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If You Want To Know The One Reason That's Taking Me Back, I'll Tell You: I Cannot Bring Myself To Abandon To Destruction All The Greatness Of The World, All That Which Was Mine And Yours, Which Was Made By Us And Is Still Ours By Right - Because I Cannot Believe That Men Refuse To See, That They Can Remain Blind And Deaf To Us Forever, When The Truth Is Ours And Their Lives Depend On Accepting It.

-Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand

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If You Want To Know The One Reason That's Taking Me Back, I'll Tell You: I Cannot Bring Myself To Abandon To Destruction All The Greatness Of The World, All That Which Was Mine And Yours, Which Was Made By Us And Is Still Ours By Right - Because I Cannot Believe That Men Refuse To See, That They Can Remain Blind And Deaf To Us Forever, When The Truth Is Ours And Their Lives Depend On Accepting It.

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I Am An Intransigent Atheist, Though Not A Militant One. This Means That I Am Not Fighting Against Religion - I Am Fighting For Reason.

Her Face Lay Still On The Air Under His Face.

So You Think That Money Is The Root Of All Evil? [...] Have You Ever Asked What Is The Root Of Money? Money Is A Tool Of Exchange, Which Can't Exist Unless There Are Goods Produced And Men Able To Produce Them. Money Is The Material Shape Of The Principle That Men Who Wish To Deal With One Another Must Deal By Trade And Give Value For Value. Money Is Not The Tool Of The Moochers, Who Claim Your Product By Tears, Or Of The Looters, Who Take It From You By Force. Money Is Made Possible Only By The Men Who Produce. Is This What You Consider Evil?

The Adversary She Found Herself Forced To Fight Was Not Worth Matching Or Beating; It Was Not A Superior Ability Which She Would Have Found Honour In Challenging; It Was Ineptitude - A Grey Spread Of Cotton That Seemed Soft And Shapeless, That Could Offer No Resistance To Anything Or Anybody, Yet Managed To Be A Barrier In Her Way. She Stood, Disarmed, Before The Riddle Of What Made This Possible, She Could Find No Answer.

Do Not Keep Silent When Your Own Ideas And Values Are Being Attacked. If A Dictatorship Ever Comes To This Country, It Will Be By The Fault Of Those Who Keep Silent. We Are Still Free Enough To Speak. Do We Have Time? No One Can Tell.

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.

Since Reason Is Man’s Basic Means Of Survival, That Which Is Proper To The Life Of A Rational Being Is The Good; That Which Negates, Opposes Or Destroys It Is The Evil.

Rights Are Not A Matter Of Numbers - And There Can Be No Such Thing, In Law Or In Morality, As Actions Forbidden To An Individual, But Permitted To A Mob.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

An Artist Recreates Those Aspects Of Reality Which Represent His Fundamental View Of Man's Nature.

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.

There Are No Contradictions. If You Find One, Check Your Premises.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

People Think That A Liar Gains A Victory Over His Victim. What I’ve Learned Is That A Lie Is An Act Of Self-abdication, Because One Surrenders One’s Reality To The Person To Whom One Lies, Making That Person One’s Master, Condemning Oneself From Then On To Faking The Sort Of Reality That Person’s View Requires To Be Faked…the Man Who Lies To The World, Is The World’s Slave From Then On…there Are No White Lies, There Is Only The Blackest Of Destruction, And A White Lie Is The Blackest Of All.

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

Individual Rights Are Not Subject To A Public Vote; A Majority Has No Right To Vote Away The Rights Of A Minority; The Political Function Of Rights Is Precisely To Protect Minorities From Oppression By Majorities (and The Smallest Minority On Earth Is The Individual).

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.

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

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.

Every Form Of Happiness Is Private. Our Greatest Moments Are Personal, Self-motivated, Not To Be Touched".

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

The Quickest Way To Kill The Human Spirit Is To Ask Someone To Do Mediocre Work.

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.

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

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

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

There Is No Affirmation Without The One Who Affirms. In This Sense, Everything To Which You Grant Your Love Is Yours

The Men Of The Press, Who Despised Their Own Profession, Did Not Know Why They Were Enjoying It Today. One Of Them, A Young Man With Years Of Notorious Success Behind Him And A Cynical Look Of Twice His Age, Said Suddenly, 'i Know What I'd Like To Be: I Wish I Could Be A Man Who Covers News!'

Live And Act Within The Limit Of Your Knowledge And Keep Expanding It To The Limit Of Your Life.

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

The Smallest Minority On Earth Is The Individual. Those Who Deny Individual Rights Cannot Claim To Be Defenders Of Minorities.

