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A “collective” Mind Does Not Exist. It Is Merely The Sum Of Endless Numbers Of Individual Minds. If We Have An Endless Number Of Individual Minds Who Are Weak, Meek, Submissive And Impotent – Who Renounce Their Creative Supremacy For The Sake Of The “whole” And Accept Humbly That The “whole’s” Verdict – We Don’t Get A Collective Super-brain. We Get Only The Weak, Meek, Submissive And Impotent Collective Mind.

-Ayn Rand

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A “collective” Mind Does

Ayn Rand

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A “collective” Mind Does Not Exist. It Is Merely The Sum Of Endless Numbers Of Individual Minds. If We Have An Endless Number Of Individual Minds Who Are Weak, Meek, Submissive And Impotent – Who Renounce Their Creative Supremacy For The Sake Of The “whole” And Accept Humbly That The “whole’s” Verdict – We Don’t Get A Collective Super-brain. We Get Only The Weak, Meek, Submissive And Impotent Collective Mind.

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In Western Civilization, The Period Ruled By Mysticism Is Known As The 'dark Ages' And The 'middle Ages'. I Will Assume That You Know The Nature Of That Period And The State Of Human Existence In Those Ages. The Renaissance Broke The Rules Of The Mystics. "renaissance" Means The "rebirth". Few People Today Will Care To Remind You That It Was A Rebirth Of Reason - Of Man's Mind.

We The Living Is Not A Novel 'about Soviet Russia.' It Is A Novel About Man Against The State. Its Basic Theme Is The Sanctity Of Human Life - Using The Word 'sanctity' Not In A Mystical Sense, But In The Sense Of 'supreme Value.'

To Discuss Evil In A Manner Implying Neutrality, Is To Sanction It.

In Order To Deal With Reality Successfully - To Pursue And Achieve The Values Which His Life Requires - Man Needs Self-esteem; He Needs To Be Confident Of His Efficacy And Worth.

The Purpose Of Man's Life...is To Become An Abject Zombie Who Serves A Purpose He Does Not Know, For Reasons He Is Not To Question.

Don't Help Me Or Serve Me, But Let Me See It Once, Because I Need It. Don't Work For My Happiness, My Brothers — Show Me Yours — Show Me That It Is Possible — Show Me Your Achievement — And The Knowledge Will Give Me Courage For Mine.

A Majority Vote Is Not An Epistemological Validation Of An Idea. Voting Is Merely A Proper Political Device--within A Strictly, Constitutionall Y Delimited Sphere Of Action--for Choosing The Practical Means Of Implementing A Society’s Basic Principles. But Those Principles Are Not Determined By Vote.

There Is No Hope For The World Unless And Until We Formulate, Accept And State Publicly A True Moral Code Of Individualism, Based On Man's Inalienable Right To Live For Himself. Neither To Hurt Nor To Serve His Brothers, But To Be Independent Of Them In His Function And In His Motive. Neither To Sacrifice Them For Himself Nor To Sacrifice Himself For Them.

You Know What You Are Actually In Love With? Integrity. The Impossible. The Clean, Consistent, Reasonable, Self-faithful, The All-of-one-style, Like A Work Of Art.

My Greatest Personal Mistake Is Ever To Allow A Word Or Moment That “doesn’t Count,” I.e., That I Do Not Refer To My Own Basic Principles. Every Word, Every Action, Every Moment Counts. (this Is The Pattern On Which Everybody Makes Mistakes [or] Becomes Irrational — Not Relating Their One Action Or One Conviction To Another.

Dominique As Gail Looks At Her "... There Is A Stage Of Worship Which Makes The Worshiper Himself An Object Of Reverence."

Compromise Does Not Satisfy, But Dissatisfies Everybody; It Does Not Lead To Any General Fulfillment, But To General Frustration; Those Who Try To Become Everything To All People End Up By Not Being Anything To Anyone.

The Leaves Streamed Down, Trembling In The Sun. They Were Not Green, Only A Few, Scattered Through The Torrent, Stood Out In Single Drops Of Green So Bright And Pure That It Hurt The Eyes; The Rest Were Not A Color, But A Light, The Substance Of Fire On Metal, Living Sparks Without Edges. And It Looked As If The Forest Were A Spread Of Light Boiling Slowly To Produce This Color, The Green Rising In Small Bubbles, The Condensed Essence Of Spring. The Trees Met, Blending Over The Road And The Spots Of Sun On The Ground Moved With The Shifting Of The Branches, Like A Conscious Caress.

If One's Actions Are Honest, One Does Not Need The Predated Confidence Of Others.

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

A 'mixed Economy' Is A Society In The Process Of Committing Suicide.

Politically, The Goal Of Today’s Dominant Trend Is Statism. Philosophically, The Goal Is The Obliteration Of Reason; Psychologically, It Is The Erosion Of Ambition.

Any Material Element Or Resource Which, In Order To Become Of Use Or Value To Men, Requires The Application Of Human Knowledge And Effort, Should Be Private Property-by The Right Of Those Who Apply The Knowledge And Effort.

