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Economic Power Is Exercised By Means Of A Positive, By Offering Men A Reward, An Incentive, A Payment, A Value; Political Power Is Exercised By Means Of A Negative, By The Threat Of Punishment, Injury, Imprisonment, Destruction. The Businessman's Tool Is Values; The Bureaucrat's Tool Is Fear.

-Ayn Rand

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Economic Power Is Exercised

Ayn Rand

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Economic Power Is Exercised By Means Of A Positive, By Offering Men A Reward, An Incentive, A Payment, A Value; Political Power Is Exercised By Means Of A Negative, By The Threat Of Punishment, Injury, Imprisonment, Destruction. The Businessman's Tool Is Values; The Bureaucrat's Tool Is Fear.

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Don't Worry. They're All Against Me. But I Have One Advantage: They Don't Know What They Want. I Do.

If Workers Struggle For Higher Wages, This Is Hailed As "social Gains", If Businessmen Struggle For Higher Profits, This Is Damned As "selfish Greed".

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.

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.

It Is The Basic, Metaphysical Fact Of Man's Nature -- The Connection Between His Survival And His Use Of Reason -- That Capitalism Recognizes And Protects.

Sacrifice Does Not Mean The Rejection Of The Worthless, But Of The Precious

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Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Stand Together. But The Creator Is The Man Who Stands Alone.

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

But This Was That View Of Human Destiny Which She Had Most Passionately Hated And Rejected: The View That Man Was Ever To Be Drawn By Some Vision Of The Unattainable Shining Ahead, Doomed Ever To Aspire, But Not To Achieve. Her Life And Her Values Could Not Bring Her To That, She Thought; She Had Never Found Beauty In Longing For The Impossible And Had Never Found The Possible To Be Beyond Her Reach.

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.

Altruism Declares That Any Action Taken For The Benefit Of Others Is Good, And Any Action Taken For One's Own Benefit Is Evil. Thus The Beneficiary Of An Action Is The Only Criterion Of Moral Value - And So Long As That Beneficiary Is Anybody Other Than Oneself, Anything Goes.

Capitalism Is Not The System Of The Past; It Is The System Of The Future -- If Mankind Is To Have A Future

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Black And White

To The Extent To Which A Man Is Rational, Life Is The Premise Directing His Actions. To The Extent To Which He Is Irrational, The Premise Directing His Actions Is Death.

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

This Was The Great Clarity Of Being Beyond Emotion, After The Reward Of Having Felt Everything One Could Feel.

The Lust That Drives Others To Enslave An Empire, Had Become, In Her Limits, A Passion For Power Over Him. She Had Set Out To Break Him, As If, Unable To Equal His Value, She Could Surpass It By Destroying It, As If The Measure Of His Greatness Would Thus Become The Measure Of Hers, As If The Vandal Who Smashed A Statue Were Greater Than The Artist Who Had Made It, As If The Murderer Who Killed A Child Were Greater Than The Mother Who Had Given It Birth.

A Good Quotation Must Be A Complete Entity. It Must Be Like A Headline - Sharp, Clear, Whole.

The Genius Must Have His Freedom And His Independence.

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A Rational Process Is A Moral Process.

Great Men Can't Be Ruled.

Why No. I’m Too Conceited. If You Want To Call It That. I Don’t Make Comparisons. I Never Think Of Myself In Relation To Anyone Else. I Just Refuse To Measure Myself As Part Of Anything. I’m An Utter Egotist.

The Truly And Deliberately Evil Men Are A Very Small Minority; It Is The Appeaser Who Unleashes Them On Mankind; It Is The Appeaser's Intellectual Abdication That Invites Them To Take Over. When A Culture's Dominant Trend Is Geared To Irrationality, The Thugs Win Over The Appeasers. 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.

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.

I Don't Want To See You. I Don't Like You. I Don't Like Your Face. You Look Like An Insufferable Egotist. You're Impertinent. You're Too Sure Of Yourself. Twenty Years Ago I Would Have Punched Your Face With The Greatest Of Pleasure.

Ever Since Kant Divorced Reason From Reality, His Intellectual Descendants Have Been Diligently Widening The Breach.

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

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

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A Leash Is A Rope With A Noose At Both Ends.

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Self Confidence

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A Man's Rights Are Not Violated By A Private Individual's Refusal To Deal With Him.

