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I Stand Here On The Summit Of The Mountain. I Lift My Head And I Spread My Arms. This, My Body And Spirit, This Is The End Of The Quest. I Wished To Know The Meaning Of All Things. I Am The Meaning. I Wished To Find A Warrant For Being. I Need No Warrant For Being, And No Word Of Sanction Upon My Being. I Am The Warrant And The Sanction. Neither Am I The Means To Any End Others May Wish To Accomplish. I Am Not A Tool For Their Use. I Am Not A Servant Of Their Needs. I Am Not A Sacrifice On Their Alters.

-Ayn Rand

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I Stand Here On

Ayn Rand

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I Stand Here On The Summit Of The Mountain. I Lift My Head And I Spread My Arms. This, My Body And Spirit, This Is The End Of The Quest. I Wished To Know The Meaning Of All Things. I Am The Meaning. I Wished To Find A Warrant For Being. I Need No Warrant For Being, And No Word Of Sanction Upon My Being. I Am The Warrant And The Sanction. Neither Am I The Means To Any End Others May Wish To Accomplish. I Am Not A Tool For Their Use. I Am Not A Servant Of Their Needs. I Am Not A Sacrifice On Their Alters.

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

Suffering Of Others

Man's Character Is The Product Of His Premises.

I Came Here To Say That I Do Not Recognize Anyone's Right To One Minute Of My Life. Nor To Any Part Of My Energy. Nor To Any Achievement Of Mine. No Matter Who Makes The Claim, How Large Their Number Or How Great Their Need. I Wished To Come Here And Say That I Am A Man Who Does Not Exist For Others." - Howard Roark

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

If An Uncompromising Stand Is To Be Smeared As 'extremism,' Then That Smear Is Directed At Any Devotion To Values, Any Loyalty To Principles, Any Profound Conviction, Any Consistency, Any Steadfastness, Any Passion, Any Dedication To An Unbreached, Inviolate Truth -- Any Man Of Integrity.

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.'

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.

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

Degrees Do Not Matter... One Does Not Bargain About Inches Of Evil.

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.

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.

The Government Was Set To Protect Man From Criminals, And The Constitution Was Written To Protect Man From The Government.

Libertarian Party

An Idea Is A Light Turned On In A Man's Soul. Comic-strip Artists Are In The Habit Of Representing It By Means Of A Light Bulb Flashing On, Above The Head Of A Character Who Has Suddenly Grasped An Idea. In Simple, Primitive Terms, This Is An Appropriate Symbol.

I Cannot Be Called Upon To Know A Negative Or To Prove A Negative. If There Is A God And You Prove It, That's Fine. But You Don't Tell Me You Can't Know That There Isn't. I Would Say Yes I Know There Isn't Because I Have Been Given No Evidence.

If There Is A God

It Is A Matter Of Record That In The German Election Of 1933, The Communist Party Was Ordered By Its Leaders To Vote For The Nazis - With The Explanation That They Could Later Fight The Nazis For Power, But First They Had To Help Destroy Their Common Enemy : Capitalism And Its Parliamentary Form Of Government.

Racism Is A Doctrine Of, By And For Brutes.

Capitalism Is Based On Individual Rights - Not On The Sacrifice Of The Individual To The 'public Good' Of The Collective.

It's Not That I Don't Suffer, It's That I Know The Unimportance Of Suffering. I Know That Pain Is To Be Fought And Thrown Aside, Not To Be Accepted As Part Of One's Soul And As A Permanent Scar Across One's View Of Existence.

I Have No Faith At All. I Only Hold Convictions.

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

Live And Act Within The Limit Of Your Knowledge And Keep Expanding It To The Limit Of Your Life. Redeem Your Mind From The Hockshops Of Authority. Accept The Fact That You Are Not Omniscient, But Playing A Zombie Will Not Give You Omniscience-that Your Mind Is Fallible, But Becoming Mindless Will Not Make You Infallible-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.