Francisco Could Do Anything He Undertook, He Could Do It Better Than Anyone Else, And He Did It Without Effort. There Was No Boasting In His Manner And Consciousness, No Thought Of Comparison. His Attitude Was Not: 'i Can Do It Better Than You,' But Simply: 'i Can Do It.' What He Meant By Doing Was Doing Superlatively.

Man Is The Only Living Species That Has The Power To Act As His Own Destroyer - And That Is The Way He Has Acted Through Most Of His History.

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Live A Life As A Monument To Your Soul.

The Worst Wars Are Religious Wars Between Sects Of The Same Religion Or Civil Wars Between Brothers Of The Same Race.

Ah, There's Nothing Like Tea In The Afternoon. When The British Empire Collapses, Historians Will Find That It Had Made But Two Invaluable Contributions To Civilization - This Tea Ritual And The Detective Novel.

It's The Person Who Would Sell His Soul For A Nickel, Who Is Loudest In Proclaiming His Hatred Of Money.

Today We Have Discovered The Word That Could Not Be Said. "i

I Think, Therefore I'll Think.

What Is Kinder--to Believe The Best Of People And Burden Them With A Nobility Beyond Their Endurance--or To See Them As They Are, And Accept It Because It Makes Them Comfortable?

People Are Not Embracing Collectivism Because They Have Accepted Bad Economics. They Are Accepting Bad Economics Because They Have Embraced Collectivism.

The End Does Not Justify The Means. No One's Rights Can Be Secured By The Violation Of The Rights Of Others.

The First Right On Earth Is The Right Of The Ego. Man's First Duty Is To Himself. His Moral Law Is Never To Place His Prime Goal Within The Persons Of Others. His Moral Obligation Is To Do What He Wishes, Provided His Wish Does Not Depend Primarily Upon Other Men.

Those Who Grant Sympathy To Guilt, Grant None To Innocence.

You Are Damned, And We Wish To Share Your Damnation.

The Men Who Attempt To Survive, Not By Means Of Reason, But By Means Of Force, Are Attempting To Survive By The Method Of Animals.

In Any Compromise Between Food And Poison, It Is Only Death That Can Win. In Any Compromise Between Good And Evil, It Is Only Evil That Can Profit.

But Neither Life Nor Happiness Can Be Achieved By The Pursuit Of Irrational Whims. Just As Man Is Free To Attempt To Survive In Any Random Manner, But Will Perish Unless He Lives As His Nature Requires, So He Is Free To Seek His Happiness In Any Mindless Fraud, But The Torture Of Frustration Is All He Will Find, Unless He Seeks The Happiness Proper To Man. The Purpose Of Morality Is To Teach You, Not To Suffer And Die, But To Enjoy Yourself And Live.

Tell Me What A Person Finds Sexually Attractive And I Will Tell You Their Entire Philosophy Of Life. Show Me The Person They Sleep With And I Will Tell You Their Valuation Of Themselves.

A Man's Ego Is The Fountainhead Of Human Progress.

...if Men Are To Be Ruled, Then The Enemy Is Reason.

Get The Hell Out Of My Way!

The Attack On "selfishness" Is An Attack On Man's Self-esteem; To Surrender One, Is To Surrender The Other.

I'm Not Brave Enough To Be A Coward; I See The Consequences Too Clearly.

Man Has Been Called A Rational Being, But Rationality Is A Matter Of Choice... Man Has To Be A Man-by Choice; He Has To Hold His Life As A Value-by Choice; He Has To Learn To Sustain It-by Choice; He Has To Discover The Values It Requires And Practice His Virtues By Choice. A Code Of Values Accepted By Choice Is A Code Of Morality.

A Rational Man Is Guided By His Thinking - By A Process Of Reason - Not By His Feelings And Desires.

Do Not Lose Your Knowledge That Man's Proper Estate Is An Upright Posture, An Intransigent Mind, And A Step That Travels Unlimited Roads.

I Think That When In Doubt About The Truth Of An Issue, It's Safer And In Better Taste To Select The Least Numerous Of The Adversaries.

[s]tatism Is A System Of Institutionalized Violence And Perpetual Civil War. It Leaves Men No Choice But To Fight To Seize Political Power -- To Rob Or Be Robbed, To Kill Or Be Killed. ... Statism Survives By Looting; A Free Country Survives By Production.

The Plot Of A Movie Is Its Motor. It Is Not An Accident That People Call Pictures 'vehicles' For Stars. A Vehicle Has To Move. A Plotless Story Is Like An Expensive Car With A Wonderful Body Design, Luxurious Seats, Upholstery, Headlights (production, Direction, Cast) - And No Motor Under Its Hood. That Is Why It Gets Nowhere.

The Quickest Way To Kill The Human Spirit Is To Ask Someone To Do Mediocre Work.

It Only Stands To Reason That Where There's Sacrifice, There's Someone Collecting The Sacrificial Offerings. Where There's Service, There Is Someone Being Served. The Man Who Speaks To You Of Sacrifice Is Speaking Of Slaves And Masters, And Intends To Be The Master.

