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Hank, This Is Great." "yes." He Said It Simply, Openly. There Was No Flattered Pleasure In His Voice, And No Modesty. This, She Knew, Was A Tribute To Her, The Rarest One Person Could Pay Another: The Tribute Of Feeling Free To Acknowledge One's Own Greatness, Knowing That It Is Understood.

-Ayn Rand

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Hank, This Is Great."

Ayn Rand

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Hank, This Is Great." "yes." He Said It Simply, Openly. There Was No Flattered Pleasure In His Voice, And No Modesty. This, She Knew, Was A Tribute To Her, The Rarest One Person Could Pay Another: The Tribute Of Feeling Free To Acknowledge One's Own Greatness, Knowing That It Is Understood.

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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.

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.

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.

Who Was It That Said He Needed A Fulcrum? Give Me An Unobstructed Right-of-way And I'll Show Them How To Move The Earth!

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

Show Me Your Achievement, And The Knowledge Will Give Me Courage For Mine.

Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

That An Error Made On Your Own Is Safer Than Ten Truths Accepted On Faith, Because The First Leaves You The Means To Correct It But The Second Destroys Your Capacity To Distinguish Truth From Error.

Man Holds These Rights [life, Liberty And Property], Not From The Collective Nor For The Collective, But Against The Collective - As A Barrier Which The Collective Cannot Cross... These Rights Are Man's Protection Against All Other Men.

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

Freedom, In A Political Context, Means Freedom From Government Coercion. It Does Not Mean Freedom From The Landlord, From The Employer, Or Freedom From The Laws Of Nature Which Do Not Provide Men With Automatic Prosperity. It Means Freedom From The Coercive Power Of The State ' And Nothing Else

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.

Face A Challenge And Find Joy In The Capacity To Meet It.

Not Selfishness, But Precisely The Absence Of A Self. Look At Them. The Man Who Cheats And Lies, But Preserves A Respectable Front. He Knows Himself To Be Dishonest, But Others Think He’s Honest And He Derives His Self-respect From That, Second-hand. The Man Who Takes Credit For An Achievement Which Is Not His Own. He Knows Himself To Be Mediocre, But He’s Great In The Eyes 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.

A Good Novel Is An Indivisible Sum; Every Scene, Sequence And Passage Of A Good Novel Has To Involve, Contribute To And Advance All Three Of Its Major Attributes: Theme, Plot, Characterization.

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

A Gun Is Not An Argument.

We Are On Strike Against Martyrdom—and Against The Moral Code That Demands It. We Are On Strike Against Those Who Believe That One Man Must Exist For The Sake Of Another. We Are On Strike Against The Morality Of Cannibals, Be It Practiced In Body Or In Spirit. We Will Not Deal With Men On Any Terms But Ours—and Our Terms Are A Moral Code Which Holds That Man Is An End In Himself And Not The Means To Any End Of Others.

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.

Defiance, Not Obedience, Is The American's Answer To Overbearing Authority.

He Never Felt Lonliness Except When He Was Happy.

Do You Know The Hallmark Of The Second-rater? It's Resentment Of Another Man's Achievement.

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

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

The Problem Is Not Those Who Dream, But Those Who Can Only Dream.

The Majority Of Those Who Are Loosely Identified By The Term 'liberals' Are Afraid To Let Themselves Discover That What They Advocate Is Statism. They Want To Keep All The Advantages And Effects Of Capitalism, While Destroying The Cause, And They Want To Establish Statism Without Its Necessary Effects. They Do Not Want To Know Or To Admit That They Are The Champions Of Dictatorship And Slavery.

Man's Basic Vice, The Source Of All His Evils, Is The Act Of Unfocusing His Mind, The Suspension Of His Consciousness, Which Is Not Blindness, But The Refusal To See, Not Ignorance, But The Refusal To Know.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Honor Is Self-esteem Made Visible In Action.

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.

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.

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

Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible.

Property Rights

A Conformist Is A Man Who Declares, "it's True Because Others Believe It" - But An Individualist Is Not A Man Who Declares, "it's True Because I Believe It." An Individual Declares, "i Believe It Because I See In Reason That It Is True.

