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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.

-Ayn Rand

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If You Want To

Ayn Rand

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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.

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

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... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

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

Genius Is An Exaggeration Of Dimension. So Is Elephantiasis. Both May Be Only A Disease.

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

We Are On Strike, We, The Men Of The Mind. We Are On Strike Against Self-immolation. We Are On Strike Against The Creed Of Unearned Rewards And Unrewarded Duties. We Are On Strike Against The Dogma That The Pursuit Of One's Happiness Is Evil. We Are On Strike Against The Doctrine That Life Is Guilt.

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

Productive Work Is The Central Purpose Of A Rational Man's Life, The Central Value That Integrates And Determines The Hierarchy Of All His Other Values. Reason Is The Source, The Precondition Of His Productive Work, Pride Is The Result.

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

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

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values.

And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men.

She Knew That Even Pain Can Be Confessed, But To Confess Happiness Is To Stand Naked, Delivered To The Witness.

Doctors Are Not Servants Of Their Patients, They Are Traders Like Everyone Else In A Free Society And They Should Bear That Title Proudly Considering The Crucial Importance Of The Services They Offer.

You Love People, Not For What You Do For Them Or What They Do For You. You Love Them For Their Values; Their Virtues.

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

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.

Money Is So Noble A Medium That It Does Not Compete With Guns And It Does Not Make Terms With Brutality. It Will Not Permit A Country To Survive As Half-property, Half-loot.

A Rational Man Never Distorts Or Corrupts His Own Standards And Judgment In Order To Appeal To The Irrationality, Stupidity, Or Dishonesty Of Others.

We Are One...alone...and Only...and We Love You Who Are One...alone...and Only. We Looked Into Each Other's Eyes And We Knew The Breath Of A Miracle Had Touched Us, And Fled, And Left Us Groping Vainly. And We Felt Torn, Torn For Some Word We Could Not Find.

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.

A Man Who Seeks Escape From The Responsibility Of Supporting His Life By His Own Thought And Effort, And Wishes To Survive By Conquering, Ruling And Exploiting Others, Is Not An Individualist.

A Morality That Holds Need As A Claim, Holds Emptiness-non-existence-as Its Standard Of Value; It Rewards An Absence, A Defect: Weakness, Inability, Incompetence, Suffering, Disease, Disaster, The Lack, The Fault, The Flaw-the Zero.

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

Capitalism Has Been Called Nationalistic - Yet It Is The Only System That Banished Ethnicity, And Made It Possible, In The United States, For Men Of Various, Formerly Antagonistic Nationalities To Live Together In Peace.

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

Every Man Builds His World In His Own Image. He Has The Power To Choose, But No Power To Escape The Necessity Of Choice.

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

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.

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

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

Value Is That Which One Acts To Gain And/or Keep. Virtue Is The Act By Which One Aims And/or Keeps It.

A Society Without Intellectuals Is Like A Body Without A Head

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.'

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.

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The Evasion Of Responsibility Is The Major Cause Of Most Peoples Frustrations And Defeats.

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Ideas, In A Free Society, Are Not A Crime- And Neither Can They Serve As The Justification Of A Crime.

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

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

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

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People Create Their Own Questions Because They Are Afraid To Look Straight. All You Have To Do Is Look Straight And See The Road, And When You See It, Don't Sit Looking At It - Walk.

Mysticism Requires The Notion Of The Unknowable, Which Is Revealed To Some And Withheld From Others; This Divides Men Into Those Who Feel Guilt And Those Who Cash In On It.

Men Prosper Or Fail, Survive Or Perish In Proportion To The Degree Of Their Rationality.

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

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

There Is Nothing Wrong In Helping Other People, If And When They Are Worthy Of The Help And You Can Afford To Help Them.

Force And Mind Are Opposites; Morality Ends Where A Gun Begins.

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.

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

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

One Can't Love Man Without Hating Most Of The Creatures Who Pretend To Bear His Name.

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.

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

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.

Government Control Of The Economy, No Matter In Whose Behalf, Has Been The Source Of All The Evils In Our Industrial Society -- And The Solution Is Laissez-faire Capitalism, I.e., The Abolition Of Any And All Forms Of Intervention In Production And Trade, The Separation Of State And Economics, In The Same Way And For The Same Reasons As The Separation Of Church And State.

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

Existence Is Identity, Consciousness Is Identification.

The Argument From Intimidation Is A Confession Of Intellectual Impotence.

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.

It Is My Eyes Which See, And The Sight Of My Eyes Grants Beauty To The Earth.

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?

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

A Reader Has To Be Concerned Only With The End Result; Unless He Chooses To Analyze It, He Does Not Have To Know By What Means That Result Was Achieved-but It Is My Job To Know.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Well, I Always Know What I Want. And When You Know What You Want--you Go Toward It. Sometimes You Go Very Fast, And Sometimes Only An Inch A Year. Perhaps You Feel Happier When You Go Fast. I Don't Know. I've Forgotten The Difference Long Ago, Because It Really Doesn't Matter, So Long As You Move.

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out ... Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish ... Check Your Road And The Nature Of Your Battle. The World You Desired Can Be Won. It Exists, It Is Real, It Is Possible, It Is Yours.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Don't Think Of Them Now. Never Think Of Pain Or Danger Or Enemies A Moment Longer Than Is Necessary To Fight Them. You're Here. It's Our Time And Our Life, Not Theirs. Don't Struggle Not To Be Happy. You Are." - John Gault

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.

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.

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

Productive Work

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Inflation Is Not Caused By The Actions Of Private Citizens, But By The Government: By An Artificial Expansion Of The Money Supply Required To Support Deficit Spending. No Private Embezzlers Or Bank Robbers In History Have Ever Plundered People's Savings On A Scale Comparable To The Plunder Perpetrated By The Fiscal Policies Of Statist Governments.