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The Entire History Of Science Is A Progression Of Exploded Fallacies.

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He Wanted Nothing, For The Time Being, Except To Understand .... Without Advice, Assistance Or Plan, He Began Reading An Incongruous Assortment Of Books; He Would Find Some Passage Which He Could Not Understand In One Book, And He Would Get Another On That Subject .... There Was No Order In His Reading; But There Was Order In What Remained Of It In His Mind.

To Be The Kind Of Writer You Want To Be, You Must First Be The Kind Of Thinker You Want To Be.

Have You Felt It Too? Have You Seen How Your Best Friends Love Everything About You- Except The Things That Count? And Your Most Important Is Nothing To Them; Nothing, Not Even A Sound They Can Recognize.

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Laissez Faire Capitalism

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Government 'help' To Business Is Just As Disastrous As Government Persecution... The Only Way A Government Can Be Of Service To National Prosperity Is By Keeping Its Hands Off.

If That's The Price Of Getting Together, Then I'll Be Damned If I Want To Live On The Same Earth With Any Human Beings! If The Rest Of Them Can Survive Only By Destroying Us, Then Why Should We Wish Them To Survive? Nothing Can Make Self-immolation Proper. Nothing Can Give Them The Right To Turn Men Into Sacrificial Animals. Nothing Can Make It Moral To Destroy The Best. One Can't Be Punished For Being Good. One Can't Be Penalized For Ability. If That Is Right, Then We'd Better Start Slaughtering One Another, Because There Isn't Any Right At All In The World!

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It Is Not As Late As You Think. It Is Merely Early - In The Age Of The Rebirth Of Individualism.

The Concept Of Individual Rights Is So Prodigious A Feat Of Political Thinking That Few Men Grasp It Fully - And Two Hundred Years Have Not Been Enough For Other Countries To Understand It. But This Is The Concept To Which We Owe Our Lives - The Concept Which Made It Possible For Us To Bring Into Reality Everything Of Value That Any Of Us Did Or Will Achieve Or Experience.

I Consider Promiscuity Immoral. Not Because Sex Is Evil, But Because Sex Is Too Good And Too Important.

Believing In Fate Produces Fate. Believing In Freedom Will Create Infinite Possibilities.

Capitalism Is A Social System Based On The Recognition Of Individual Rights, Including Property Rights, In Which All Property Is Privately Owned.

At First, Man Was Enslaved By The Gods. But He Broke Their Chains. Then He Was Enslaved By The Kings. But He Broke Their Chains. He Was Enslaved By His Birth, By His Kin, By His Race. But He Broke Their Chains. He Declared To All His Brothers That A Man Has Rights Which Neither God Nor King Nor Other Men Can Take Away From Him, No Matter What Their Number, For His Is The Right Of Man, And There Is No Right On Earth Above This Right. And He Stood On The Threshold Of Freedom For Which The Blood Of The Centuries Behind Him Had Been Spilled.

To Deal With Men By Force Is As Impractical As To Deal With Nature By Persuasion.

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The Word Which Can Never Die On This Earth, For It Is The Heart Of It And The Meaning And The Glory. The Sacred Word: Ego.

A Creative Man Is Motivated By The Desire To Achieve, Not By The Desire To Beat Others.

Do Not Consider Collectivists As "sincere But Deluded Idealists". The Proposal To Enslave Some Men For The Sake Of Others Is Not An Ideal; Brutality Is Not "idealistic," No Matter What Its Purpose. Do Not Ever Say That The Desire To "do Good" By Force Is A Good Motive. Neither Power-lust Nor Stupidity Are Good Motives.

The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Need It Most Urgently: They Are Most Helplessly In Its Power. The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Absorb Its Principles From The Cultural Atmosphere Around Them-from Schools, Colleges, Books, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, Television, Etc. Who Sets The Tone Of A Culture? A Small Handful Of Men: The Philosophers. Others Follow Their Lead, Either By Conviction Or By Default.

People, He Thought, Were As Hungry For A Sight Of Joy As He Had Always Been--for A Moment's Relief From That Gray Load Of Suffering Which Seemed So Inexplicable And Unnecessary. He Had Never Been Able To Understand Why Men Should Be Unhappy.

When You Have Established That One Alternative Is Good And The Other Is Evil, There Is No Justification For The Choice Of A Mixture. There Is No Justification Ever For Choosing Any Part Of What You Know To Be Evil.

If, Before Undertaking Some Action, You Must Obtain The Permission Of Society-you Are Not Free, Whether Such Permission Is Granted To You Or Not. Only A Slave Acts On Permission. A Permission Is Not A Right.

Neither Life Nor Happiness Can Be Achieved By The Pursuit Of Irrational Whims.

The Worst Evil That You Can Do, Psychologically, Is To Laugh At Yourself. That Means Spitting In Your Own Face.

I Write - And Read - For The Sake Of The Story... My Basic Test For Any Story Is: 'would I Want To Meet These Characters And Observe These Events In Real Life? Is This Story An Experience Worth Living Through For Its Own Sake? Is The Pleasure Of Contemplating These Characters An End Itself?

