"Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning."

Happiness

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Happiness as articulated by William Burroughs. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Happiness provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About William Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a postmodern author who influenced underground and popular culture and literature. Much of Burroughs's work is experimental and features unreliable narrators. Also noted as semi-autobiographical, his work often drew from his experiences with drug addiction, and featured his various places of residence as settings in much of his work. With Brion Gysin, Burroughs popularized the cut-up, an aleatory literary technique. His writing also engaged frequent mystical, occult, or otherwise magical themes, constant preoccupations in his fiction and real life.

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More by William Burroughs

"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games."

— William Burroughs
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More about Happiness

"Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance."

— Maurice Maeterlinck
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"I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy."

— Giacomo Casanova
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"The foundation of joy is every ending is merely a new beginning in disguise."

— Sy Bartlett
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"If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love."

— Maya Angelou
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