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 A Free Market That Makes Monopolies Impossible.

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

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

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

Guilt Is A Rope That Wears Thin.

Altruism Does Not Mean Mere Kindness Or Generosity, But The Sacrifice Of The Best Among Men To The Worst, The Sacrifice Of Virtues To Flaws, Of Ability To Incompetence, Of Progress To Stagnation-and The Subordinating Of All Life And Of All Values To The Claims Of Anyone's Suffering.

Integrity Is The Ability To Stand By An Idea.

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.

Love, Friendship, Respect, Admiration Are The Emotional Response Of One Man To The Virtues Of Another, The Spiritual Payment Given In Exchange For The Personal, Selfish Pleasure Which One Man Derives From The Virtues Of Another Man’s Character.

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

It Is A Sin To Write This.

Ideas Are The Greatest And Most Crucially Practical Power On Earth.

Pride Is The Recognition Of The Fact That You Are Your Own Highest Value And, Like All Of Man's Values, It Has To Be Earned.

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.

No Concept Man Forms Is Valid Unless He Integrates It Without Contradiction Into The Sum Of His Knowledge.

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.

Achievement Of Your Happiness Is The Only Moral Purpose Of Your Life, And That Happiness, Not Pain Or Mindless Self-indulgence, Is The Proof Of Your Moral Integrity, Since It Is The Proof And The Result Of Your Loyalty To The Achievement Of Your Values.

Just As There Is No Such Thing As A Collective Or Racial Mind, So There Is No Such Thing As A Collective Or Racial Achievement. There Are Only Individual Minds And Individual Achievements-an D A Culture Is Not The Anonymous Product Of Undifferentiate D Masses, But The Sum Of The Intellectual Achievements Of Individual Men.

What Is Kinder--to Believe The Best Of People And Burden Them With A Nobility Beyond Their Endurance--or To See Them As They Are, And Accept It Because It Makes Them Comfortable?

To Love Is To Value. Only A Rationally Selfish Man, A Man Of Self Esteem, Is Capable Of Love - Because He Is The Only Man Capable Of Holding Firm, Consistent, Uncompromising, Unbetrayed Value. The Man Who Does Not Value Himself, Cannot Value Anything Or Anyone

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?

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.

The Charming Aspect Of Christmas Is The Fact That It Expresses Good Will In A Cheerful, Happy, Benevolent, Non-sacrificial Way.

The Uncontested Absurdities Of Today Are The Accepted Slogans Of Tomorrow.

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

The Only Proper Purpose Of A Government Is To Protect Man's Rights, Which Means: To Protect Him From Physical Violence. A Proper Government Is Only A Policeman, Acting As An Agent Of Man's Self-defense, And, As Such, May Only Resort To Force Only Against Those Who Start The Use Of Force.

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

I Am Only Concerned With Politics So I May See The Day When I Don't Have To Be Concerned With Politics.

To Sell Your Soul Is The Easiest Thing In The World. That's What Everybody Does Every Hour Of His Life. If I Asked You To Keep Your Soul - Would You Understand Why That's Much Harder?

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.

Any Group Or "collective", Large Or Small, Is Only A Number Of Individuals. A Group Can Have No Rights Other Than The Rights Of Its Individual Members.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Money Is The Barometer Of A Society's Virtue.

It Is Futile To Fight Against, If One Does Not Know What One Is Fighting For.

The Genius Must Have His Freedom And His Independence.

Capitalism Is The Only System That Can Make Freedom, Individuality, And The Pursuit Of Values Possible In Practice. When I Say 'capitalism,' I Mean A Pure, Uncontrolled, Unregulated Laissez-faire Capitalism - With A Separation Of Economics, In The Same Way And For The Same Reasons As A Separation Of State And Church.

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

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

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.

A Building Has Integrity, Just As A Man And Just As Seldom! It Must Be True To Its Own Idea, Have Its Own Form, And Serve Its Own Purpose!

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.

One Must Never Fail To Pronounce Moral Judgment.

In The Temple Of His Spirit, Each Man Is Alone.

Romantic Art Is Always Stylized: The Better The Art, The Cleaner And More Attractive And Intelligent The Stylization.

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.

Any Group Or "collective," Large Or Small, Is Only A Number Of Individuals. A Group Can Have No Rights Other Than The Rights Of Its Individual Members. In A Free Society, The "rights" Of Any Group Are Derived From The Rights Of Its Members Through Their Voluntary Individual Choice And Contractual Agreement, And Are Merely The Application Of These Individual Rights To A Specific Undertaking... A Group, As Such, Has No Rights.

