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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.

-Ayn Rand

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If, Before Undertaking Some

Ayn Rand

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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.

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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 .

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

Every Man Builds His World In His Own Image; He Has The Power To Choose, But No Power To Escape The Necessity Of Choice. If He Abdicates His Power, He Abdicates The Status Of Man, And The Grinding Chaos Of The Irrational Is What He Achieves As His Sphere Of Existence—by His Own Choice.

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

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.

Money Is The Barometer Of A Society's Virtue.

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

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

Paper Is A Check Drawn By Legal Looters Upon An Account Which Is Not Theirs: Upon The Virtue Of The Victims. Watch For The Day When It Bounces, Marked: 'account Overdrawn.'

There Are No Evil Thoughts Except One; The Refusal To Think.

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

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.

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

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

An Honest Man Is One Who Knows That He Can't Consume More Than He Has Produced.

I Need No Warrant For Being, And No Word Of Sanction Upon My Being. I Am The Warrant And The Sanction.

This Was Solidarity. The Debutante Having Her Toenails Pedicured - The Housewife Buying Carrots From A Pushcart - The Bookkeeper Who Had Wanted To Be A Pianist, But Has The Excuse Of A Sister To Support - The Businessman Who Hated His Business - The Worker Who Hated His Work - The Intellectual Who Hated Everybody - All Were United As Brothers In The Luxury Of Common Anger That Cured Boredom And Took Them Out Of Themselves, And They Knew Well Enough What A Blessing It Was To Be Taken Out Of Themselves.

Capitalism Was The Only System In History Where Wealth Was Not Acquired By Looting, But By Production, Not By Force, But By Trade, The Only System That Stood For Man's Right To His Own Mind, To His Work, To His Life, To His Happiness, To Himself.

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.

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

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

Productive Work

As We Gain Knowledge, We Do Not Become More Certain, We Become Certain Of More.

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

It Is A Sin To Write This.

Kira, The Highest Thing In Man Is Not His God. It's That In Him Which Knows The Reverence Due A God. And You, Kira, Are My Highest Reverence.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Man Who Does Not Value Himself, Cannot Value Anything Or Anyone.

America's Abundance Was Not Created 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.

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

The Question Isn't Who Is Going To Let Me; It's Who Is Going To Stop Me.

If You Ask Me To Name The Proudest Distinction Of Americans, I Would Choose . . . The Fact That They Were The People Who Created The Phrase "to Make Money." No Other Language Or Nation Had Ever Used These Words Before. . . . Americans Were The First To Understand That Wealth Has To Be Created.

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.

I Like To Think Of Fire Held In A Man's Hand. Fire, A Dangerous Force, Tamed At His Fingertips. I Often Wonder About The Hours When A Man Sits Alone, Watching The Smoke Of A Cigarette, Thinking. I Wonder What Great Things Have Come From Such Hours. When A Man Thinks, There Is A Spot Of Fire Alive In His Mind--and It Is Proper That He Should Have The Burning Point Of A Cigarette As His One Expression.

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

We Can Evade Reality, But We Cannot Evade The Consequences Of Evading Reality

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.

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

We [entrepreneurs] Required That You Leave Us Free To Function -- Free To Think And Work As We Choose ... -- Free To Earn Our Own Profits And Make Our Own Fortunes ... Such Was The Price We Asked, Which You Chose To Reject As Too High.

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

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

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?

Happiness Is A State Of Non-contradictory Joy . . . Happiness Is Possible Only To A Rational Man, The Man Who Desires Nothing But Rational Goals, Seeks Nothing But Rational Values, And Finds His Joy In Nothing But Rational Actions.

Live A Life As A Monument To Your Soul.

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

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

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.

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.

One Can Study What Exists And How Consciousness Functions; But One Cannot Analyze (or “prove”) Existence As Such, Or Consciousness As Such. These Are Irreducible Primaries. (an Attempt To “prove” Them Is Self-contradict Ory: It Is An Attempt To “prove” Existence By Means Of Nonexistence, And Consciousness By Means Of Unconsciousness .)

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

Her Face Lay Still On The Air Under His Face.

Under Fascism, Citizens Retain The Responsibilities Of Owning Property, Without Freedom To Act And Without Any Of The Advantages Of Ownership. Under Socialism, Government Officials Acquire All The Advantages Of Ownership, Without Any Of The Responsibilities, Since They Do Not Hold Title To The Property, But Merely The Right To Use It -- At Least Until The Next Purge. In Either Case, The Government Officials Hold The Economic, Political And Legal Power Of Life Or Death Over The Citizens.

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

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

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.

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.

The Moral Is The Chosen, Not The Forced; The Understood, Not The Obeyed. The Moral Is The Rational, And Reason Accepts No Commandments.