It Meant Nothing To Him Any Longer, Only A Faint Tinge Of Sadness--and Somewhere Within Him, A Drop Of Pain Moving Briefly And Vanishing, Like A Raindrop On The Glass Of A Window, Its Course In The Shape Of A Question Mark.

I Never Found Beauty In Longing For The Impossible And Never Found The Possible To Be Beyond My Reach.

Socialism Is The Doctrine That Man Has No Right To Exist For His Own Sake, That His Life And His Work Do Not Belong To Him, But Belong To Society, That The Only Justification Of His Existence Is His Service To Society, And That Society May Dispose Of Him In Any Way It Pleases For The Sake Of Whatever It Deems To Be Its Own Tribal, Collective Good.

Have You Ever Felt The Longing For Someone You Could Admire? For Something, Not To Look Down At, But Up To?

Professional Intellectuals Are The Voice Of A Culture And Are, Therefore, Its Leaders, Its Integrators And Its Bodyguards.

Talent Alone Is Helpless Today. Any Success Requires Both Talent And Luck. And The 'luck' Has To Be Helped Along And Provided By Someone.

The Freedom Of Speech Of Private Individuals Includes The Right To Not Agree, Not To Listen, And Not To Finance One's Own Antagonists.

Freedom Of Speech

Any Refusal To Recognize Reality, For Any Reason Whatever, Has Disastrous Consequences. There Are No Evil Thoughts Except One: The Refusal To Think. Don't Ignore Your Own Desires.... Don't Sacrifice Them. Examine Their Cause. There Is A Limit To How Much You Should Have To Bear.

A Moment Or An Eternity—did It Matter? Life, Undefeated, Existed And Could Exist.

All Public Projects Are Mausoleums, Not Always In Shapes, But Always In Cost.

The Middle Ages Were An Era Of Mysticism, Ruled By Blind Faith And Blind Obedience To The Dogma That Faith Is Superior To Reason. The Renaissance Was Specifically The Rebirth Of Reason, The Liberation Of Man's Mind, The Triumph Of Rationality Over Mysticism - A Faltering, Incomplete, But Impassioned Triumph That Led To The Birth Of Science, Of Individualism, Of Freedom.

An Attempt To Achieve The Good By Force Is Like An Attempt To Provide A Man With A Picture Gallery At The Price Of Cutting Out His Eyes.

We'll Meet Again. We'll Meet When Years Have Passed, And Years Make Such A Difference, Don't They?

The Art Of Writing Is The Art Of Doing What You Think You're Doing. This Is Not As Simple As It Sounds. It Implies A Very Difficult Undertaking: The Necessity To Think. And It Implies The Requirement To Think Out Three Separate, Very Hard Problems: What Is It You Want To Say? How Are You Going To Say It? Have You Really Said It?

Have You Noticed That The Imbecile Always Smiles? Man's First Frown Is The First Touch Of God On His Forehead. The Touch Of Thought.

I Love You So Much That Nothing Can Matter To Me - Not Even You...only My Love- Not Your Answer. Not Even Your Indifference

Capitalism Is The Only System That Can Make Freedom, Individuality, And The Pursuit Of Values Possible In Practice. When I Say 'capitalism,' I Mean A Pure, Uncontrolled, Unregulated Laissez-faire Capitalism - With A Separation Of Economics, In The Same Way And For The Same Reasons As A Separation Of State And Church.

The Degree Of A Country's Freedom Is The Degree Of Its Prosperity.

Now Take A Human Body. Why Wouldn't You Like To See A Human Body With A Curling Tail With A Crest Of Ostrich Feathers At The End? And With Ears Shaped Like Acanthus Leaves? It Would Be Ornamental, You Know, Instead Of The Stark, Bare Ugliness We Have Now. Well, Why Don't You Like The Idea? Because It Would Be Useless And Pointless. Because The Beauty Of The Human Body Is That Is Hasn't A Single Muscle Which Doesn't Serve Its Purpose; That There's Not A Line Wasted; That Every Detail Of It Fits One Idea, The Idea Of A Man And The Life Of A Man.

I Am Interested In Politics Only In Order To Secure And Protect Freedom.

My Views On Charity Are Very Simple. I Do Not Consider It A Major Virtue And, Above All, I Do Not Consider It A Moral Duty. There Is Nothing Wrong In Helping Other People, If And When They Are Worthy Of The Help And You Can Afford To Help Them. I Regard Charity As A Marginal Issue. What I Am Fighting Is The Idea That Charity Is A Moral Duty And A Primary Virtue.

Definitions Are The Guardians Of Rationality, The First Line Of Defense Against The Chaos Of Mental Disintegration.

The Argument From Intimidation Is A Confession Of Intellectual Impotence.

Ordinary Human Concern For Human Distress Does Not Manifest Itself Ordinarily In The Form Of A Gun Aimed At The Wallets And Earnings Of One's Neighbors.

Happiness Is Not To Be Achieved At The Command Of Emotional Whims.