Your Emotional Capacity Is An Empty Motor, And Your Values Are The Fuel With Which Your Mind Fills It. If You Choose A Mix Of Contradictions, It Will Clog Your Motor, Corrode Your Transmission And Wreck You On Your First Attempt To Move With A Machine Which You, The Driver, Have Corrupted.

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.

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.

Faith Is The Commitment Of One's Consciousness To Beliefs For Which One Has No Sensory Evidence Or Rational Proof. A Mystic Is A Man Who Treats His Feelings As Tools Of Cognition. Faith Is The Equation Of Feeling With Knowledge.

We Have Only Two Sources Of Information About The Character Of The People Around Us: We Judge Them By What They Do And By What They Say (particularly The First).

The Alleged Short-cut To Knowledge, Which Is Faith, Is Only A Short-circuit Destroying The Mind

I Want It Real. I Want To Know That There Is Someone, Somewhere, Who Wants It, Too. Or Else What Is The Use Of Seeing It, And Working, And Burning Oneself For An Impossible Vision? A Spirit, Too, Needs Fuel. It Can Run Dry

There Were Things In My Past Which I Have Not Liked. But All The Things Of Which I Was Proud Will Remain.

Whenever Destroyers Appear Among Men, They Start By Destroying Money, For Money Is Men's Protection And The Base Of A Moral Existence. Destroyers Seize Gold And Leave To Its Owners A Counterfeit Pile Of Paper. This Kills All Objective Standards And Delivers Men Into The Arbitrary Power Of An Arbitrary Setter Of Values. Gold Was An Objective Value, An Equivalent Of Wealth Produced. Paper Is A Mortgage On Wealth That Does Not Exist, Backed By A Gun Aimed At Those Who Are Expected To Produce It.

We Cannot Fight Against Collectivism, Unless We Fight Against Its Moral Base: Altruism. We Cannot Fight Against Altruism, Unless We Fight Against Its Epistemological Base: Irrationalism. We Cannot Fight Against Anything, Unless We Fight For Something--and What We Must Fight For Is The Supremacy Of Reason And A View Of Man As A Rational Being.

The Right To Life Means That A Man Has The Right To Support His Life By His Own Work (on Any Economic Level, As High As His Ability Will Carry Him); It Does Not Mean That Others Must Provide Him With The Necessities Of Life.

Don't Ever Get Angry At A Man For Stating The Truth.

Poverty Is Not A Mortgage On The Labor Of Others-misfortu Ne Is Not A Mortgage On Achievement-fai Lure Is Not A Mortgage On Success-sufferi Ng Is Not A Claim Check, And Its Relief Is Not The Goal Of Existence-man Is Not A Sacrificial Animal On Anyone’s Altar Nor For Anyone’s Cause-life Is Not One Huge Hospital.

Litigants Obey The Verdict Of A Tribunal Solely On The Premise That There Is An Objective Rule Of Conduct, Which They Both Accept.

When I Listen To A Symphony I Love, I Don't Get From It What The Composer Got. His 'yes' Was Different From Mine. He Could Have No Concern For Mine And No Exact Conception Of It. That Answer Is Too Personal To Each Man. But In Giving Himself What He Wanted, He Gave Me A Great Experience.

The Basic Need Of The Creator Is Independence. The Reasoning Mind Cannot Work Under Any Form Of Compulsion. It Cannot Be Curbed, Sacrificed Or Subordinated To Any Consideration Whatsoever. It Demands Total Independence In Function And In Motive.

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.

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

You Have No Choice About Your Capacity To Feel That Something Is Good For You Or Evil, But What You Will Consider Good Or Evil, What Will Give You Joy Or Pain, What You Will Love Or Hate, Desire Or Fear, Depends On Your Standard Of Value.

When Personal Judgment Is Inoperative (or Forbidden), Men's First Concern Is Not How To Choose, But How To Justify Their Choice

If Men Want To Oppose War, It Is Statism That They Must Oppose.

You Who Prattle That Morality Is Social And That Man Would Need No Morality On A Desert Island - It Is On A Desert Island That He Would Need It Most. Let Him Try To Claim, When There Are No Victims To Pay For It, That A Rock Is A House, That Sand Is Clothing, That Food Will Drop Into His Mouth Without Cause Or Effort, That He Will Collect A Harvest Tomorrow By Devouring His Stock Seed Today - And Reality Will Wipe Him Out, As He Deserves; Reality Will Show Him That Life Is A Value To Be Bought And That Thinking Is The Only Coin Noble Enough To Buy It.

