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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

-Ayn Rand

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And Here, Over The

Ayn Rand

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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

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What I Am Fighting Is The Idea That Charity Is A Moral Duty And A Primary Virtue.

She Started Off, Walking Fast, As If The Speed Of Her Steps Could Give Form To The Things She Felt.

You Seek Escape From Pain. We Seek The Achievement Of Happiness. You Exist For The Sake Of Avoiding Punishment. We Exist For The Sake Of Earning Rewards. Threats Will Not Make Us Function; Fear Is Not Our Incentive. It Is Not Death That We Wish To Avoid, But Life That We Wish To Live

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish In Lonely Frustration For The Life You Deserved And Have Never Been Able To Reach.

No Individual Or Private Group Or Private Organization Has The Legal Power To Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Other Individuals Or Groups And To Compel Them To Act Against Their Own Voluntary Choice. Only A Government Holds That Power. The Nature Of Governmental Action Is: Coercive Action. The Nature Of Political Power Is: The Power To Force Obedience Under Threat Of Physical Injury-the Threat Of Property Expropriation, Imprisonment, Or Death.

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values.

The Moral Justification Of Capitalism Does Not Lie In The Altruist Claim That It Represents The Best Way To Achieve 'the Common Good.' It Is True That Capitalism Does -- If That Catch-phrase Has Any Meaning -- But This Is Merely A Secondary Consequence. The Moral Justification For Capitalism Lies In The Fact That It Is The Only System Consonant With Man's Rational Nature, That It Protects Man's Survival Qua Man, And That Its Ruling Principle Is: Justice

There Are No White Lies, There Is Only The Blackest Of Destruction, And A White Lie Is The Blackest Of All.

No Matter How Vast Your Knowledge Or How Modest, It Is Your Own Mind That Has To Acquire It. It Is Only With Your Own Knowledge That You Can Deal. It Is Only Your Own Knowledge That You Can Claim To Possess Or Ask Others To Consider. Your Mind Is Your Only Judge Of Truth - And If Others Dissent From Your Verdict, Reality Is The Court Of Final Appeal. Nothing But A Man's Mind Can Perform That Complex, Delicate, Crucial Process Of Identification Which Is Thinking. Nothing Can Direct The Process But His Own Judgment. Nothing Can Direct His Judgment But His Moral Integrity.

The Question Of Whether One Alleges The Superiority Or Inferiority Of Any Given Race Is Irrelevant; Racism Has Only One Psychological Root: The Racist's Sense Of His Own Inferiority.

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

Thanksgiving Is A Typically American Holiday...the Lavish Meal Is A Symbol Of The Fact That Abundant Consumption Is The Result And Reward Of Production.

It's True That There's No Such Thing As Free Will. We Can't Help What We Are Or What We Do. It's Not Our Fault. Nobody's To Blame For Anything. It's All In Your Background ... And Your Glands. If You're Good, That's No Achievement Of Yours - You Were Lucky In Your Glands. If You're Rotten, Nobody Should Punish You - You Were Unlucky, That's All.

All The Reasons Which Made The Initiation Of Physical Force Evil, Make The Retaliatory Use Of Physical Force A Moral Imperative.

If A Life Could Have A Theme Song - And I Believe Every Worthwhile One Has - Mine Is A Religion, An Obsession, A Mania Or All Of These Expressed In One Word - Individualism. I Was Born With That Obsession, And I've Never Seen And Do Not Know Now A Cause More Worthy, More Misunderstood, More Seemingly Hopeless And Tragically Needed.

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out ... Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish ... Check Your Road And The Nature Of Your Battle. The World You Desired Can Be Won. It Exists, It Is Real, It Is Possible, It Is Yours.

When You Force A Man To Act Against His Own Choice And Judgment, It's His Thinking That You Want Him To Suspend.

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?

The Essential Characteristic Of Socialism Is The Denial Of Individual Property Rights.