Virtue Is Not An End In Itself. Virtue Is Not Its Own Reward Or Sacrificial Fodder For The Reward Of Evil. Life Is The Reward Of Virtue-and Happiness Is The Goal And The Reward Of Life.

I Could Die For You. But I Couldn't, And Wouldn't, Live For You.

Each Man Must Live As An End In Himself And Follow His Own Rational Self-interest.

There Are Only Two Means By Which Men Can Deal With One Another: Guns Or Logic. Force Or Persuasion. Those Who Know That They Cannot Win By Means Of Logic, Have Always Resorted To Guns.

He Never Felt Lonliness Except When He Was Happy.

Mr. Ward, What Is It That The Foulest Bastards On Earth Denounce Us For, Among Other Things? Oh Yes, For Our Motto Of 'business As Usual.' Well-business As Usual, Mr. Ward!

Guilt Is A Rope That Wears Thin.

It Was The Only Thing I Ever Really Wanted. And That’s The Sin That Can’t Be Forgiven--that I Hadn’t Done What I Wanted. It Feels So Dirty And Pointless And Monstrous, As One Feels About Insanity, Because There’s No Sense To It, No Dignity, Nothing But Pain--and Wasted Pain...why Do They Always Teach Us That It’s Easy And Evil To Do What We Want And That We Need Discipline To Restrain Ourselves? It’s The Hardest Thing In The World--to Do What We Want. And It Takes The Greatest Kind Of Courage.

To Know One's Own Desires, Their Meaning And Their Costs Requires The Highest Human Virtue: Rationality.

The Founding Fathers Were Neither Passive, Death-worshipin G Mystics Nor Mindless, Power-seeking Looters; As A Political Group They Were A Phenomenon Unprecedented In History: They Were Thinkers Who Were Also Men Of Action.

The Man Who Refuses To Judge, Who Neither Agrees Nor Disagrees, Who Declares That There Are No Absolutes And Believes That He Escapes Responsibility, Is The Man Responsible For All The Blood That Is Now Spilled In The World

Love Is An Expression And Assertion Of Self-esteem, A Response To One's Own Values In The Person Of Another. One Gains A Profoundly Personal, Selfish Joy From The Mere Existence Of The Person One Loves. It Is One's Own Personal, Selfish Happiness That One Seeks, Earns, And Derives From Love.

Congress Shall Make No Law Abridging The Freedom Of Production And Trade.

The Only Proper Functions Of A Government Are: The Police, To Protect You From Criminals; The Army, To Protect You From Foreign Invaders; And The Courts, To Protect Your Property And Contracts From Breach Or Fraud By Others, And To Settle Disputes By Rational Rules, According To Objective Law.

As A Cultural-intellectual Power And A Moral Ideal, Collectivism Died In World War Ii. If We Are Still Rolling In Its Direction, It Is Only By The Inertia Of A Void And The Momentum Of Disintegration. A Social Movement That Began With The Ponderous, Brain-cracking, Dialectical Constructs Of Hegel And Marx, And Ends Up With A Horde Of Morally Unwashed Children Stamping Their Foot And Shrieking: "i Want It Now Is Through."

Run For Your Life From Any Man Who Tells You That Money Is Evil. That Sentence Is The Leper's Bell Of An Approaching Looter. So Long As Men Live Together On Earth And Need Means To Deal With One Another--their Only Substitute, If They Abandon Money, Is The Muzzle Of A Gun.

And He Said Her Name To Fill The Space Of Five Years.

Identify The Dominant Philosophy Of A Society And You Can Predict Its Future.

To Say 'i Love You' One Must First Be Able To Say The 'i.'

Did You Get Your Money By Fraud? By Pandering To Men's Vices Or Men's Stupidity? By Catering To Fools, In The Hope Of Getting More Than Your Ability Deserves? By Lowering Your Standards? By Doing Work You Despise For Purchasers You Scorn? If So, Then Your Money Will Not Give You A Moment's Or A Penny's Worth Of Joy. Then All The Things You Buy Will Become, Not A Tribute To You, But A Reproach; Not An Achievement, But A Reminder Of Shame.

A Rational Process Is A Moral Process. You May Make An Error At Any Step Of It, With Nothing To Protect You But Your Own Severity, Or You May Try To Cheat, To Fake The Evidence And Evade The Effort Of The Quest - But If Devotion To The Truth Is The Hallmark Of Morality, Then There Is No Greater, Nobler, More Heroic Form Of Devotion Than The Act Of A Man Who Assumes The Responsibility Of Thinking.

If He Can Give His Readers No Reason Why They Should Read His Book, Except That The Events Happened To Him, It Is Not A Valid Book.

You Don't Have To See Through The Eyes Of Others, Hold Onto Yours, Stand On Your Own Judgment, You Know That What Is, Is–say It Aloud, Like The Holiest Of Prayers, And Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise.

Political Freedom Cannot Exist Without Economic Freedom; A Free Mind And A Free Market Are Corollaries.