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

Two World Wars, Three Monstrous Dictatorships-in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China-plus Every Lesser Variant Of Devastating Socialist Experimentation In A Global Spread Of Brutality And Despair, Have Not Prompted Modern Intellectuals To Question Or Revise Their Dogma. They Still Think That It Is Daring, Idealistic And Unconventional To Denounce The Rich. They Still Believe That Money Is The Root Of All Evil-except Government Money, Which Is The Solution To All Problems.

To Achieve, You Need Thought

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

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.

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

Selfishness Does Not Mean Only To Do Things For One's Self. One May Do Things, Affecting Others, For His Own Pleasure And Benefit. This Is Not Immoral, But The Highest Of Morality.

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

Love Is Not Self-sacrifice, But The Most Profound Assertion Of Your Own Needs And Values. It Is For Your Own Happiness That You Need The Person You Love, And That Is The Greatest Compliment, The Greatest Tribute You Can Pay To That Person.

Remember That Rights Are Moral Principles Which Define And Protect A Man's Freedom Of Action, But Impose No Obligations On Other Men.

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.

To Demand 'sense' Is The Hallmark Of Nonsense. Nature Does Not Make Sense. Nothing Makes Sense.

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

Her Face Lay Still On The Air Under His Face.

If You Agree With Some Tenets Of Objectivism, But Disagree With Others, Do Not Call Yourself An Objectivist; Give Proper Authorship Credit For The Parts You Agree With

The Nation Which Once Held The Creed That Greatness Is Achieved By Production, Is Now Told That It Is Achieved By Squalor.

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

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

But Aristotle's Philosophy Was The Intellect's Declaration Of Independence.

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.

Learn To Value Yourself, Which Means: Fight For Your Happiness.

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

Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

The Age Of The Skyscraper Is Gone. This Is The Age Of The Housing Project. Which Is Always A Prelude To The Age Of The Cave.

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.

Non-thinking Is An Act Of Annihilation, A Wish To Negate Existence, An Attempt To Wipe Out Reality. But Existence Exists; Reality Is Not To Be Wiped Out, It Will Merely Wipe Out The Wiper

What Is A Demanding Pleasure That Demands The Use Of Ones Mind! Not In The Sense Of Problem Solving, But In The Sense Of Exercising Discrimination, Judgment, Awareness.

To Love Money Is To Know 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.

Pleasure Is Nought But Virtue's Gayer Name-- I Wrong Her Still, I Rate Her Worth Too Low: Virtue The Root, And Pleasure Is The Flow'r.

There Are Two Sides To Every Issue: One Side Is Right And The Other Is Wrong, But The Middle Is Always Evil.

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

The Fact That A Man Has No Claim On Others ... Does Not Preclude Or Prohibit Good Will Among Men And Does Not Make It Immoral To Offer Or To Accept Voluntary, Non-sacrificial Assistance.

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

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

Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible.

Property Rights

Aquinas Brought An Aristotelian View Of Reason Back Into European Culture, And Lighted The Way Toward The Renaissance.

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

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

Have You Ever Felt A Potential Love For Someone? Like, You Don't Actually Love Them And You Know You Don't, But You Know You Could. You Realise That You Could Easily Fall In Love With Them. It's Almost Like The Bud Of A Flower, Ready To Blossom But It's Just Not Quite There Yet. And You Like Them A Lot, You Really Do. You Think About Them Often, But You Don't Love Them. You Could, Though. You Know You Could.

Falling In Love

If Any Civilization Is To Survive, It Is The Morality Of Altruism That Men Have To Reject.

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

You Know, I Think That Only If One Feels Immensely Important Can One Feel Truly Light.

In Order To Be In Control Of Your Life, You Have To Have A Purpose-a Productive Purpose.

Control Of Your Life

All Depressions Are Caused By Government Interference And The Cure Is Always Offered To Take More Of The Poison That Caused The Disaster. Depressions Are Not The Result Of A Free Economy.

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.

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 View That Man Was Ever To Be Drawn By Some Vision Of The Unattainable Shining Ahead, Doomed Ever To Aspire, But Not To Achieve, My Life And My Values Could Not Bring Me To That.