Man's Mind Is His Basic Tool Of Survival. Life Is Given To Him, Survival Is Not. His Body Is Given To Him, Its Sustenance Is Not. His Mind Is Given To Him, Its Content Is Not. To Remain Alive, He Must Act, And Before He Can Act He Must Know The Nature And Purpose Of His Action. He Cannot Obtain His Food Without A Knowledge Of Food And Of The Way To Obtain It. He Cannot Dig A Ditch-or Build A Cyclotron-without A Knowledge Of His Aim And Of The Means To Achieve It. To Remain Alive, He Must Think

A Man Who Seeks Escape From The Responsibility Of Supporting His Life By His Own Thought And Effort, And Wishes To Survive By Conquering, Ruling And Exploiting Others, Is Not An Individualist.

No Man May Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others. No Man-or Group Or Society Or Government-has The Right To Assume The Role Of A Criminal And Initiate The Use Of Physical Compulsion Against Any Man. Men Have The Right To Use Physical Force Only In Retaliation And Only Against Those Who Initiate Its Use. The Ethical Principle Involved Is Simple And Clear-cut: It Is The Difference Between Murder And Self-defense.

John Galt Is Prometheus Who Changed His Mind. After Centuries Of Being Torn By Vultures In Payment For Having Brought To Men The Fire Of The Gods, He Broke His Chains—and He Withdrew His Fire—until The Day When Men Withdraw Their Vultures.

I've Always Thought That A Feeling Which Changes Never Existed In The First Place.

If You Tell An Ugly Woman That She Is Beautiful, You Offer Her The Great Homage Of Corrupting The Concept Of Beauty.

Another Current Catch-phrase Is The Complaint That The Nations Of The World Are Divided Into 'haves' And The 'have-nots.' Observe That The 'haves' Are Those Who Have Freedom, And That It Is Freedom That The 'have-nots' Have Not.

One Must Differentiate Between One's Thoughts And One's Emotions With Full Clarity And Precision...no Discussion, Cooperation, Agreement, Or Understanding Is Possible Among Men Who Substitute Emotion For Proof.

She Did Not Know What It Was About Him That Had Always Made Her Want To See Him Broken.

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."

Some Day, The World Will Discover That, Without Thought, There Can Be No Love.

Only The Man Who Does Not Need It, Is Fit To Inherit Wealth, The Man Who Would Make His Fortune No Matter Where He Started.

If The Rest Of Them Can Survive Only By Destroying Us, Then Why Should We Wish Them To Survive? . . . Nothing Can Make It Moral To Destroy The Best. One Can't Be Punished For Being Good. One Can't Be Penalized For Ability.

When The Common Good Of A Society Is Regarded As Something Apart From And Superior To The Individual Good Of Its Members, It Means That The Good Of Some Men Takes Precedence Over The Good Of Others, With Those Others Consigned To The Status Of Sacrificial Animals.

There Is A Level Of Cowardice Lower Than That Of The Conformist: The Fashionable Non-conformist.

The Ladder Of Success Is Best Climbed By Stepping On The Rungs Of Opportunity.

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.

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

Since There Is No Such Entity As 'the Public,' Since The Public Is Merely A Number Of Individuals, The Idea That 'the Public Interest' Supersedes Private Interests And Rights Can Have But One Meaning: That The Interests And Rights Of Some Individuals Take Precedence Over The Interests And Rights Of Others.

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.

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

Thousands Of Years Ago The First Man Discovered How To Make Fire. He Was Probably Burnt At The Stake He'd Taught His Brothers To Light, But He Left Them A Gift They Had Not Conceived And He Lifted Darkness From The Face Of The Earth.

Ask Yourself Why Totalitarian Dictatorships Find It Necessary To Pour Money And Effort Into Propaganda For Their Own Helpless, Chained, Gagged Slaves, Who Have No Means Of Protest Or Defense. The Answer Is That Even The Humblest Peasant Or The Lowest Savage Would Rise In Blind Rebellion, Were He To Realize That He Is Being Immolated, Not To Some Incomprehensible Noble Purpose, But To Plain, Naked Human Evil.

A Genius Is A Genius, Regardless Of The Number Of Morons Who Belong To The Same Race - And A Moron Is A Moron, Regardless Of The Number Of Geniuses Who Share His Racial Origin.

Self-esteem Is Reliance On One's Power To Think. It Cannot Be Replaced By One's Power To Deceive. The Self-confidence Of A Scientist And The Self-confidence Of A Con Man Are Not Interchangeable States, And Do Not Come From The Same Psychological Universe. The Success Of A Man Who Deals With Reality Augments His Self-confidence. The Success Of A Con Man Augments His Panic.