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... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

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

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Progress Of Society

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The Evil Of The World Is Made Possible By Nothing But The Sanction You Give It.

I Don't Wish To Be The Symbol Of Anything. I'm Only Myself.

I Loathe Your Ideals Because I Know No Worse Injustice Than The Giving Of The Undeserved.

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If A Society Is To Be Free, Its Government Has To Be Controlled.

Do Not Make The Mistake...of Thinking That A Worker Is A Slave And That He Holds His Job By His Employer's Permission. He Does Not Hold It By Permission - But By Contract, That Is, By A Voluntary Mutual Agreement. A Worker Can Quit His Job; A Slave Cannot.

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

Do Not Set Out To Write With Your Eyes On The Box Office. It Can't Be Done.

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.

Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Agree With Others. But The Creator Is The Man Who Disagrees. Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Swim With The Current. But The Creator Is The Man Who Goes Against The Current. Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Stand Together. But The Creator Is The Man Who Stands Alone.

Do Not Help Your Jailers To Pretend That Their Jail Is Your Natural State Of Existence.

Money Will Not Purchase Happiness For The Man Who Has No Concept Of What He Wants.

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.

All "public Interest' Legislation (and Any Distribution Of Money Taken By Force From Some Men For The Unearned Benefit Of Others) Comes Down Ultimately To The Grant Of An Undefined Undefinable, Non-objective, Arbitrary Power To Some Government Officials. The Worst Aspect Of It Is Not That Such A Power Can Be Used Dishonestly, But That It Cannot Be Used Honestly. The Wisest Man In The World, With The Purest Integrity, Cannot Find A Criterion For The Just, Equitable, Rational Application Of An Unjust, Inequitable, Irrational Principle.

I Worship Individuals For Their Highest Possibilities As Individuals And I Loathe Humanity For Its Failure To Live Up To These Possibilities.

He Had A Big Head And A Face So Ugly It Became Almost Fascinating.

Look Around You And Look At History. You Will See The Achievements Of Man’s Mind. You Will See Man’s Unlimited Potentiality For Greatness, And The Faculty That Makes It Possible. You Will See That Man Is Not A Helpless Monster By Nature, But He Becomes One When He Discards That Faculty: His Mind. And If You Ask Me, What Is Greatness? I Will Answer, It Is The Capacity To Live By The Three Fundamental Values Of John Galt: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

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The Action Required To Sustain Human Life Is Primarily Intellectual; Everything Man Needs Has To Be Discovered By His Mind And Produced By His Effort.

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

Don't Bother To Examine A Folly-ask Yourself Only What It Accomplishes.

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.

The Important Consideration Is Not Your Opponents, But Yourself. It Is Bad To Scream At Them, Not Because It Hurts Them, They Ought To Be Hurt, But Because It Hurts You. Anger Is A Form Of Recognition. It Amounts To Admitting That Those People Are Important To You And That They Have The Power To Hurt You. Actually, They Haven't.

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.

It Is Easier To Donate A Few Thousand To Charity And Think Oneself Noble Than To Base Self-respect On Personal Standards Of Personal Achievement.

In All Proper Relationships There Is No Sacrifice Of Anyone To Anyone. An Architect Needs Clients, But He Does Not Subordinate His Work To Their Wishes. They Need Him, But They Do Not Order A House Just To Give Him Commission. Men Exchange Their Work By Free, Mutual Consent To Mutual Advantage When Their Personal Interests Agree And They Both Desire The Exchange.

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

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My Happiness Is Not The Means To Any End. It Is The End. It Is Its Own Goal. It Is Its Own Purpose.

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.

There Can Be No Justification For Choosing Any Part Of That Which One Knows To Be Evil.

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

To Abstain From Condemning A Torturer, Is To Become An Accessory To The Torture And Murder Of His Victims.

The Difference Between [socialism And Fascism] Is Superficial And Purely Formal, But It Is Significant Psychologically: It Brings The Authoritarian Nature Of A Planned Economy Crudely Into The Open. The Main Characteristic Of Socialism (and Of Communism) Is Public Ownership Of The Means Of Production, And, Therefore, The Abolition Of Private Property. The Right To Property Is The Right Of Use And Disposal. Under Fascism, Men Retain The Semblance Or Pretense Of Private Property, But The Government Holds Total Power Over Its Use And Disposal.