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

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.

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.

Every Period Ruled By Mystics Was An Era Of Stagnation And Want, When Most Men Were On Strike Against Existence.

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.

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.

I Am Speaking To Those Among You Who Have Retained Some Sovereign Shred Of Their Soul, Unsold And Unstamped: '- To The Order Of Others'. If, In The Chaos Of The Motives That Have Made You Listen To The Radio Tonight, There Was An Honest, Rational Desire To Learn What Is Wrong With The World, You Are The Man Whom I Wished To Address. By The Rules And Terms Of My Code, One Owes A Rational Statement To Those Whom It Does Concern And Who Are Making An Effort To Know. Those Who Are Making An Effort To Fail To Understand Me, Are Not A Concern Of Mine.

I Don't Like People Who Speak Or Think In Terms Of Gaining Anybody's Confidence. If One's Actions Are Honest, One Does Not Need The Predated Confidence Of Others, Only Their Rational Perception. The Person Who Craves A Moral Blank Check Of That Kind, Has Dishonest Intentions, Whether He Admits It To Himself Or Not.

And Now I See The Face Of God, And I Raise This God Over The Earth, This God Whom Men Have Sought Since Men Came Into Being, This God Who Will Grant Them Joy And Peace And Pride. This God, This One Word: 'i.

I Am A Man Who Does Not Exist For Others.

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.

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.

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.

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

He Liked To Observe Emotions; They Were Like Red Lanterns Strung Along The Dark Unknown Of Another's Personality, Marking Vulnerable Points.

Style Is Not An End In Itself, It Is Only A Means To An End - The Means Of Telling A Story.

There Has Never Been A Philosophy, A Theory Or A Doctrine, That Attacked (or 'limited') Reason, Which Did Not Preach Submission To The Power Of Some Authority.

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.

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.

Serenity Comes From The Ability To Say “yes” To Existence. Courage Comes From The Ability To Say “no” To The Wrong Choices Made By Others.

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 Men To Live Without Breaking Laws.

We Are Fast Approaching The Stage Of The Ultimate Inversion: The Stage Where The Government Is Free To Do Anything It Pleases, While The Citizens May Act Only By Permission; Which Is The Stage Of The Darkest Periods Of Human History, The Stage Of Rule By Brute Force.

I Am Opposed To All Forms Of Control; I Am For An Absolute Laissez Faire, Free, Unregulated Economy. I Am For The Separation Of The State And Economics, Just As We Had Separation Of State And Church, Which Led To Peaceful Coexistence Among Different Religions...so The Same Applies To Economics. If You Separate The Government From Economics, If You Do Not Regulate Production And Trade, You Will Have Peaceful Cooperation, And Harmony And Justice Among Men.

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

Money Is The Barometer Of A Society's Virtue.

There Is Only One Source Of Authentic Self-confidence: Reason.

Self Confidence

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

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.

All Life Is A Purposeful Struggle, And Your Only Choice Is The Choice Of A Goal.

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.

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

A Chronic Lack Of Pleasure, Of Any Enjoyable, Rewarding Or Stimulating Experiences, Produces A Slow, Gradual, Day-by-day Erosion Of Man's Emotional Vitality, Which He May Ignore Or Repress, But Which Is Recorded By The Relentless Computer Of His Subconscious Mechanism That Registers An Ebbing Flow, Then A Trickle, Then A Few Last Drops Of Fuel--until The Day When His Inner Motor Stops And He Wonders Desperately Why He Has No Desire To Go On, Unable To Find Any Definable Cause Of His Hopeless, Chronic Sense Of Exhaustion.

The Code Of Competence Is The Only System Of Morality That's On A Gold Standard.

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?

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.'

But You See," Said Roark Quietly, "i Have, Let’s Say, Sixty Years To Live. Most Of That Time Will Be Spent Working. I’ve Chosen The Work I Want To Do. If I Find No Joy In It, Then I’m Only Condemning Myself To Sixty Years Of Torture. And I Can Find The Joy Only If I Do My Work In The Best Way Possible To Me. But The Best Is A Matter Of Standards—and I Set My Own Standards. I Inherit Nothing. I Stand At The End Of No Tradition. I May, Perhaps, Stand At The Beginning Of One.