Is It Advisable To Spread Out All The Conveniences Of Culture Before People To Whom A Few Steps Up A Stair To A Library Is A Sufficient Deterrent From Reading?

Why Have You Been Staring At Me Ever Since We Met? Because I’m Not The Gail Wynand You’d Heard About. You See, I Love You. And Love Is Exception-making. If You Were In Love You’d Want To Be Broken, Trampled, Ordered, Dominated, Because That’s The Impossible, In The Inconceivable For You In Your Relations With People. That Would Be The One Gift, The Great Exception You’d Want To Offer The Man You Loved. But It Wouldn’t Be Easy For You.

Did It Ever Occur To You, That There Is No Conflict Of Interests Among Men, Neither In Business Nor In Trade Nor In Their Most Personal Desires - If They Omit The Irrational From Their View Of The Possible And Destruction From Their View Of The Practical?

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

[altruism] Is A Moral System Which Holds That Man Has No Right To Exist For His Own Sake, That Service To Others Is The Sole Justification Of His Existence, And That Self-sacrifice Is His Highest Moral Duty, Value And Virtue. This Is The Moral Base Of Collectivism, Of All Dictatorships.

Men Prosper Or Fail, Survive Or Perish In Proportion To The Degree Of Their Rationality.

Consider The Reasons Which Make Us Certain That We Are Right, But Not The Fact That We Are Certain. If You Are Not Convinced, Ignore Our Certainty. Don't Be Tempted To Substitute Our Judgment For Your Own.

There Is No Such Thing As Duty. If You Know That A Thing Is Right, You Want To Do It. If You Don't Want To Do It - It Isn't Right. If It's Right And You Don't Want To Do It - You Don't Know What Right Is And You're Not A Man.

Man’s Rights Can Be Violated Only By The Use Of Physical Force. It Is Only By Means Of Physical Force That One Man Can Deprive Another Of His Life, Or Enslave Him, Or Rob Him, Or Prevent Him From Pursuing His Own Goals, Or Compel Him To Act Against His Own Rational Judgment.

Your Soul Has A Single Basic Function-the Act Of Valuing.

I Take No Pride In Hopeless Longing; I Wouldn't Hold A Stillborn Aspiration. I'd Want To Have It, To Make It, To Live It.

Romantic Art Is The Fuel And The Spark Plug Of A Man's Soul. It's Task Is To Set A Soul On Fire And Never Let It Go Out.

She Felt A Board Indifference Toward The Immediate World Around Her Toward Other Children And Adults Alike. She Took It As A Regrettable Accident To Be Borne Patiently For A While, That She Happened To Be Imprisoned Among People Who Were Dull. She Had Caught A Glimpse Of Another World And She Knew It Existed Somewhere, The World That Had Created Trains, Bridges, Telegraph Wires And Signal Lights Winking In The Night. She Had To Wait She Thought, And Grow Up To That World. - Dagny Taggart

There Is No Difference Between Communism And Socialism, Except In The Means Of Achieving The Same Ultimate End: Communism Proposes To Enslave Men By Force, Socialism - By Vote. It Is Merely The Difference Between Murder And Suicide.

I Agree That [marriage] Should Be Treated Like A Business Deal. But Every Business Deal Has To Have Its Own Terms And Its Own Kind Of Currency.

Those Who Tell You That Man Is Unable To Perceive A Reality Undistorted By His Senses, Mean That They Are Unwilling To Perceive A Reality Undistorted By Their Feelings. "things As They Are" Are Things As Perceived By Your Mind; Divorce Them From Reason And They Become "things As Perceived By Your Wishes.

Until And Unless You Discover That Money Is The Root Of All Good, You Ask For Your Own Destruction. When Money Ceases To Become The Means By Which Men Deal With One Another, Then Men Become The Tools Of Other Men. Blood, Whips And Guns--or Dollars. Take Your Choice--there Is No Other.

Just As Man's Physical Existence Was Liberated When He Grasped That 'nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed', So His Consciousness Will Be Liberated When Grasps That Nature, To Be Apprehended, Must Be Obeyed - That The Rules Of Cognition Must Be Derived From The Nature Of Existence And The Nature, The Identity, Of His Cognitive Faculty.