About Mike The Construction Worker, Friend Of Roark: "he Worshipped Expertness Of Any Kind. He Loved His Work Passionately And Had No Tolerance For Anything Save For Other Single-track Devotions. He Was A Master In His Own Filed And Felt No Sympathy Except For Mastery. His View Of The World Was Simple: There Were The Able And There Were The Incompetent; He Was Not Concerned With The Latter."

Construction Workers

There Is A Fundamental Conviction Which Some People Never Acquire, Some Hold Only In Their Youth, And A Few Hold To The End Of Their Days-the Conviction That Ideas Matter . . . . That Ideas Matter Means That Knowledge Matters, That Truth Matters, That One's Mind Matters . . .

Let No Man Posture As An Advocate Of Peace If He Proposes Or Supports Any Social System That Initiates The Use Of Force Against Individual Men, In Any Form.

A Reader Has To Be Concerned Only With The End Result; Unless He Chooses To Analyze It, He Does Not Have To Know By What Means That Result Was Achieved-but It Is My Job To Know.

Now You See, Dr. Stadler, You're Speaking As If This Book Were Addressing To A Thinking Audience. If It Were, One Would Have To Be Concerned With Such Matters As Accuracy, Validity, Logic And The Prestige Of Science. But It Isn't. It's Addressed To The Public.

It Was Beautiful And Rare, And You Have Every Right To Despise Me." She Stood Pressed To The Wall, Not Moving. "when You Came In, I Thought 'send Her Away.' But I Knew That If You Went Away, I'd Run After You. I Thought 'i Won't Say A Word.' But I Knew That You'd Know It Before You Left. I Love You. I Know You'd Think Kindlier Of Me If I Said That I Hate You.

If A Drought Strikes Them, Animals Perish--man Builds Irrigation Canals; If A Flood Strikes Them, Animals Perish--man Builds Dams; If A Carnivorous Pack Attacks Them, Animals Perish--man Writes The Constitution Of The United States.

I Say That Man Is Entitled To His Own Happiness And That He Must Achieve It Himself. But That He Cannot Demand That Others Give Up Their Lives To Make Him Happy.

P.61 He [roark] Was Usually Disliked, From The First Sight Of His Face, Anywhere He Went. His Face Was Closed Like The Door Of A Safety Vault; Things Locked In Safety Vaults Are Valuable; Men Did Not Care To Feel That. He Was A Cold, Disquieting Presence In The Room; His Presence Had A Strange Quality: It Made Itself Felt And Yet It Made Them Feel That He Was Not There; Or Perhaps That He Was And They Weren't.

Even In Dialogue, Your Own Style Rules Your Selection. Do Not Give Yourself A Blank Check Of This Kind: 'i'll Merely Reproduce What I Think A Character Like So-and-so Would Say.' You Have To Reproduce It In The Way Your Literary Premises Dictate.

One Method Of Destroying A Concept Is By Diluting Its Meaning. Observe That By Ascribing Rights To The Unborn, I.e., The Nonliving, The Anti-abortionists Obliterate The Rights Of The Living.

Government Holds A Legal Monopoly On The Use Of Physical Force.

The Government Was Set To Protect Man From Criminals-and The Constitution Was Written To Protect Man From The Government. The Bill Of Rights Was Not Directed At Private Citizens, But Against The Government-as An Explicit Declaration That Individual Rights Supersede Any Public Or Social Power.

Freedom Comes From Seeing The Ignorance Of Your Critics And Discovering The Emptiness Of Their Virtue.

If You Surrender Everything To The Government And Give It Total Power To Plan The Whole Economy, This Will Not Guarantee Your Economic Security, But It Will Guarantee The Descent Of The Entire Nation To A Level Of Miserable Poverty--as The Practical Results Of Every Totalitarian Economy, Communist Or Fascist, Have Demonstrated.

Don't Consider Our Interests Or Desires. You Have No Duty To Anyone But Yourself.

My Pride And My Power Of Vision Were All That I Owned When I Started - And Whatever I Achieved, Was Achieved By Means Of Them. Both Are Greater Now. Now I Have The Knowledge Of The Superlative Value I Had Missed: Of My Right To Be Proud Of My Vision. The Rest Is Mine To Reach.

The Government Has Created A Nation Of Paper Criminals. People Can Be Put In Jail And Lose Civil Rights And Liberties Through Bureaucratic Procedures.the Only Thing That Is Keeping You Out Of Jail Is Government Goodwill.

A Man Doesn't Borrow Pieces Of His Body. A Building Doesn't Borrow Hunks Of Its Soul. Its Maker Gives It The Soul And Every Wall, Window And Stairway To Express It.

I Know Not If This Earth On Which I Stand Is The Core Of The Universe Or If It Is But A Speck Of Dust Lost In Eternity. I Know Not And I Care Not. For I Know What Happiness Is Possible To Me On Earth. And My Happiness Needs No Higher Aim To Vindicate It. My Happiness Is Not The Means To Any End. It Is The End. It Is Its Own Goal. It Is Its Own Purpose.