The Man Who Attempts To Live For Others Is A Dependent. He Is A Parasite In Motive And Makes Parasites Of Those He Serves.

Live For Others

Rationalization Is A Cover-up, A Process Of Providing One's Emotions With A False Identity, Of Giving Them Spurious Explanations And Justifications - In Order To Hide One's Motives, Not Just From Others, But Primarily From Oneself. The Price Of Rationalizing Is The Hampering, The Distortion, And, Ultimately, The Destruction Of One's Cognitive Faculty. Rationalization Is A Process Not Of Perceiving Reality, But Of Attempting To Make Reality Fit One's Emotions.

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

Productiveness Is Your Acceptance Of Morality, Your Recognition Of The Fact That You Choose To Live-that Productive Work Is The Process By Which Man's Consciousness Controls His Existence, A Constant Process Of Acquiring Knowledge And Shaping Matter To Fit One's Purpose, Of Translating An Idea Into Physical Form, Of Remaking The Earth In The Image Of One's Values-that All Work Is Creative Work If Done By A Thinking Mind.

What Objectivity And The Study Of Philosophy Requires Is Not An 'open Mind,' But An Active Mind - A Mind Able And Eagerly Willing To Examine Ideas, But To Examine Them Criticially.

You Still Love Me - Even If There's One Expression Of It That You Will Always Feel And Want, But Will Not Give Me No Longer. I'm Still What I Was, And You'll Always See It, And You'll Always Grant Me The Same Response, Even If There's A Greater One That You Grant Another Man. No Matter What You Feel For Him, It Will Not Change What You Feel For Me, And It Won't Treason To Either, Because It Comes From The Same Root, It's The Same Payment In Answer To The Same Values.

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.

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.

The Right To Agree With Others Is Not A Problem In Any Society; It Is The Right To Disagree That Is Crucial. It Is The Institution Of Private Property That Protects And Implements The Right To Disagree - And Thus Keeps The Road Open To Man's Most Valuable Attribute: The Creative Mind.

The American Businessmen, As A Class, Have Demonstrated The Greatest Productive Genius And The Most Spectacular Achievements Ever Recorded In The Economic History Of Mankind. What Reward Did They Receive From Our Culture And Its Intellectuals? The Position Of A Hated, Persecuted Minority. The Position Of A Scapegoat For The Evils Of The Bureaucrats.

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.

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

Every Honest Man Lives For Himself. Every Man Worth Calling A Man Lives For Himself. The One Who Doesn't - Doesn't Live At All.

Morality Pertains Only To The Sphere Of Man's Free Will - Only To Those Actions Which Are Open To His Choice.

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

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

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values.

We Are All Brothers Under The Skin - And I, For One, Would Be Willing To Skin Humanity To Prove It.

She's A Writer. The Kind Of Writer Who Wouldn't Be Published Outside. She Believes That When One Deals With Words, One Deals With The Mind.

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.

The Man Of Authentic Self-confidence Is The Man Who Relies On The Judgment Of His Own Mind. Such A Man Is Not Malleable; He May Be Mistaken, He May Be Fooled In A Given Instance, But He Is Inflexible In Regard To The Absolutism Of Reality, I.e., In Seeking And Demanding Truth.

One Must Never Allow Oneself To Acquire An Exaggerated Sense Of One's Own Importance. There's No Necessity To Burden Oneself With Absolutes

I Am A Man Who Does Not Exist For Others.

They Proclaim That Every Man Is Entitled To Exist Without Labor And, The Laws Of Reality To The Contrary Notwithstanding, Is Entitled To Receive His 'minimum Sustenance' His Food, His Clothes, His Shelter With No Effort On His Part, As His Due And His Birthright. To Receive It From Whom.

It's Not A Question Of Who Will Allow Me To Do It, It's A Question Of Who Will Stop Me.

Observe How Many People Evade, Rationalize And Drive Their Minds Into A State Of Blind Stupor, In Dread Of Discovering That Those They Deal With- Their "loved Ones" Or Friends Or Business Associates Or Political Rulers- Are Not Merely Mistaken, But Evil. Observe That This Dread Leads Them To Sanction, To Help And To Spread The Very Evil Whose Existence They Fear To Acknowledge.

Since Religion Is A Primitive Form Of Philosophy — An Attempt To Offer A Comprehensive View Of Reality — Many Of Its Myths Are Distorted, Dramatized Allegories Based On Some Element Of Truth, Some Actual, If Profoundly Elusive, Aspect Of Man's Existence.