The Truth Is Not For All Men, But Only For Those Who Seek It.

It Is My Eyes Which See, And The Sight Of My Eyes Grants Beauty To The Earth. It Is My Ears Which Hear, And The Hearing Of My Ears Gives Its Song To The World. It Is My Mind Which Thinks, And The Judgement Of My Mind Is The Only Searchlight That Can Find The Truth. It Is My Will Which Chooses, And The Choice Of My Will Is The Only Edict I Must Respect.

I Love You, Dominique. As Selfishly As The Fact That I Exist. As Selfishly As My Lungs Breathe Air. I Breathe For My Own Necessity, For The Fuel Of My Body, For My Survival. I've Given You, Not My Sacrifice Or My Pity, But My Ego And My Naked Need. This Is The Only Way I Can Want You To Love Me.

Even If Smog Were A Risk To Human Life, We Must Remember That Life In Nature, Without Technology, Is Wholesale Death.

It's A Rare Gift, You Know, To Feel Reverence For Your Own Life And To Want The Best, The Greatest, The Highest Possible, Here, Now, For Your Very Own.

Their Eyes Were Dark And Hard And Glowing, With No Fear In Them, No Kindness And No Guilt.

Are You In A Universe Which Is Ruled By Natural Laws And, Therefore, Is Stable, Firm, Absolute - And Knowable? Or Are You In An Incomprehensible Chaos, A Realm Of Inexplicable Miracles, An Unpredictable, Unknowable Flux, Which Your Mind Is Impotent To Grasp? The Nature Of Your Actions - And Of Your Ambition - Will Be Different, According To Which Set Of Answers You Come To Accept.

Ethics Is A Code Of Values Which Guide Our Choices And Actions And Determine The Purpose And Course Of Our Lives.

One Of The Most Destructive Anti-concepts In The History Of Moral Philosophy Is The Term 'duty.

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.

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?

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.

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

Freedom Of Association Includes The Freedom Not To Associate.

In That World, You'll Be Able To Rise In The Morning With The Spirit You Had Known In Your Childhood: That Spirit Of Eagerness, Adventure And Certainty Which Comes From Dealing With A Rational Universe.

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

There’s No Way To Rule Innocent Men. The Only Power Any Government Has Is The Power To Crack Down On Criminals. Well, When There Aren’t Enough Criminals, One Makes Them. One Declares So Many Things To Be A Crime That It Becomes Impossible For Me To Live Without Breaking Laws. Who Wants A Nation Of Law-abiding Citizens? What’s There In That For Anyone? But Just Pass The Kind Of Laws That Can Neither Be Observed Or Enforced Nor Objectively Interpreted - And You Create A Nation Of Law-breakers - And Then You Cash In On Guilt.

Parties Are Intended To Be Celebrations, And Celebrations Should Be Only For Those Who Have Something To Celebrate.

Devotion To The Truth Is The Hallmark Of Morality; There Is No Greater, Nobler, More Heroic Form Of Devotion Than The Act Of A Man Who Assumes The Responsibility Of Thinking.

For They Have Nothing To Fight Me With, Save The Brute Force Of Their Numbers. I Have My Mind.

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 Creator's Concern Is The Conquest Of Nature. The Parasite's Concern Is The Conquest Of Men.

People Create Their Own Questions Because They Are Afraid To Look Straight. All You Have To Do Is Look Straight And See The Road, And When You See It, Don't Sit Looking At It - Walk.

But I Still Wonder How It Was Possible, In Those Graceless Years Of Transition, Long Ago, That Men Did Not See Whither They Were Going, And Went On, In Blindness And Cowardice, To Their Fate. I Wonder, For It Is Hard For Me To Conceive How Men Who Knew The Word "i," Could Give It Up And Not Know What They Lost. But Such Has Been The Story, For I Have Lived In The City Of The Damned, And I Know What Horror Men Permitted To Be Brought Upon Them.

It Stands To Reason That If Sacrifices Are Being Given, Somebody Is Collecting Sacrifices.

Man Is A Being With Free Will; Therefore, Each Man Is Potentially Good Or Evil, And It's Up To Him And Only Him (through His Reasoning Mind) To Decide Which He Wants To Be.