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

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

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

The Most Depraved Type Of Human Being ... (is) The Man Without A Purpose.

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.

Humor Is Not An Unconditional Virtue; Its Moral Character Depends On Its Object. To Laugh At The Contemptible, Is A Virtue; To Laugh At The Good, Is A Hideous Vice. Too Often, Humor Is Used As The Camouflage Of Moral Cowardice.

Great Men Can't Be Ruled.

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.

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

Competition Is A By-product Of Productive Work, Not Its Goal.

Productive Work

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.

An Artist Reveals His Naked Soul In His Work.

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

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.

She Had Won The Battle Against Her Memories. But One Form Of Torture Remained, Untouched By The Years, The Torture Of The Word "why?

A Mystic Is A Man Who Treats His Feelings As Tools Of Cognition.

I Refuse To Apologize For My Ability -- I Refuse To Apologize For My Success -- I Refuse To Apologize For My Money. If This Is Evil, Make The Most Of It.

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.

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

Words Are A Lens To Focus One's Mind.

The Man Without A Purpose Is A Man Who Drifts At The Mercy Of Random Feelings Or Unidentified Urges And Is Capable Of Any Evil, Because He Is Totally Out Of Control Of His Own Life. In Order To Be In Control Of Your Life, You Have To Have A Purpose-a Productive Purpose.

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.

If Parasitism, Favoritism, Corruption, And Greed For The Unearned Did Not Exist, A Mixed Economy Would Bring Them Into Existence.

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.

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

In Order To Live, Man Must Act; In Order To Act, He Must Make Choices; In Order To Make Choices, He Must Define A Code Of Values; In Order To Define A Code Of Values, He Must Know What He Is And Where He Is – I.e. He Must Know His Own Nature (including His Means Of Knowledge) And The Nature Of The Universe In Which He Acts – I.e. He Needs Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Which Means: Philosophy. He Cannot Escape From This Need; His Only Alternative Is Whether The Philosophy Guiding Him Is To Be Chosen By His Mind Or By Chance.

Compromise Now, Because You'll Have To Later, Anyway, Only Then You'll Have Gone Through Things You'll Wish You Hadn't.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Great Creators-the Thinkers, The Artists, The Scientists, The Inventors-stood Alone Against The Men Of Their Time.

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

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

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.

No Advocate Of Reason Can Claim The Right To Force His Ideas On Others. No Advocate Of The Free Mind Can Claim The Right To Force The Minds Of Others. No Rational Society, No Co-operation, No Agreement, No Understanding, No Discussion Are Possible Among Men Who Propose To Substitute Guns For Rational Persuasion.

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

I'm Working To Improve My Methods, And Every Hour I Save Is An Hour Added To My Life.

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.

It Is Too Early To Feel Fear Of The Future When One Is Under 30, And Too Late After That. What I Mean Is That One Must Never Allow Fear To Become One's Permanent Sense Of Life. The Important Thing Is To Prepare Yourself Intellectually To Deal With Whatever Circumstances You May Encounter, Which Requires That You Define Your Values Fully, Clearly And Rationally -- And Never Betray Them.

Capitalism Has Been Called A System Of Greed—yet It Is The System That Raised The Standard Of Living Of Its Poorest Citizens To Heights No Collectivist System Has Ever Begun To Equal, And No Tribal Gang Can Conceive Of.

The [u.s.] Constitution Is A Limitation On The Government, Not On Private Individuals ... It Does Not Prescribe The Conduct Of Private Individuals, Only The Conduct Of The Government ... It Is Not A Charter For Government Power, But A Charter Of The Citizen's Protection Against The Government.

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.

The Writer Who Develops A Beautiful Style, But Has Nothing To Say, Represents A Kind Of Arrested Esthetic Development; He Is Like A Pianist Who Acquires A Brilliant Technique By Playing Finger-exercises, But Never Gives A Concert.