Never Ask People. Not About Your Work. Don't You Know What You Want? How Can You Stand It, Not To Know?

You Have Been Called Selfish For The Courage Of Acting On Your Own Judgement And Bearing Sole Responsibility For Your Own Life. You Have Been Called Arrogant For Your Independent Mind. You Have Been Called Cruel For Your Unyielding Integrity. You Have Been Calle Anti Social For The Vision That Made You Venture Upon Undiscovered Roads.

The Concept Of Free Competition Enforced By Law Is A Grotesque Contradiction In Terms.

You Will Follow Me, If We Are What We Are, You And I, If We Live, If The World Exists, If You Know The Meaning Of This Moment And Can't Let It Slip By, As Others Let It Slip, Into The Senselessness Of The Unwilled And Unreached.

If It Were True That Men Could Achieve Their Good By Means Of Turning Some Men Into Sacrificial Animals, And ... If I Were Asked To Serve The Interests Of Society Apart From, Above And Against My Own I Would Refuse... I Would Fight In The Full Confidence Of The Justice Of My Battle And Of A Living Being's Right To Exist.

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.

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

...if Peace Were The Goal Of Today's Intellectuals, A Failure Of That Magnitude -- And The Evidence Of Unspeakable Suffering On So Large A Scale -- Would Make Them Pause And Check Their Statist Premises. Instead, Blind To Everything But Their Hatred For Capitalism, They Are Now Asserting That 'poverty Breeds Wars' ... But The Question Is: What Breeds Poverty? If You Look A The World Of Today And If You Look Back At History, You Will See The Answer: The Degree Of A Country's Freedom Is The Degree Of Its Prosperity.

All Work Is An Act Of Philosophy.

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

If [people] Place Such Things As Friendship And Family Ties Above Their Own Productive Work, Yes, Then They Are Immoral. Friendship, Family Life And Human Relationships Are Not Primary In A Man's Life. A Man Who Places Others First, Above His Own Creative Work, Is An Emotional Parasite.

Productive Work

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.

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

You're Not Sorry. You Could've Been Here If You Made The Effort. But When Did You Ever Make An Effort For Anybody But Yourself? You're Not Interested In Any Of Us Or In Anything We Do. You Think If You Pay The Bills, That's Enough, Don't You? Money! That's All You Know. And All You Give Us Is Money. Have You Even Given Us Any Time?

In Proportion To The Mental Energy He Spent, The Man Who Creates A New Invention Receives But A Small Percentage Of His Value In Terms Of Material Payment, No Matter What Fortune He Makes, No Matter What Millions He Earns. But The Man Who Works As A Janitor In The Factory Producing That Invention, Receives An Enormous Payment In Proportion To The Mental Effort That His Job Requires Of Him. And The Same Is True Of All Men Between, On All Levels Of Ambition And Ability.

When One Turns From Reason To Faith, When One Rejects The Absolutism Of Reality, One Undercuts The Absolutism Of One's Consciousness - And One's Mind Becomes An Organ One Cannot Trust Any Longer. It Becomes What The Mystics Claim It To Be: A Tool Of Distortion.

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.

We, Equality 7-2521, Were Not Happy In Those Year In The Home Of The Students. It Was Not That The Learning Was Too Hard For Us. It Was That The Learning Was Too Easy. This Is A Great Sin, To Be Born With A Head Which Is Too Quick. It Is Not Good To Be Different From Our Brothers, But It Is Evil To Be Superior To Them. The Teachers Told Us So, And They Frowned When They Looked At Us.

There Is A Fundamental Moral Difference Between A Man Who Sees His Self-interest In Production And A Man Who Sees It In Robbery. The Evil Of A Robber Does Not Lie In The Fact That He Pursues His Own Interests, But In What He Regards As To His Own Interest; Not In The Fact That He Pursues His Values, But In What He Chose To Value; Not In The Fact That He Wants To Live, But In The Fact That He Wants To Live On A Subhuman Level.

God Help Us, Ma'am! Do You See What We Saw? We Saw That We'd Been Given A Law To Live By, A Moral Law, They Called It, Which Punished Those Who Observed It - For Observing It. The More You Tried To Live Up To It, The More You Suffered; The More You Cheated It, The Bigger Reward You Got. Your Honesty Was Like A Tool Left At The Mercy Of The Next Man's Dishonesty. The Honest Ones Paid, The Dishonest Collected. The Honest Lost, The Dishonest Won. How Long Could Men Stay Good Under This Sort Of A Law Of Goodness?