Let Me Be The Child In The Story And Declare That The Emperor Is Naked — Or That America Is Culturally Bankrupt.

I Feel That Others Live Up To Me, If They Want Me.

And Here, Over The Portals Of My Fort, I Shall Cut In The Stone The Word Which Is To Be My Beacon And My Banner. The Word Which Will Not Die Should We All Perish In Battle. The Word Which Can Never Die On This Earth, For It Is The Heart Of It And The Meaning And The Glory. The Sacred Word: Ego

Fight For The Value Of Your Person. Fight For The Virtue Of Your Pride. Fight For The Essence Of That Which Is Man: For His Sovereign Rational Mind. Fight With The Radiant Certainty And The Absolute Rectitude Of Knowing That Yours Is The Morality Of Life And That Yours Is The Battle For Any Achievement, Any Value, Any Grandeur, Any Goodness, Any Joy That Has Ever Existed On This Earth

Through All The Centuries Of The Worship Of The Mindless, Whatever Stagnation Humanity Chose To Endure, Whatever Brutality To Practice-it Was Only By The Grace Of The Men Who Perceived That Wheat Must Have Water In Order To Grow, That Stones Laid In A Curve Will Form An Arch, That Two And Two Make Four, That Love Is Not Served By Torture And Life Is Not Fed By Destruction-only By The Grace Of Those Men Did The Rest Of Them Learn To Experience Moments When They Caught The Spark Of Being Human.

Honor Is Self-esteem Made Visible In Action.

The Moral Absolute Should Be: If And When, In Any Dispute, One Side Initiates The Use Of Physical Force, That Side Is Wrong - And No Consideration Or Discussion Of The Issues Is Necessary Or Appropriate.

Self Respect Is Something That Can't Be Killed. The Worst Thing Is To Kill A Man's Pretense At It.

It Is Not Death That We Wish To Avoid, But Life That We Wish To Live.

"you Were Not Born To Be A Second-hander." Howard Roark To Gail Wynand In "the Fountainhead"

Do It First And Feel About It Afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart

When You Have Made Evil The Means Of Survival, Do Not Expect Men To Remain Good. Do Not Expect Them To Stay Moral And Lose Their Lives For The Purpose Of Becoming The Fodder Of The Immoral. Do Not Expect Them To Produce, When Production Is Punished And Looting Rewarded. Do Not Ask, "who Is Destroying The World?" You Are.

Men Have Been Taught That Their First Concern Is To Relieve The Suffering Of Others. ... To Make That The Highest Test Of Virtue Is To Make Suffering The Most Important Part Of Life. Then Man Must Wish To See Others Suffer In Order That He May Be Virtuous. Such Is The Nature Of Altruism.

Suffering Of Others

Every Form Of Happiness If One, Every Desire Is Driven By The Same Motor--by Our Love For A Single Value, For The Highest Potentiality Of Our Own Existence--and Every Achievement Is An Expression Of It.

... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

You'd Let The Whole World Perish Rather Than Soil That Immaculate Self Of Yours With A Single Spot Of Which You'd Have To Be Ashamed.

Life Is The Reward Of Virtue. And Happiness Is The Goal And Reward Of Life.

A Viler Evil Than To Murder A Man, Is To Sell Him Suicide As An Act Of Virtue.

I Am. I Think. I Will.

I Am Opposed To All Forms Of Control. I Am For An Absolute, Laissez-faire, Free, Unregulated Economy.

Man's Unique Reward, However, Is That While Animals Survive By Adjusting Themselves To Their Background, Man Survives By Adjusting His Background To Himself.

So Long As Men Desire To Live Together, No Man May Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others. . . . When A Man Attempts To Deal With Me By Force, I Answer Him By Force. It Is Only As Retaliation That Force May Be Used And Only Against The Man Who Starts Its Use. No, I Do Not Share His Evil Or Sink To His Concept Of Morality: I Merely Grant Him His Choice, Destruction, The Only Destruction He Had The Right To Choose: His Own.

Collectivism Holds That The Individual Has No Rights, That His Life And Work Belong To The Group (to "society," To The Tribe, The State, The Nation) And That The Group May Sacrifice Him At Its Own Whim To Its Own Interests. The Only Way To Implement A Doctrine Of That Kind Is By Means Of Brute Force - And Statism Has Always Been The Poltical Corollary Of Collectivism.

When One Acts On Pity Against Justice, It Is The Good Whom One Punishes For The Sake Of The Evil; When One Saves The Guilty From Suffering, It Is The Innocent Whom One Forces To Suffer. There Is No Escape From Justice, Nothing Can Be Unearned And Unpaid For In The Universe, Neither In Matter Nor In Spirit—and If The Guilty Do Not Pay, Then The Innocent Have To Pay It.

The Fight We Are In Here, Make No Mistake About It, Is A Fight Of Individualism Versus Collectivism.

It Was The Greatest Sensation Of Existence: Not To Trust But To Know.