Contradictions Do Not Exist. Whenever You Think You Are Facing A Contradiction, Check Your Premises. You Will Find That One Of Them Is Wrong.

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.

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

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

The Right To Life Is The Source Of All Rights -- And The Right To Property Is Their Only Implementation. Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible. Since Man Has To Sustain His Life By His Own Effort, The Man Who Has No Right To The Product Of His Effort Has No Means To Sustain His Life. The Man Who Produces While Others Dispose Of His Product, Is A Slave.

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

The Argument From Intimidation Is A Confession Of Intellectual Impotence.

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

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

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 Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Need It Most Urgently; They Are Most Helplessly In Its Power.

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.

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

Psychologically, The Choice "to Think Or Not" Is The Choice "to Focus Or Not." Existentially, The Choice "to Focus Or Not" Is The Choice "to Be Conscious Or Not." Metaphysically, The Choice "to Be Conscious Or Not" Is The Choice Of Life Or Death.

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.

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

Construction Workers

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

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.

Power-lust Is A Weed That Grows Only In The Vacant Lots Of An Abandoned Mind.

The More Propaganda . . . Conservatives Spread For Capitalist Economics While At The Same Time Preaching Collectivism Morally And Philosophically , The More Nails They’ll Drive Into Capitalism’s Coffin.

It Is Morally Obscene To Regard Wealth As An Anonymous, Tribal Product And To Talk About 'redistributing' It.

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

Nobody Stays Here By Faking Reality In Any Manner Whatever.

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.

I Shall Choose Friends Among Men, But Neither Slaves Nor Masters. And I Shall Choose Only Such As Please Me, And Them I Shall Love And Respect, But Neither Command Nor Obey. And We Shall Join Our Hands When We Wish, Or Walk Alone When We So Desire.

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.

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

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

We Are Born Into This World Unarmed - Our Mind Is Our Only Weapon.

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.

While, Politically, A Mixed Economy Preserves The Semblance Of An Organized Society With A Semblance Of Law And Order, Economically It Is The Equivalent Of The Chaos That Had Ruled China For Centuries: A Chaos Of Robber Gangs Looting-and Draining-the Productive Elements Of The Country.

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

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

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.

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

Freedom Of Speech

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?

Most American Men Are Repressors.

Every Dictator Is A Mystic, And Every Mystic Is A Potential Dictator. A Mystic Craves Obedience From Men, Not Their Agreement. He Wants Them To Surrender Their Consciousness To His Assertions, His Edicts, His Wishes, His Whims - As His Consciousness Is Surrendered To Theirs. He Wants To Deal With Men By Means Of Faith And Force - He Finds No Satisfaction In Their Consent If He Must Earn It By Means Of Facts And Reason.

If A Dedication Page Were To Precede The Total Of My Work, It Would Read: To The Glory Of Man.

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?

I Like To Receive Money For My Work. But I Can Pass That Up This Time. I Like To Have People Know My Work Is Done By Me. But I Can Pass That Up. I Like To Have Tenants Made Happy By My Work. But That Doesn't Matter Too Much. The Only Thing That Matters, My Goal, My Reward, My Beginning, My End Is The Work Itself. My Work Done My Way. Peter, There's Nothing In The World That You Can Offer Me, Except This. Offer Me This And You Can Have Anything I've Got To Give. My Work Done My Way. A Private, Personal, Selfish, Egotistical Motivation. That's The Only Way I Function. That's All I Am.

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

She Looked At The Crowd And She Felt Simultaneously Astonishment That They Should Stare At Her When This Event Was So Personally Her Own That No Communication About It Was Possible And A Sense Of Fitness That They Should Be Here That They Should Want To See It. Because The Sight Of An Achievement Was The Greatest Gift A Human Being Could Offer To Others.

