple, "Do what you love", if he wanted to make millions out of this comic, he could have made it into a franchise.

He simply wrote the comic because he loved what he did, he wanted to share a message to the world that when you do what you are good at and love it, everything you desire will follow you around.

Calvin and Hobbes may be fictional characters, but the good thing about comics is that they can teach you a thing or two about reality. Application of what you learn from comics is difficult, and I can completely understand that, but it is normal to do things that can help you see things differently.

If you ask me to summarize what I learned from Calvin and Hobbes, I would say: "Imagination is a powerful ally, when you understand its true value, you will unlock a new world for you"

It is important that you read to enjoy and learn, so what did you learn from the books you read?