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

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.

As Long As Men Are Free To Speak, A Small, Rational Minority Will Always Prevail Over An Irrational Majority.

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out.

Overcoming Addiction

Reason Is Not Automatic. Those Who Deny It Cannot Be Conquered By It. Do Not Count On Them. Leave Them Alone.

Anyone Who Fights For The Future, Lives In It Today.

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

That Love Is Reverence, And Worship, And Glory, And The Upward Glance. Not A Bandage For Dirty Sores. But They Don’t Know It. Those Who Speak Of Love Most Promiscuously Are The Ones Who’ve Never Felt It. They Make Some Sort Of Feeble Stew Out Of Sympathy, Compassion, Contempt, And General Indifference, And They Call It Love. Once You’ve Felt What It Means To Love As You And I Know It – The Total Passion For The Total Height – You’re Incapable Of Anything Less.

The Mind Is The Attribute Of Man. When Man Is Born, He Comes Into Existence With Only One Weapon With Him--the Reasoning Mind.

Every Form Has Its Own Meaning. Every Man Creates His Meaning And Form And Goal. Why Is It So Important - What Others Have Done? Why Does It Become Sacred By The Mere Fact Of Not Being Your Own? Why Is Anyone And Everyone Right - So Long As It's Not Yourself? Why Does The Number Of Those Others Take The Place Of Truth? Why Is Truth Made A Mere Matter Of Arithmetic - And Only Of Addition At That? Why Is Everything Twisted Out Of All Sense To Fit Everything Else? There Must Be Some Reason. I Don't Know. I've Never Known It. I'd Like To Understand.

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

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

I Love You. As The Same Value, As The Same Expression, With The Same Pride And The Same Meaning As I Love My Work, My Mills, My Metal, My Hours At A Desk, At A Furnace, In A Laboratory, In An Ore Mine, As I Love My Ability To Work, As I Love The Act Of Sight And Knowledge, As I Love The Action Of My Mind When It Solves A Chemical Equation Or Grasps A Sunrise, As I Love The Things I've Made And The Things I've Felt, As *my* Product, As *my* Choice, As A Shape Of My World, As My Best Mirror, As The Wife I've Never Had, As That Which Makes All The Rest Of It Possible: As My Power To Live.

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

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

I Am Older Than You. Believe Me, There Is No Other Way To Live On Earth. Men Are Not Open To Truth Or Reason. They Cannot Be Reached By A Rational Argument. The Mind Is Powerless Against Them. Yet We Have To Deal With Them. If We Want To Accomplish Anything, We Have To Deceive Them Into Letting Us Accomplish It. Or Force Them. They Understand Nothing Else. We Cannot Expect Their Support For Any Endeavor Of The Intellect, For Any Goal Of The Spirit. They Are Nothing But Vicious Animals. They Are Greedy, Self-indulgent, Predatory Dollar-chasers

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.

One Of The Methods Used By Statists To Destroy Capitalism Consists In Establishing Controls That Tie A Given Industry Hand And Foot, Making It Unable To Solve Its Problems, Then Declaring That Freedom Has Failed And Stronger Controls Are Necessary.

Contrary To The Vulgar Belief That Men Are Motivated Primarily By Materialistic Considerations, We Now See The Capitalist System Being Discredited And Destroyed All Over The World, Even Though This System Has Given Men The Greatest Material Comforts.

When Man Learns To Understand And Control His Own Behavior As Well As He Is Learning To Understand And Control The Behavior Of Crop Plants And Domestic Animals, He May Be Justified In Believing That He Has Become Civilized.

Courage And Confidence Are Practical Necessities . . . Courage Is The Practical Form Of Being True To Existence, Of Being True To Truth, And Confidence Is The Practical Form Of Being True To One’s Own Consciousness.

He Stepped To The Window And Pointed To The Skyscrapers Of The City. He Said That We Had To Extinguish The Lights Of The World, And When We Would See The Lights Of New York Go Out, We Would Know That Our Job Was Done.

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

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.