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. The Political Goal Presupposes The Two Others. The Human Characteristic Required By Statism Is Docility, Which Is The Product Of Hopelessness And Intellectual Stagnation. Thinking Men Cannot Be Ruled; Ambitious Men Do Not Stagnate.

It Is Not Advisable To Venture Unsolicited Opinions. You Should Spare Yourself The Embarrassing Discovery Of Their Exact Value To Your Listener.

The More You Learn, The More You Know That You Know Nothing.

We Are On Strike Against The Doctrine That Life Is Guilt.

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.

Money Is The Barometer Of A Society's Virtue.

She Smiled. She Knew She Was Dying. But It Did Not Matter Any Longer. She Had Known Something Which No Human Words Could Ever Tell And She Knew It Now. She Had Been Awaiting It And She Felt It, As If It Had Been, As If She Had Lived It. Life Had Been, If Only Because She Had Known It Could Be, And She Felt It Now As A Hymn Without Sound, Deep Under The Little Whole That Dripped Red Drops Into The Snow, Deeper Than That From Which The Red Drops Came. A Moment Or An Eternity- Did It Matter? Life, Undefeated, Existed And Could Exist. She Smiled, Her Last Smile, To So Much That Had Been Possible.

Now Look At Me! Take A Good Look! I Was Born And I Knew I Was Alive And I Knew What I Wanted. What Do You Think Is Alive In Me? Why Do You Think I'm Alive? Because I Have A Stomach And Eat And Digest The Food? Because I Breathe And Work And Produce More Food To Digest? Or Because I Know What I Want, And That Something Which Knows How To Want—isn't That Life Itself? And Who—in This Damned Universe—who Can Tell Me Why I Should Live For Anything But For That Which I Want?

The Man Who Lets A Leader Prescribe His Course Is A Wreck Being Towed To The Scrap Heap.

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

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

She Knew That She Could Not Have Reached This White Serenity Except As The Sum Of All The Colors, Of All The Violence She Had Known.

Man—every Man—is An End In Himself, Not A Means To The Ends Of Others; He Must Live For His Own Sake, Neither Sacrificing Himself To Others Nor Sacrificing Others To Himself; He Must Work For His Rational Self-interest, With The Achievement Of His Own Happiness As The Highest Moral Purpose Of His Life.

A Culture Is Made — Or Destroyed — By Its Articulate Voices.

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.

Whoever, To Whatever Purpose Or Extent, Initiates The Use Of Force, Is A Killer Acting On The Premise Of Death In A Manner Wider Than Murder: The Premise Of Destroying Man's Capacity To Live.

Nobody Stays Here By Faking Reality In Any Manner Whatever.

What I Want You To Understand, Is The Full Evil Of Those Who Claim To Have Become Convinced That This Earth, By Its Nature, Is A Realm Of Malevolence Where The Good Has No Chance To Win. Let Them Check Their Premises. Let Them Check Their Standards Of Value. Let Them Check - Before They Grant Themselves The Unspeakable License Of Evil-as-necessity - Whether They Know What Is The Good And What Are The Conditions It Requires.

I Can't Compete And When I Do, The Rules Of Engagement Change In The Middle Of The Game. I'll Let The Powers That Be Vanquish Themselves And Return In Three To Five Years To Sift Through The Remains.

Collectivism Answers: The Power Of Society Is Unlimited. Society May Make Any Laws It Wishes, And Force Them Upon Anyone In Any Manner It Wishes.

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

Potentially, A Government Is The Most Dangerous Threat To Man's Rights; It Holds A Legal Monopoly On The Use Of Physical Force Against Legally Disarmed Victims. When Unlimited And Unrestricted By Individual Rights, A Government Is Man's Deadliest Enemy. It Is Not As Protection Against Private Actions, But Against Governmental Actions That The Bill Of Rights Was Written.

When A Man Feels Fear Without Reason, You Call Him To The Attention Of A Psychiatrist; You Are Not So Careful To Protect The Meaning, The Nature And The Dignity Of Love.

[what For] Was The First Question He Asked About Any Activity Proposed To Him - And Nothing Would Make Him Act, If He Found No Valid Answer. He Flew Through The Days Of His Summer Month Like A Rocket, But If One Stopped Him In Mid-flight, He Could Always Name The Purpose Of His Every Random Moment. Two Things Were Impossible To Him: To Stand Still Or To Move Aimlessly.