Then No Rightful Cause Was Left, And The Pain Of Anger Was Turning Into The Shameful Pain Of Submission. He Had No Right To Condemn Anyone - He Thought - To Denounce Anything, To Fight And Die Joyously, Claiming The Sanctity Of Virtue. The Broken Promises, The Unconfessed Desires, The Betrayal, The Deceit, The Lies, The Fraud - He Was Guilty Of Them All. What Form Of Corruption Could He Scorn? Degrees Do Not Matter, He Thought; One Does Not Bargain About Inches Of Evil.

The Cult Of Moral Grayness Is A Revolt Against Moral Values.

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.

There Are Four Characteristics Which Brand A Country Unmistakably As A Dictatorship: One-party Rule, Executions Without Trial Or With A Mock Trial For Political Offenses, The Nationalization Or Expropriation Of Private Property, And Censorship. A Country Guilty Of These Outrages Forfeits Any Moral Prerogatives, Any Claim To National Rights Or Sovereignty, And Becomes An Outlaw.

I Started My Life With A Single Absolute: That The World Was Mine To Shape In The Image Of My Highest Values And Never To Be Given Up To A Lesser Standard, No Matter How Long Or Hard The Struggle.

I Am Neither Foe Nor Friend To My Brothers, But Such As Each Of Them Shall Deserve Of Me. And To Earn My Love, My Brothers Must Do More Than To Have Been Born. I Do Not Grant My Love Without Reason, Nor To Any Chance Passer-by Who May Wish To Claim It. I Honor Men With My Love. But Honor Is A Thing To Be Earned.

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.

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.

Through The Dry Phases Of Calculations In Her Mind, She Noticed That She Did Have Time To Feel Something: It Was The Hard, Exhilarating Pleasure Of Action.

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

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

Rationality Is The Recognition Of The Fact That Nothing Can Alter The Truth And Nothing Can Take Precedence Over That Act Of Perceiving It.

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

The Moral Cannibalism Of All Hedonist And Altruist Doctrines Lies In The Premise That The Happiness Of One Man Necessitates The Injury Of Another.

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

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.

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.

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

Integrity Is The Recognition Of The Fact That You Cannot Fake Your Consciousness, Just As Honesty Is The Recognition Of The Fact That You Cannot Fake Existence.

Ask Anything Of Men. Ask Them To Achieve Wealth, Fame, Love, Brutality, Murder, Self-sacrifice. But Don’t Ask Them To Achieve Self-respect. They Will Hate Your Soul.

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

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out.

Overcoming Addiction

This Is Pity,” He Thought, And Then He Lifted His Head In Wonder. He Thought That There Must Be Something Terribly Wrong With A World In Which This Monstrous Feeling Is Called A Virtue.

Just As Man Can't Exist Without His Body, So No Rights Can Exist Without The Right To Translate One's Rights Into Reality, To Think, To Work And Keep The Results, Which Means: The Right Of Property.

Let Us Destroy, But Don't Let Us Pretend That We Are Commiting An Act Of Virtue.

A Society That Robs An Individual Of The Product Of His Effort ... Is Not Strictly Speaking A Society, But A Mob Held Together By Institutionalized Gang Violence.

The Argument From Intimidation Is A Confession Of Intellectual Impotence.

America's Skyscrapers Were Not Built By Public Funds Nor For A Public Purpose: They Were Built By The Energy, Initiative And Wealth Of Private Individuals For Personal Profit. And, Instead Of Impoverishing The People, These Skyscrapers, As They Rose Higher And Higher, Kept Raising The People's Standard Of Living - Including The Inhabitants Of The Slums.

The Only Proper Purpose Of A Government Is To Protect Man's Rights, Which Means: To Protect Him From Physical Violence.

Since Nature Does Not Endow All Men With Equal Beauty Or Equal Intelligence, And The Faculty Of Volition Leads Men To Make Different Choices, The Egalitarians Propose To Abolish The "unfairness" Of Nature And Of Volition, And To Establish Universal Equality In Fact - In Defiance Of Facts. It Is Not Equality Before The Law That They Seek, But Inequality: The Establishment Of An Inverted Social Pyramid, With A New Aristocracy On Top - The Aristocracy Of Non-value.