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

The Only Proper, Moral Purpose Of A Government Is To Protect Man's Rights, Which Means: To Protect Him From Physical Violence - To Protect His Right To His Own Life, To His Own Liberty, To His Own Property And To The Pursuit Of His Own Happiness. Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible.

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

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

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

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.

I Think. I Am. I Will.

You Have Chosen To Risk Your Lives For The Defense Of This Country. I Will Not Insult You By Saying That You Are Dedicated To Selfless Service--it Is Not A Virtue In My Morality. In My Morality, The Defense Of One's Country Means That A Man Is Personally Unwilling To Live As The Conquered Slave Of Any Enemy, Foreign Or Domestic. This Is An Enormous Virtue.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Exists Possesses Identity; He Could Keep It Out Of Existence By Refusing To Identify It.

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

The Virtue Involved In Helping Those One Loves Is Not 'selflessness' Or 'sacrifice,' But Integrity.

Collectivism Is The Ancient Principle Of Savagery. ... Collectivism Is Not The 'new Order Of Tomorrow.' It Is The Order Of A Very Dark Yesterday.

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

Freedom (n.): To Ask Nothing. To Expect Nothing. To Depend On Nothing.

Independent Women

Self-esteem Is Reliance On One's Power To Think... The Man Of Authentic Self-confidence Is The Man Who Relies On The Judgment Of His Own Mind.

Self Confidence

There Is No Transgression Blacker Than To Do Or Think Alone.

Every Government Interference In The Economy Consists Of Giving An Unearned Benefit, Extorted By Force, To Some Men At The Expense Of Others.

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

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

I Dont Work With Collectives. I Don't Consult, I Don't Co-operate, I Don't Collaborate.

A Rational Mind Does Not Work Under Compulsion; It Does Not Subordinate Its Grasp Of Reality To Anyone's Orders, Directives, Or Controls; It Does Not Sacrifice Its Knowledge, Its View Of The Truth, To Anyone's Opinions, Threats, Wishes, Plans.

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.

The Only Thing That Matters My Goal My Reward My Beginning My End Is The Work Itself. My Work Done My Way. A Private Personal Selfish Egotistical Motivation. That’s The Only Way I Function. That’s All I Am.

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

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.

She Stood At The Window, Her Arms Spread Wide, Holding On To Each Side Of The Frame, It Was As If She Held A Piece Of The City.

That's A Cute Sentence: The Years To Come. Why Are You So Sure They're Coming?

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

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

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.

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

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.

Every Aspect Of Western Culture Needs A New Code Of Ethics - A Rational Ethics - As A Precondition Of Rebirth.

Western Culture

There's Something I Want You To Know,' Said Cherryl, Her Voice Taut And Harsh, 'so That There Won't Be Any Pretending About It. I'm Not Going To Put On The Sweet Relative Act. I Know What You've Done To Jim And How You've Made Him Miserable All His Life. I'm Going To Protect Him Against You. I'll Put You In Your Place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm The Woman In This Family Now.' 'that's Quite All Right,' Said Dagny. 'i'm The Man.

If You Want To Save Capitalism There Is Only One Type Of Argument That You Should Adopt, The Only One That Has Ever Won In Any Moral Issue: The Argument From Self-esteem. Check Your Premises, Convince Yourself Of The Rightness Of Your Cause, Then Fight For Capitalism With Full, Moral Certainty.

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.

The Symbol Of All Relationships Among Such Men, The Moral Symbol Of Respect For Human Beings, Is The Trader. We, Who Live By Values, Not By Loot, Are Traders, Both In Matter And In Spirit. A Trader Is A Man Who Earns What He Gets And Does Not Give Or Take The Undeserved.

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

It Does Not Matter That Only A Few In Each Generation Will Grasp And Achieve The Full Reality Of Man's Proper Stature-and The Rest Will Betray It. It Is Those Few That Move The World And Give Life Its Meaning-and It Is Those Few That I Have Always Sought To Address. The Rest Are No Concern Of Mine; It Is Not Me Or "the Fountainhead" That They Will Betray: It Is Their Own Souls.

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.

Dagny, We Can Never Lose The Things We Live For. We May Have To Change Their Form At Times, If We've Made An Error, But The Purpose Remains The Same And The Forms Are Ours To Make.