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

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.

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values. Love Is Self-enjoyment. The Noblest Love Is Born Out Of Admiration Of Another's Values.

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

People Said It Because Other People Said It. They Did Not Know Why It Was Being Said And Heard Everywhere. They Did Not Give Or Ask For Reasons.

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

A Gun Is Not An Argument.

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

To Be Free, A Man Must Be Free Of His Brothers. That Is Freedom. That And Nothing Else.

Needless To Say, Under Either System [socialism Or Fascism], The Inequalities Of Income And Standard Of Living Are Greater Than Anything Possible Under A Free Economy -- And A Man's Position Is Determined, Not By His Productive Ability And Achievement, But By Political Pull And Force. Under Both Systems, Sacrifice Is Invoked As A Magic, Omnipotent Solution In Any Crisis -- And "the Public Good" Is The Altar On Which Victims Are Immolated.

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.

It Is True That The Welfare-statists Are Not Socialists, That They Never Advocated Or Intended The Socialization Of Private Property, That They Want To 'preserve' Private Property-with Government Control Of Its Use And Disposal. But That Is The Fundamental Characteristic Of Fascism.

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.

You Love Only Those Who Deserve It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our Dearest One. Fear Nothing Of The Forest. There Is No Danger In Solitude. We Have No Need Of Our Brothers. Let Us Forget Their Good And Our Evil, Let Us Forget All Things Save That We Are Together And That There Is Joy As A Bond Between Us. Give Us Your Hand. Look Ahead. It Is Our Own World, Golden One, A Strange, Unknown World, But Our Own.

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.

For Centuries, The Battle Of Morality Was Fought Between Those Who Claimed That Your Life Belongs To God And Those Who Claimed That It Belongs To Your Neighbors - Between Those Who Preached That The Good Is Self-sacrifice For The Sake Of Ghosts In Heaven And Those Who Preached That The Good Is Self-sacrifice For The Sake Of Incompetents On Earth. And No One Came To Say That Your Life Belongs To You And That The Good Is To Live It.

A Man's Sexual Choice Is The Result And The Sum Of His Fundamental Convictions.... He Will Always Be Attracted To The Woman Who Reflects His Deepest Vision Of Himself, The Woman Whose Surrender Permits Him To Experience A Sense Of Self-esteem. The Man Who Is Proudly Certain Of His Own Value, Will Want The Highest Type Of Woman He Can Find, The Woman He Admires, The Strongest, The Hardest To Conquer--because Only The Possession Of A Heroine Will Give Him The Sense Of An Achievement.

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

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

I Saw That Evil Was Impotent—that Evil Was The Irrational, The Blind, The Anti-real—and That The Only Weapon Of Its Triumph Was The Willingness Of The Good To Serve It.

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

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

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

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.

One's Own Independent Judgment Is The Means By Which One Must Choose One's Actions, But It Is Not A Moral Criterion Nor A Moral Validation; Only Reference To A Demonstrable Principle Can Validate One's Choices.

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

Productiveness Is Your Acceptance Of Morality, Your Recognition Of The Fact That You Choose To Live.

Productive Work

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.

For The Coming Of That Day Shall I Fight, I And My Sons And My Chosen Friends. For The Freedom Of Man. For His Rights. For His Life. For His Honor.

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

Independence Is The Only Gauge Of Human Virtue And Value. What A Man Is And Makes Of Himself; Not What He Has Or Hasn’t Done For Others. There Is No Substitute For Personal Dignity.

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.

I Would Give The Greatest Sunset In The World For One Sight Of New York's Skyline.

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

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

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

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

I Do Not Think That Tragedy Is Our Natural Fate And I Do Not Live In Chronic Dread Of Disaster. It Is No Happiness, But Suffering That I Consider Unnatural. It Is Not Success, But Calamity That I Regard As The Abnormal Exception In Human Life.

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

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

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.

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.

Rationalization Is A Process Of Not Perceiving Reality, But Of Attempting To Make Reality Fit One’s Emotions.

Racism Is The Lowest, Most Crudely Primitive Form Of Collectivism. It Is The Notion Of Ascribing Moral, Social Or Political Significance To A Man’s Genetic Lineage-the Notion That A Man’s Intellectual And Characterologic Al Traits Are Produced And Transmitted By His Internal Body Chemistry.

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

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

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values.

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

Run For Your Life From Any Man Who Tells You That Money Is Evil. That Sentence Is The Leper's Bell Of An Approaching Looter.

One Must Never Fail To Pronounce Moral Judgment.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Art Is A Selective Re-creation Of Reality According To An Artists Metaphysical Value Judgments.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

You Don't Know How Hard I've Tried To Be Left Standing All By Myself.