The Desire Not To Be Anything Is The Desire Not To Be.

Don't Rely On Our Knowledge Of What's Best For Your Future. We Do Know, But It Can't Be Best Until You Know It.

I Cannot Stand Tolstoy, And Reading Him Was The Most Boring Literary Duty I Ever Had To Perform, His Philosophy And His Sense Of Life Are Not Merely Mistaken, But Evil, And Yet, From A Purely Literary Viewpoint, On His Own Terms, I Have To Evaluate Him As A Good Writer.

Happiness Is A State Of Non-contradictory Joy--a Joy Without Penalty Or Guilt, A Joy That Does Not Clash With Any Of Your Values And Does Not Work For Your Own Destruction, Not The Joy Of Escaping From Your Mind, But Of Using Your Mind's Fullest Power, Not The Joy Of Faking Reality, But Of Achieving Values That Are Real, Not The Joy Of A Drunkard, But Of A Producer.

I Don't Build In Order To Have Clients. I Have Clients In Order To Build.

Economics Departments Are Dominated By Marxism, Which Is Taken Straight Or On The Rocks, In The Form Of Keynesianism.

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

Man Cannot Survive Except Through His Mind. He Comes On Earth Unarmed. His Brain Is His Only Weapon. Animals Obtain Food By Force. Man Had No Claws, No Fangs, No Horns, No Great Strength Of Muscle. He Must Plant His Food Or Hunt It. To Plant, He Needs A Process Of Thought. To Hunt, He Needs Weapons,and To Make Weapons - A Process Of Thought. From This Simplest Necessity To The Highest Religious Abstraction, From The Wheel To The Skyscraper, Everything We Are And We Have Comes From A Single Attribute Of Man -the Function Of His Reasoning Mind.

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.

When It Is Established That Government By Right Can Take Wealth From Some And Give It To Others. When A Society Establishes Criminals-by-right And Looters-by-law, Men Will Use Force To Seize The Wealth Of Disarmed Victims. Such Looters Believe It Safe To Rob Defenseless Men, Once They Have Passed A Law To Disarm Them. But Their Loot Becomes The Magnet For Other Looters, Who Get It From Them As They Got It. Then The Race Goes, Not To The Ablest At Production, But To Those Most Ruthless At Brutality. When Force Is The Standard, The Murderer Wins Over The Pickpocket.

There Can Be No Compromise On Basic Principles. There Can Be No Compromise On Moral Issues. There Can Be No Compromise On Matters Of Knowledge, Of Truth, Of Rational Conviction.

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.

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.

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out, Spark By Irreplaceable Spark In The Hopeless Swamps Of The Not-quite, The Not-yet, And The Not-at-all. Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish In Lonely Frustration For The Life You Deserved And Have Never Been Able To Reach. The World You Desire Can Be Won. It Exists.. It Is Real.. It Is Possible.. It's Yours.

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.

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.

There Is Only One Institution That Can Arrogate To Itself The Power Legally To Trade By Means Of Rubber Checks: The Government. And It Is The Only Institution That Can Mortgage Your Future Without Your Knowledge Or Consent: Government Securities (and Paper Money) Are Promissory Notes On Future Tax Receipts, I.e., On Your Future Production.

If You Saw Atlas, The Giant Who Holds The World On His Shoulders, If You Saw That He Stood, Blood Running Down His Chest, His Knees Buckling, His Arms Trembling But Still Trying To Hold The World Aloft With The Last Of His Strength, And The Greater His Effort The Heavier The World Bore Down Upon His Shoulders - What Would You Tell Him?" I…don't Know. What…could He Do? What Would You Tell Him?" To Shrug.

She Fell Asleep, Lying There, Her Hand Clasping His. Her Last Awareness, Before She Surrendered The Responsibility Of Consciousness, Was The Sense Of An Enormous Void, The Void Of A City And Of A Continent, Where She Would Never Be Able To Find The Man Whom She Had No Right To Seek.

That Which You Call Your Soul Or Spirit Is Your Consciousness, And That Which You Call 'free Will' Is Your Mind's Freedom To Think Or Not, The Only Will You Have, Your Only Freedom, The Choice That Controls All The Choices You Make And Determines Your Life And Your Character.

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