Man Has A Single Basic Choice: To Think Or Not, And That Is The Gauge Of His Virtue. Moral Perfection Is An Unbreached Rationality-not The Degree Of Your Intelligence, But The Full And Relentless Use Of Your Mind, Not The Extent Of Your Knowledge, But The Acceptance Of Reason As An Absolute.

The Genius Must Have His Freedom And His Independence.

These Are The Things Before Me. And As I Stand Here At The Door Of Glory, I Look Behind Me For The Last Time. I Look Upon The History Of Men, Which I Have Learned From The Books, And I Wonder. It Was A Long Story, And The Spirit Which Moved It Was The Spirit Of Man’s Freedom. But What Is Freedom? Freedom From What? There Is Nothing To Take A Man’s Freedom Away From Him, Save Other Men. To Be Free, A Man Must Be Free Of His Brothers. That Is Freedom. This And Nothing Else.

To Rest One's Case On Faith Means To Concede That Reason Is On The Side Of One's Enemies- That One Has No Rational Arguments To Offer.

Racism Is The Lowest, Most Crudely Primitive Form Of Collectivism.

Individual Rights Are Not Subject To A Public Vote; A Majority Has No Right To Vote Away The Rights Of A Minority; The Political Function Of Rights Is Precisely To Protect Minorities From Oppression By Majorities (and The Smallest Minority On Earth Is The Individual).

Any Group Or "collective", Large Or Small, Is Only A Number Of Individuals. A Group Can Have No Rights Other Than The Rights Of Its Individual Members.

There Is No Such Thing As A Lousy Job - Only Lousy Men Who Don't Care To Do It.

Are My Characters Copies Of People In Real Life? ... Don't Ever Believe The Stories About Authors Putting People Into Novels. That Idea Is A Kind Of Joke On Both Authors And Readers. All The Readers Believe That Authors Do It. All The Authors Know That It Can't Be Done.

I Am An Intransigent Atheist, Though Not A Militant One. This Means That I Am Not Fighting Against Religion - I Am Fighting For Reason.

A Story Is An End In Itself. It Is Not Written To Teach, Sell, Explain Or Destroy Anything. It Is Not Written Even To Entertain. It Is Written As A Man Is Born - An Organic Whole, Dictated Only By Its Own Laws And Its Own Necessity - An End In Itself, Not A Means To An End.

Action Without Thought Is Mindlessness, And Thought Without Action Is Hypocritical.

The Best, Most Natural Dialogue Is Usually Written As If The Writer Is Listening To Dictation. You Might Get Stuck On Any Particular Point And Have To Question Yourself; But Normally, Dialogue Writes Itself.

I Think It's Funny. There Was A Time When Men Were Afraid That Somebody Would Reveal Some Secret Of Theirs That Was Unknown To Their Fellows. Nowadays, They're Afraid That Somebody Will Name What Everybody Knows. Have You Practical People Ever Thought That That's All It Would Take To Blast Your Whole, Big, Complex Structure, With All Your Laws And Guns - Just Somebody Naming The Exact Nature Of What You're Doing?

She Sat Leaning Back In Her Chair, Looking Ahead, Knowing That He Was As Aware Of Her As She Was Of Him. She Found Pleasure In The Special Self-consciousness It Gave Her. When She Crossed Her Legs, When She Leaned On Her Arm Against The Window Sill, When She Brushed Her Hair Off Her Forehead - Every Movement Of Her Body Was Underscored By A Feeling The Unadmitted Words For Which Were: Is He Seeing It?

There Is Nothing To Take A Man’s Freedom Away From Him, Save Other Men.

The Word 'we' Is As Lime Poured Over Men, Which Sets And Hardens To Stone, And Crushes All Beneath It, And That Which Is White And That Which Is Black Are Lost Equally In The Grey Of It. It Is The Word By Which The Depraved Steal The Virtue Of The Good, By Which The Weak Steal The Might Of The Strong, By Which The Fools Steal The Wisdom Of The Sages.

[t]he Only Real Moral Crime That One Man Can Commit Against Another Is The Attempt To Create, By His Words Or Actions, An Impression Of The Contradictory, The Impossible, The Irrational, And Thus Shake The Concept Of Rationality In His Victim.

Never Think Of Pain Or Danger Or Enemies A Moment Longer Than Is Necessary To Fight Them.

I Swear, By My Life And My Love Of It, That I Will Never Live For The Sake Of Another Man, Nor Ask Another Man To Live For Mine.

The Difference Between A Welfare State And A Totalitarian State Is A Matter Of Time.

Of All The Statist Violations Of Individual Rights In A Mixed Economy, The Military Draft Is The Worst. It Is An Abrogation Of Rights. It Negates Man’s Fundamental Right-the Right To Life-and Establishes The Fundamental Principle Of Statism: That A Man’s Life Belongs To The State, And The State May Claim It By Compelling Him To Sacrifice It In Battle. Once That Principle Is Accepted, The Rest Is Only A Matter Of Time.

Whenever Anyone Accuses Some Person Of Being 'unfeeling,' He Means That That Person Is Just.

I Guard My Treasures: My Thoughts, My Will, My Freedom. And The Greatest Of These Is Freedom.

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