Capitalism Is Our Only Moral System. All Other Systems Take Advantage Of Man's Rights And Liberties.

But What Man Does Out Of Despair, Is Not Necessarily A Key To His Character. I Have Always Thought That The Real Key Is In That Which He Seeks For His Enjoyment.

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

Since A Rational Man's Ambition Is Unlimited, Since His Pursuit And Achievement Of Values Is A Life-long Process — And The Higher The Values, The Harder The Struggle — He Needs A Moment, An Hour Or Some Period Of Time In Which He Can Experience The Sense Of His Completed Task, The Sense Of Living In A Universe Where His Values Have Been Successfully Achieved.

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

That Which Is Not Worth Contemplating In Life, Is Not Worth Recreating In Art.

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.

Reason Can Be Fought With Reason. How Are You Going To Fight The Unreasonable? The Trouble With You, My Dear, And With Most People, Is That You Don’t Have Sufficient Respect For The Senseless. The Senseless Is The Major Factor In Our Lives. You Have No Chance If It Is Your Enemy.

Do Not Ever Say That The Desire To 'do Good' By Force Is A Good Motive. Neither Power-lust Nor Stupidity Are Good Motives.

It Is My Eyes Which See, And The Sight Of My Eyes Grants Beauty To The Earth.

It's Because...you See, If We Had Souls, Which We Haven't, And If Our Souls Met--yours And Mine--they'd Fight To The Death. But After They Had Torn Each Other To Pieces, To The Very Bottom, They'd See That They Had The Same Root.

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?

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.

The Three Of Them Set Out Every Morning On Adventures Of Their Own Kind. Once, An Elderly Professor Of Literature, Mrs. Taggart's Friend, Saw Them On Top Of A Pile In A Junk Yard, Dismantling The Carcass Of An Automobile. He Stopped, Shook His Head And Said To Francisco, 'a Young Man Of Your Position Ought To Spend His Time In Libraries, Absorbing The Culture Of The World.' 'what Do You Think I'm Doing?' Asked Francisco.

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

Errors Of Knowledge Are Not Breaches Of Morality; No Proper Moral Code Can Demand Infallibility Or Omniscience.

The Evasion Of Responsibility Is The Major Cause Of Most Peoples Frustrations And Defeats.

Value Is That Which One Acts To Gain And/or Keep. Virtue Is The Act By Which One Aims And/or Keeps It.

Money Is The Root Of All Good.

To Preserve One's Mind Intact Through A Modern College Education Is A Test Of Courage And Endurance, But The Battle Is Worth It And The Stakes Are The Highest Possible To Man: The Survival Of Reason.

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

I Want To Know That I've Accomplished Something. I Want To Feel That It Had Some Meaning. At The Last Summing Up, I Want To Be Sure It Wasn't All-for Nothing.

By What He Chooses To Present And By How He Presents It, Any Author Expresses His Fundamental, Metaphysical Values.

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.

In This World, Either You're Virtuous Or You Enjoy Yourself. Not Both, Lady, Not Both.

Because I Never Have Any Definite Destination. This Ship Is Not For Going To Places, But For Getting Away From Them. When I Stop At A Port, It's Only For The Sheer Pleasure Of Leaving It. I Always Think: Here's One More Place That Can't Hold Me.

He Never Felt Lonliness Except When He Was Happy.

America's Abundance Was Created Not By Public Sacrifices To The Common Good, But By The Productive Genius Of Free Men Who Pursued Their Own Personal Interests And The Making Of Their Own Private Fortunes. They Did Not Starve The People To Pay For America's Industrialization. They Gave The People Better Jobs, Higher Wages, And Cheaper Goods With Every New Machine They Invented, With Every Scientific Discovery Or Technological Advance- And Thus The Whole Country Was Moving Forward And Profiting, Not Suffering, Every Step Of The Way.

You Don't Love Causes. You Don't Love Everybody Indiscriminately. You Love Only Those Who Deserve It.

I Sat There Beside Him Till Morning - And As I Watched His Face In The Starlight, Then The First Ray Of The Sun On His Untroubled Forehead And Closed Eyelids, What I Experienced Was Not A Prayer, I Do Not Pray, But That State Of Spirit At Which A Prayer Is A Misguided Attempt: A Full, Confident, Affirming Self-dedication To My Love Of The Right, To The Certainty That The Right Would Win And That This Boy Would Have The Kind Of Future He Deserved... I Did Not Expect It To Be As Great As This - Or As Hard.