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.

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.

I Understood That Centuries Of Chains And Lashes Will Not Kill The Spirit Of Man Nor The Sense Of Truth Within Him.

There Is No Such Dichotomy As 'human Rights' Versus 'property Rights.' No Human Rights Can Exist Without Property Rights.

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.

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

Why Do They Always Teach Us That It's Easy And Evil To Do What We Want And That We Need Discipline To Restrain Ourselves? It's The Hardest Thing In The World--to Do What We Want. And It Takes The Greatest Kind Of Courage. I Mean, What We Really Want.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Source Of The Government's Authority Is “the Consent Of The Governed.” This Means That The Government Is Not The Ruler, But The Servant Or Agent Of The Citizens; It Means That The Government As Such Has No Rights Except The Rights Delegated To It By The Citizens For A Specific Purpose.

If You Know That This Life Is All That You Have, Wouldn't You Make The Most Of It?

The Government's Only Proper Job Is To Protect Individual Rights Against Violence By Force Or Fraud ... To Protect Men From Foreign Invaders ... To Settle Disputes Among Men According To Objective Laws ... The Greatness Of The Founding Fathers Was How Well They Understood This Issue And How Close Some Of Them Came To Understanding It Perfectly.

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.

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

To Fear To Face An Issue Is To Believe That The Worst Is True.

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

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

An Emotion Is An Automatic Response, An Automatic Effect Of Man's Value Premises. An Effect, Not A Cause. There Is No Necessary Clash, No Dichotomy Between Man's Reason And His Emotions

A Society Without Intellectuals Is Like A Body Without A Head

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

A Rational Man Knows-or Makes It A Point To Discover-the Source Of His Emotions, The Basic Premises From Which They Come.

We Didn't Really Have To Take Everything So Seriously, Did We?

So You Think That Money Is The Root Of All Evil. Have You Ever Asked What Is The Root Of All Money?

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. A Bureaucrat, Forces You To Obey His Decisions, Whether You Agree With Him Or Not... If He Makes A Mistake, You Suffer The Consequences; If He Fails, He Passes The Loss On To You, In The Form Of Heavier Taxes.

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.

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

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

Laissez-faire Capitalism Is The Only Social System Based On The Recognition Of Individual Rights And, Therefore, The Only System That Bans Force From Social Relationships.

Laissez Faire Capitalism

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

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

Collectivism, As An Intellectual Power And A Moral Ideal, Is Dead. But Freedom And Individualism, And Their Political Expression, Capitalism, Have Not Yet Been Discovered.

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

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

That Time And Those People Are Upon You!

It Is The Metaphysically Given That Must Be Accepted: It Cannot Be Changed. It Is The Man-made That Must Never Be Accepted Uncritically: It Must Be Judged, Then Accepted Or Rejected And Changed When Necessary.

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.

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

Thanksgiving Is A Typically American Holiday. In Spite Of Its Religious Form (giving Thanks To God For A Good Harvest), Its Essential, Secular Meaning Is A Celebration Of Successful Production. It Is A Producers’ Holiday. The Lavish Meal Is A Symbol Of The Fact That Abundant Consumption Is The Result And Reward Of Production. Abundance Is (or Was And Ought To Be) America’s Pride-just As It Is The Pride Of American Parents That Their Children Need Never Know Starvation.

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

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

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

And That Night We Knew That To Hold The Body Of Women In Our Arms In Neither Ugly Nor Shameful, But The One Ecstasy Granted To The Race Of Men.

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

Censorship' Is A Term Pertaining Only To Governmental Action. No Private Action Is Censorship. No Private Individual Or Agency Can Silence A Man Or Suppress A Publication; Only The Government Can Do So. The Freedom Of Speech Of Private Individuals Includes The Right Not To Agree, Not To Listen And Not To Finance One's Own Antagonists.

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.

...only The Pleasure Which Proceeds From A Rational Value Judgement Can Be Regarded As Moral, Pleasure, As Such, Is Not A Guide To Action Nor A Standard Of Morality.

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.

No One's Happiness But My Own Is In My Power To Achieve Or To Destroy.

Overcoming Addiction

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.

That Something Happened To You Is Of No Importance To Anyone, Not Even To You. The Important Thing About You Is What You Choose To Make Happen - Your Values And Choices. That Which Happened By Accident - What Family You Were Born Into, In What Country, And Where You Went To School - Is Totally Unimportant.

Those Who Say Theory And Practice Are Two Unrelated Realms Are Fools In One And Scoundrels In The Other.

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.

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 There Are People Who'll Try To Hurt You Through The Good They See In You--knowing That It's The Good, Needing It And Punishing You For It. Don't Let It Break You When You Discover That.

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

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