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

The Necessary Consequence Of Man's Right To Life Is His Right To Self-defense. In A Civilized Society, Force May Be Used Only In Retaliation And Only Against Those Who Initiate Its Use. All The Reasons Which Make The Initiation Of Physical Force An Evil, Make The Retaliatory Use Of Physical Force A Moral Imperative. If Some "pacifist" Society Renounced The Retaliatory Use Of Force, It Would Be Left Helplessly At The Mercy Of The First Thug Who Decided To Be Immoral. Such A Society Would Achieve The Opposite Of Its Intention: Instead Of Abolishing Evil, It Would Encourage And Reward It.

The Man Who Speaks To You Of Sacrifice, Speaks Of Slaves And Masters. And Intends To Be The Master.

I Stand Here On The Summit Of The Mountain. I Lift My Head And I Spread My Arms. This, My Body And Spirit, This Is The End Of The Quest. I Wished To Know The Meaning Of All Things. I Am The Meaning. I Wished To Find A Warrant For Being. I Need No Warrant For Being, And No Word Of Sanction Upon My Being. I Am The Warrant And The Sanction. Neither Am I The Means To Any End Others May Wish To Accomplish. I Am Not A Tool For Their Use. I Am Not A Servant Of Their Needs. I Am Not A Sacrifice On Their Alters.

Contrary To The Ecologists, Nature Does Not Stand Still And Does Not Maintain The Kind Of Equilibrium That Guarantees The Survival Of Any Particular Species - Least Of All The Survival Of Her Greatest And Most Fragile Product: Man.

The Worst Guilt Is To Accept An Undeserved Guilt — And That Is What You Have Been Doing All Your Life.

A Rational Process Is A Moral Process.

When She Had Gone Upstairs, He Walked To A Window And Stood Looking Up At The Sky. His Head Thrown Back, He Felt The Pull Of His Throat Muscles And He Wondered Whether The Peculiar Solemnity Of Looking At The Sky Comes, Not From What One Contemplates, But From That Uplift Of One's Head.

Patience Is Always Rewarded And Romance Is Always Round The Corner!

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

It Is A Free Market That Makes Monopolies Impossible.

I Am Not Morally Obligated To Care More For A Man Than He Cares For Himself.

A Free Mind And A Free Market Are Corollaries.

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.

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.

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.

Volumes Can Be And Have Been Written About The Issue Of Freedom Versus Dictatorship, But, In Essence, It Comes Down To A Single Question: Do You Consider It Moral To Treat Men As Sacrificial Animals And To Rule Them By Physical Force?

But What Is Freedom? Freedom From What? There Is Nothing To Take A Man's Freedom Away From Him, Save Other Men. To Be Free, A Man Must Be Free Of His Brothers. That Is Freedom. That And Nothing Else.

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

What Do I "think" Of President Reagan? The Best Answer To Give Would Be: I Don't Think Of Him. And The More I See, The Less I Think.

I Came Here To Say That I Do Not Recognize Anyone's Right To One Minute Of My Life.

This Is The Age Othe Common Man, They Tell Us-a Title Which Any Man May Claim To The Extent Osuch Distinction As He Has Managed Not To Achieve.

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

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.

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.

Any Work Is Creative Work If Done By A Thinking Mind.

Productive Work

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.

No Man Can Have A Right To Impose An Unchosen Obligation , An Unrewarded Duty Or An Involuntary Servitude On Another Man. There Can Be No Such Thing As " The Right To Enslave .

Whether You Know The Shape Of A Pebble Or The Structure Of A Solar System, The Anxioms Remain The Same: That It Exists And That You Know It.

Don't Think. Believe. Trust Your Heart, Not Your Brain. Don't Think. Feel. Believe.

America’s Founding Ideal Was The Principle Of Individual Rights. Nothing More-and Nothing Less. The Rest-everything That America Achieved, Everything She Became, Everything 'noble And Just,' And Heroic, And Great, And Unprecedented In Human History-was The Logical Consequence Of Fidelity To That One Principle.

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

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

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

What Whip Lashed Them To Their Knees In Shame And Submission? The Worship Of The Word "we.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

It Is Fairly Easy To Grasp Abstract Moral Principles; It Can Be Very Difficult To Apply Them To A Given Situation, Particularly When It Involves The Moral Character Of Another Person.

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