It Is Not Fools That I Seek To Address.

The Great Creators - The Thinkers, The Artists, The Scientists, The Inventors - Stood Alone Against The Men Of Their Time. Every Great New Thought Was Opposed. Every Great New Invention Was Denounced. The First Motor Was Considered Foolish. The Airplane Was Considered Impossible... But The Men Of Unborrowed Vision Went Ahead. They Fought, They Suffered And They Paid. But They Won.

If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Overdoing.

Every Major Horror Of History Was Committed In The Name Of An Altruistic Motive. Has Any Act Of Selfishness Ever Equalled The Carnage Perpetrated By Disciples Of Altruism.

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

The Right To Vote Is A Consequence, Not A Primary Cause, Of A Free Social System - And Its Value Depends On The Constitutional Structure Implementing And Strictly Delimiting The Voters' Power; Unlimited Majority Rule Is An Instance Of The Principle Of Tyranny.

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

The Verdict You Pronounce Upon The Source Of Your Livelihood Is The Verdict You Pronounce Upon Your Life.

If A Man Wants Love He Should Correct His Weaknesses, Or His Flaws, And He May Deserve It. But He Cannot Expect The Unearned, Either In Love Or In Money; Either In Matter Or In Spirit.

When Intellectual Leaders Fail To Foster The Best In The Mixed, Unformed, Vacillating Character Of People At Large, The Thugs Are Sure To Bring Out The Worst. When The Ablest Men Turn Into Cowards, The Average Men Turn Into Brutes.

From The Smallest Necessity To The Highest Religious Abstraction, From The Wheel To The Skyscraper, Everything We Are And Everything We Have Comes From One Attribute Of Man - The Function Of His Reasoning Mind.

I Am A Man Who Does Not Exist For Others.

When You Have Civilized Men Fighting Savages, You Support The Civilized Men, No Matter Who They Are.

Existence Is Identity, Consciousness Is Identification.

Andrei, Did You Like The Opera?" "not Particularly." "andrei, Do You See What You're Missing?" "i Don't Think I Do, Kira. It's All Rather Silly. And Useless." "can't You Enjoy Things That Are Useless, Merely Because They Are Beautiful?" "no. But I Enjoyed It." "the Music?" "no. The Way You Listened To It.

The Sky Is Like A Black Sieve Pierced By Silver Drops That Tremble, Ready To Burst Through.

It's The Person Who Would Sell His Soul For A Nickel, Who Is Loudest In Proclaiming His Hatred Of Money.... Let Me Give You A Tip On Men's Characters: The Man Who Damns Money Has Obtained It Dishonorably; The Man Who Respects It Has Earned It. Run For Your Life From Any Man Who Tells You That Money Is Evil. That Sentence Is The...bell Of An Approaching Looter.

In A Fully Free Society, Taxation-or, To Be Exact, Payment For Governmental Services-would Be Voluntary.

Individualism Regards Man-every Man-as An Independent, Sovereign Entity Who Possesses An Inalienable Right To His Own Life, A Right Derived From His Nature As A Rational Being.

Happiness Is That State Of Consciousness Which Proceeds From The Achievement Of One's Values.

Or Did You Say It's The Love Of Money That's The Root Of All Evil? To Love A Thing Is To Know Its Nature. To Love Money Is To Known And Love The Fact That Money Is The Creation Of The Best Power Within You, And Your Passkey To Trade Your Effort For The Effort Of The Best Among Men. It's The Person Who Would Sell His Soul For A Nickel, Who Is Loudest In Proclaiming His Hatred Of Money - And He Has Good Reason To Hate It. The Lovers Of Money Are Willing To Work For It. They Know They Are Able To Deserve It.

In A Capitalist Society, All Human Relationships Are Voluntary. Men Are Free To Cooperate Or Not, To Deal With One Another Or Not, As Their Own Individual Judgments, Convictions And Interests Dictate.

Ask Yourself Whether The Dream Of Heaven And Greatness Should Be Waiting For Us In Our Graves - Or Whether It Should Be Ours Here And Now And On This Earth.