Individual Choice

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

Independence Is The Recognition Of The Fact That Yours Is The Responsibility Of Judgement And Nothing Can Help You Escape It - That No Substitute Can Do Your Thinking, As No Pinch-hitter Can Live Your Life.

[s]tatism Is A System Of Institutionalized Violence And Perpetual Civil War. It Leaves Men No Choice But To Fight To Seize Political Power -- To Rob Or Be Robbed, To Kill Or Be Killed. ... Statism Survives By Looting; A Free Country Survives By Production.

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

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

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

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

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

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.

Any Material Element Or Resource Which, In Order To Become Of Use Or Value To Men, Requires The Application Of Human Knowledge And Effort, Should Be Private Property-by The Right Of Those Who Apply The Knowledge And Effort.

It Was The Only Thing I Ever Really Wanted. And That’s The Sin That Can’t Be Forgiven--that I Hadn’t Done What I Wanted. It Feels So Dirty And Pointless And Monstrous, As One Feels About Insanity, Because There’s No Sense To It, No Dignity, Nothing But Pain--and Wasted Pain...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.

Whoever Claims The Right To Redistribute The Wealth Produced By Others Is Claiming The Right To Treat Human Beings As Chattel.

Through All The Centuries Of The Worship Of The Mindless, Whatever Stagnation Humanity Chose To Endure, Whatever Brutality To Practice-it Was Only By The Grace Of The Men Who Perceived That Wheat Must Have Water In Order To Grow, That Stones Laid In A Curve Will Form An Arch, That Two And Two Make Four, That Love Is Not Served By Torture And Life Is Not Fed By Destruction-only By The Grace Of Those Men Did The Rest Of Them Learn To Experience Moments When They Caught The Spark Of Being Human.

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

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.

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

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.

Any Refusal To Recognize Reality, For Any Reason Whatever, Has Disastrous Consequences. There Are No Evil Thoughts Except One: The Refusal To Think. Don't Ignore Your Own Desires.... Don't Sacrifice Them. Examine Their Cause. There Is A Limit To How Much You Should Have To Bear.

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

In A Free Society, One Does Not Have To Deal With Those Who Are Irrational. One Is Free To Avoid Them.

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? There Is No Conflict, And No Call For Sacrifice, And No Man Is A Threat To The Aims Of Another If Men Understand That Reality Is An Absolute Not To Be Faked, That Lies Do Not Work, That The Unearned Cannot Be Had, That The Undeserved Cannot Be Given, That The Destruction Of A Value Which Is, Will Not Bring Value To That Which Isn't.

Man's Unique Reward, However, Is That While Animals Survive By Adjusting Themselves To Their Background, Man Survives By Adjusting His Background To Himself.

In Architecture, Mediocrity Is More Glaringly Obvious Than In Other Lines - Because There's A Huge, Physical Object Such As A Building To Demonstrate It.

I Owe Nothing To My Brothers, Nor Do I Gather Debts From Them. I Ask None To Live For Me, Nor Do I Live For Any Others. I Covet No Man's Soul, Nor Is My Soul Theirs To Covet.

America's Founding Ideal Was The Principle Of Individual Rights. Nothing More - And Nothing Less.

Kill Reverence And You've Killed The Hero In Man.

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.

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.

The Doctrine That 'human Rights' Are Superior To 'property Rights' Simply Means That Some Human Beings Have The Right To Make Property Out Of Others.

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.

Allies Never Trust Each Other, But That Doesn't Spoil Their Effectiveness.

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

Definitions Are The Guardians Of Rationality, The First Line Of Defense Against The Chaos Of Mental Disintegration.

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

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.

I'm Not Brave Enough To Be A Coward; I See The Consequences Too Clearly.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Did I Feel A Physical Desire For Him? I Did. Was I Moved By A Passion Of My Body? I Was. Have I Experienced The Most Violent Form Of Sensual Pleasure? I Have.

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

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

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

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

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

A Gun Is Not An Argument.

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.

Wealth Is The Product Of Man's Capacity To Think.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

At First, Man Was Enslaved By The Gods. But He Broke Their Chains. Then He Was Enslaved By The Kings. But He Broke Their Chains. He Was Enslaved By His Birth, By His Kin, By His Race. But He Broke Their Chains. He Declared To All His Brothers That A Man Has Rights Which Neither God Nor King Nor Other Men Can Take Away From Him, No Matter What Their Number, For His Is The Right Of Man, And There Is No Right On Earth Above This Right. And He Stood On The Threshold Of Freedom For Which The Blood Of The Centuries Behind Him Had Been Spilled.

The Truly And Deliberately Evil Men Are A Very Small Minority; It Is The Appeaser Who Unleashes Them On Mankind.