Toohey: "mr. Roark, We're Alone Here. Why Don't You Tell Me What You Think Of Me? In Any Words You Wish. No One Will Hear Us." Roark: "but I Don't Think Of You.

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.

Place Nothing Above The Verdict Of Your Own Mind.

... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

The Secret Dread Of Modern Intellectuals, Liberals And Conservatives Alike, The Unadmitted Terror At The Root Of Their Anxiety, Which All Of Their Current Irrationalities Are Intended To Stave Off And To Disguise, Is The Unstated Knowledge That Soviet Russia [was] The Full, Actual, Literal, Consistent Embodiment Of The Morality Of Altruism, That Stalin Did Not Corrupt A Noble Ideal, That This Is The Only Way Altruism Has To Be Or Can Ever Be Practiced.

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

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.

If You Write A Whole Line Of Zeroes, It's Still — Nothing.

Money Is Only A Tool. It Will Take You Wherever You Wish, But It Will Not Replace You As The Driver.

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

You Can Ignore Reality, But You Can't Ignore The Consequences Of Ignoring Reality.

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.

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

They Talked About Nothing In Particular, Sentences That Had Meaning Only In The Sound Of The Voices, In Warm Gaiety, In The Ease Of Complete Relaxation.

There Are Two Principles On Which All Men Of Intellectual Integrity And Good Will Can Agree, As A 'basic Minimum,' As A Precondition Of Any Discussion, Co-operation Or Movement Toward An Intellectual Renaissance. . . . They Are Not Axioms, But Until A Man Has Proved Them To Himself And Has Accepted Them, He Is Not Fit For An Intellectual Discussion. These Two Principles Are: A. That Emotions Are Not Tools Of Cognition; B. That No Man Has The Right To Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others.

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.

You Love Your Work. God Help You, You Love It! And Thats The Curse. That's The Brand On Your Forehead For All Of Them To See. You Love It And They Know It, And They Know They Have You. Do You Ever Look At The People In The Street? Aren't You Afraid Of Them? I Am. They Move Past You And They Wear Hats And They Carry Bundles. But That's Not The Substance Of Them. The Substance Of Them Is Hatred For Any Man Who Loves His Work. That's The Only Kind They Fear. I Don't Know Why

If A Man Speculates On What 'society' Should Do For The Poor, He Accepts Thereby The Collectivist Premise That Men's Lives Belong To Society And That He, As A Member Of Society, Has The Right To Dispose Of Them...that Psychological Confession Reveals The Enormity Of The Extent To Which Altruism Erodes Men's Capacity To Grasp The Concept Of Rights Or The Value Of An Individual Life.

It's Such A Waste To Be Subtle And Vicious With People Who Don't Even Know That You're Being Subtle And Vicious

A Businessman Cannot Force You To Buy His Product; If He Makes A Mistake, He Suffers The Consequences; If He Fails, He Takes The Loss. If Bureaucrat Makes A Mistake, You Suffer The Consequences; If He Fails, He Passes The Loss On To You.

A Culture Is Not The Anonymous Product Of Undifferentiate D Masses, But The Sum Of The Intellectual Achievements Of Individual Men.

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.

Hank, This Is Great." "yes." He Said It Simply, Openly. There Was No Flattered Pleasure In His Voice, And No Modesty. This, She Knew, Was A Tribute To Her, The Rarest One Person Could Pay Another: The Tribute Of Feeling Free To Acknowledge One's Own Greatness, Knowing That It Is Understood.

The First Society In History Whose Leaders Were Neither Attilas Nor Witch Doctors, A Society Led, Dominated And Created By The Producers, Was The United States Of America.

You Are Never Called Upon To Prove A Negative. That's A Law Of Logic.

If You Want To Feel Good, Be Rational.

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.

Do Not Open Your Mouth To Tell Me That Your Mind Has Convinced You Of Your Right To Force My Mind. Force And Mind Are Opposites. Morality Ends Where A Gun Begins.

When You See Corruption Being Rewarded And Honesty Becoming A Self-sacrifice, You May Know That Your Society Is Doomed

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.

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.

Throughout The Centuries There Were Men Who Took First Steps, Down New Roads, Armed With Nothing But Their Own Vision.

There's Nothing Of Any Importance In Life-except How Well You Do Your Work.

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