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

Faith Is The Wors Curse Of Mankind, As The Exact Antithesis And Enemy Of Thought.

This Miracle Of Me Is Mine To Own And Keep, And Mine To Guard, And Mine To Use, And Mine To Kneel Before.

I Think, Therefore I'll Think.

The Man Who Produces While Others Dispose Of His Product Is A Slave.

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.

No Happy Person Can Be Quite So Impervious To Pain (gail Wynand To Dominique Francon)

Roark Smiled, "gail, If This Boat Were Sinking, I'd Give My Life To Save You. Not Because It's Any Kind Of Duty. Only Because I Like You, For Reasons And Standards Of My Own. I Could Die For You. But I Couldn't And Wouldn't Live For You.

No Man Can Use His Brain To Think For Another.

Guilt Is Altruism's Stock In Trade, And The Inducing Of Guilt Is Its Only Means Of Self-perpetuati On.

You Don't Build For The Way People Live, But For The Way They Should Live. I Don't Write About People As They Are, But As They Could Be And Should Be.

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

It's So Graceless, Being A Martyr. It's Honoring Your Adversaries Too Much.

The Social System Based On And Consonant With The Altruist Morality-with The Code Of Self-sacrifice- Is Socialism, In All Or Any Of Its Variants: Fascism, Nazism, Communism. All Of Them Treat Man As A Sacrificial Animal To Be Immolated For The Benefit Of The Group, The Tribe, The Society, The State.

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.

Unjust Laws Have To Be Fought Ideologically; They Cannot Be Fought Or Corrected By Means Of Mere Disobedience And Futile Martyrdom.

Through All The Years That I Spent Formulating My Philosophical System, I Was Looking Desperately For “intelligent Agreement” Or At Least For “intelligent Disagreement.” I Found Neither. Today, I Am Not Looking For “intelligent Disagreement” Any Longer ... What I Am Looking For Is Intelligent Agreement.

A Rational Man Never Distorts Or Corrupts His Own Standards And Judgment In Order To Appeal To The Irrationality, Stupidity, Or Dishonesty Of Others.

Independence Is The Recognition Of The Fact That Yours Is The Responsibility Of Judgment And Nothing Can Help You Escape It-that No Substitute Can Do Your Thinking, As No Pinch-hitter Can Live Your Life-that The Vilest Form Of Self-abasement And Self-destruction Is The Subordination Of Your Mind To The Mind Of Another, The Acceptance Of An Authority Over Your Brain, The Acceptance Of His Assertions As Facts, His Say-so As Truth, His Edicts As Middle-man Between Your Consciousness And Your Existence.

What Is Morality, She Asked. Judgement To Distinguish Right And Wrong, Vision To See The Truth, And Courage To Act Upon It, Dedication To That Which Is Good, Integrity To Stand By The Good At Any Price.

It's Not About Who's Going To Let Me; It's About Who's Going To Stop Me.

Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

The ' Pleasure' Of Being Drunk Is Obviously The Pleasure Of Escaping From The Responsibility Of Consciousness.

God... A Being Whose Only Definition Is That He Is Beyond Man's Power To Conceive.

Every Coercive Monopoly Was Created By Government Intervention Into The Economy: By Special Privileges, Such As Franchises Or Subsidies, Which Closed The Entry Of Competitors Into A Given Field, By Legislative Action.

Capitalism And Altruism Are Incompatible; They Are Philosophical Opposites; They Cannot Co-exist In The Same Man Or In The Same Society.

If One Doesn't Respect Oneself One Can Have Neither Love Nor Respect For Others.

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.

Learn To Distinguish The Difference Between Errors Of Knowledge And Breaches Of Morality

When A Man Attempts To Deal With Me By Force, I Answer Him, By Force.

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.

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.

Everyone Has The Right To Make His Own Decisions, But None Has The Right To Force His Decision On Others.

Rulers Exist Entirely Through The Persons Of Others. Their Goal Is In Their Subjects, In The Activity Of Enslaving. They Are As Dependent As The Beggar, The Social Worker And The Bandit. The Form Of Dependence Does Not Matter.

A Desire Presupposes The Possibility Of Action To Achieve It; Action Presupposes A Goal Which Is Worth Achieving.

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Charles M. Schwab

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