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

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).

I Am Interested In Politics So That One Day I Will Not Have To Be Interested In Politics.

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.

For The First Time Since Her Return, She Felt Pain, A Violent Pain, But It Made Her Feel Alive, Because It Was Worth Feeling.

Honor Is Self-esteem Made Visible In Action.

I Know Not If This Earth On Which I Stand Is The Core Of The Universe Or If It Is But A Speck Of Dust Lost In Eternity. I Know Not And I Care Not. For I Know What Happiness Is Possible To Me On Earth. And My Happiness Needs No Higher Aim To Vindicate It. My Happiness Is Not The Means To Any End. It Is The End. It Is Its Own Goal. It Is Its Own Purpose.

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.

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

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

Whenever Destroyers Appear Among Men, They Start By Destroying Money, For Money Is Men's Protection, And The Base Of A Moral Existence.

To Interpose The Threat Of Physical Destruction Between A Man And His Perception Of Reality, Is To Negate And Paralyze His Means Of Survival To Force Him To Act Against His Own Judgment, Is Like Forcing Him To Act Against His Own Sight

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

There Are No Little People In America. There Are Only People, Equal Before The Law, Yearning To Breathe Free And Wanting To Achieve The Best Within Them.

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

Upper Classes Are A Nation's Past; The Middle Class Is Its Future.

Nobody Stays Here By Faking Reality In Any Manner Whatever.

If Men Want To Oppose War, It Is Statism That They Must Oppose. So Long As They Hold The Tribal Notion That The Individual Is Sacrificial Fodder For The Collective, That Some Men Have The Right To Rule Others By Force, And That Some (any) Alleged “good” Can Justify It-there Can Be No Peace Within A Nation And No Peace Among Nations.

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.

A Moment Or An Eternity—did It Matter? Life, Undefeated, Existed And Could Exist.

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.

"judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judge"... Is An Abdication Of Moral Responsibility: It Is A Moral Blank Check One Gives To Others In Exchange For A Moral Blank Check One Expects For Oneself. There Is No Escape From The Fact That Men Have To Make Choices; So Long As Men Have To Make Choices, There Is No Escape From Moral Values; So Long As Moral Values Are At Stake, No Moral Neutrality Is Possible. To Abstain From Condemning A Torturer, Is To Become An Accesory To The Torture And Murder Of His Victims. The Moral Principle To Adopt... Is: "judge, And Be Prepared To Be Judged."

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.

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

Each Man Must Live As An End In Himself And Follow His Own Rational Self-interest.

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

Civilization Does Not Have To Perish. The Brutes Are Winning Only By Default.

If Capitalism Had Never Existed, Any Honest Humanitarian Should Have Been Struggling To Invent It. But When You See Men Struggling To Evade Its Existence, To Misrepresent Its Nature, And To Destroy Its Last Remnants - You Maybe Sure That Whatever Their Motives, Love Of Man Is Not One Of Them.

An Artist Reveals His Naked Soul In His Work.

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

The Difference Between Animals And Humans Is That Animals Change Themselves For The Environment, But Humans Change The Environment For Themselves.

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

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.

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.

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

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

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

I Would Give The Greatest Sunset In The World For One Sight Of New York's Skyline. Particularly When One Can't See The Details. Just The Shapes. The Shapes And The Thought That Made Them. The Sky Over New York And The Will Of Man Made Visible. What Other Religion Do We Need?

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

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.

There Must Be Only Three Supreme Values Which Govern A Person's Life: Reason, Purpose, And Self-esteem. Reason, As His Only Tool Of Knowledge--purpose, As His Choice Of The Happiness Which That Tool Must Proceed To Achieve--self-esteem, As His Inviolate Certainty That His Mind Is Competent To Think And His Person Is Worthy Of Happiness, Which Means: Is Worthy Of Living. These Three Values Imply And Require All Of Man's Virtues, And All His Virtues Pertain To The Relation Of Existence And Consciousness: Rationality, Independence, Integrity, Honesty, Justice, Productiveness, Pride.

But Why Should You Care What People Will Say? All You Have To Do Is Please Yourself.

When You See That Trading Is Done, Not By Consent, But By Compulsion - When You See That In Order To Produce, You Need To Obtain Permission From Men Who Produce Nothing - When You See That Money Is Flowing To Those Who Deal, Not In Goods, But In Favors - When You See That Men Get Richer By Graft And By Pull Than By Work, And Your Laws Don't Protect You Against Them, But Protect Them Against You - When You See Corruption Being Rewarded And Honesty Becoming A Self-sacrifice - You May Know That Your Society Is Doomed.

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.

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.

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.

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

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