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

I Want To Be Prepared To Claim The Greatest Virtue Of All - That I Was A Man Who Made Money

Do Not Consider Collectivists As "sincere But Deluded Idealists". The Proposal To Enslave Some Men For The Sake Of Others Is Not An Ideal; Brutality Is Not "idealistic," No Matter What Its Purpose. Do Not Ever Say That The Desire To "do Good" By Force Is A Good Motive. Neither Power-lust Nor Stupidity Are Good Motives.

But What Man Does Out Of Despair, Is Not Necessarily A Key To His Character. I Have Always Thought That The Real Key Is In That Which He Seeks For His Enjoyment.

In A Capitalist Society, All Human Relationships Are Voluntary. Men Are Free To Cooperate Or Not, To Deal With One Another Or Not, As Their Own Individual Judgments, Convictions And Interests Dictate.

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

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

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.

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

You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid The Consequences Of Avoiding Reality.

When Men Abandon Reason, Physical Force Becomes Their Only Means Of Dealing With One Another And Of Settling Disagreements.

A Spirit, Too, Needs Fuel. It Can Run Dry.

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

Do You Mean To Tell Me That You're Thinking Seriously Of Building That Way, When And If You Are An Architect?" Yes." My Dear Fellow, Who Will Let You?" That's Not The Point. The Point Is, Who Will Stop Me?

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

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.

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

Ah, There's Nothing Like Tea In The Afternoon. When The British Empire Collapses, Historians Will Find That It Had Made But Two Invaluable Contributions To Civilization - This Tea Ritual And The Detective Novel.

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.

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.

To Hold An Unchanging Youth Is To Reach At The End, The Vision With Which One Started.

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

Productive Work

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Gold Was An Objective Value, An Equivalent Of Wealth Produced. Paper Is A Mortgage On Wealth That Does Not Exist, Backed By A Gun Aimed At Those Who Are Expected To Produce It.

I Refuse To Accept As Guilt The Fact Of My Own Existence.

In The Name Of The Values That Keep You Alive, Do Not Let Your Vision Of Man Be Distorted By The Ugly, The Cowardly, The Mindless In Those Who Have Never Achieved His Title. Do Not Lose Your Knowledge That Man’s Proper Estate Is An Upright Posture, An Intransigent Mind And A Step That Travels Unlimited Roads.

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.

Romantic Art Is The Fuel And The Spark Plug Of A Man's Soul. It's Task Is To Set A Soul On Fire And Never Let It Go Out.

The Good, Say The Mystics Of Spirit, Is God, A Being Whose Only Definition Is That He Is Beyond Man's Power To Conceive — A Definition That Invalidates Man's Consciousness And Nullifies His Concepts Of Existence. The Good, Say The Mystics Of Muscle, Is Society — A Thing Which They Define As An Organism That Possesses No Physical Form, A Super-being Embodied In No One In Particular And Everyone In General Except Yourself.... The Purpose Of Man's Life, Say Both, Is To Become An Abject Zombie Who Serves A Purpose He Does Not Know, For Reasons He Is Not To Question.

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.

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.

The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Need It Most Urgently: They Are Most Helplessly In Its Power. The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Absorb Its Principles From The Cultural Atmosphere Around Them-from Schools, Colleges, Books, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, Television, Etc. Who Sets The Tone Of A Culture? A Small Handful Of Men: The Philosophers. Others Follow Their Lead, Either By Conviction Or By Default.

Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible.

Property Rights

The Conservatives See Man As A Body Freely Roaming The Earth, Building Sand Piles Or Factories - With An Electronic Computer Inside His Skull, Controlled From Washington. The Liberals See Man As A Soul Freewheeling To The Farthest Reaches Of The Universe - But Wearing Chains From Nose To Toes When He Crosses The Street To Buy A Loaf Of Bread.

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

Integrity Is The Ability To Stand By An Idea.

He Walked, Groping For A Sentence That Hung In His Mind As An Empty Shape. He Could Neither Fill It Or Dismiss It.

Independence Is The Recognition Of The Fact That Yours Is The Responsibility Of Judgment And Nothing Can Help You Escape It-that No Substitute Can Do Your Thinking, As No Pinch-hitter Can Live Your Life-that The Vilest Form Of Self-abasement And Self-destruction Is The Subordination Of Your Mind To The Mind Of Another, The Acceptance Of An Authority Over Your Brain, The Acceptance Of His Assertions As Facts, His Say-so As Truth, His Edicts As Middle-man Between Your Consciousness And Your Existence.

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.

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

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

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.

...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.

These Are The Things Before Me. And As I Stand Here At The Door Of Glory, I Look Behind Me For The Last Time. I Look Upon The History Of Men, Which I Have Learned From The Books, And I Wonder. It Was A Long Story, And The Spirit Which Moved It Was The Spirit Of Man’s Freedom. 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. This And Nothing Else.

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

Every Man Is Free To Rise As Far As He's Able Or Willing, But The Degree To Which He Thinks Determines The Degree To Which He'll Rise.

Positive Thinking

She Watched The Prairies The Rivers, The Towns Slipping Past At An Untouchable Distance Below - And She Noted That The Sense Of Detachment One Feels When Looking At The Earth From A Plane Was The Same Sense She Felt When Looking At People: Only Her Distance From People Seemed Longer. - Dagny Taggart

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

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

Whenever Anyone Accuses Some Person Of Being 'unfeeling,' He Means That That Person Is Just. He Means That That Person Has No Causeless Emotions And Will Not Grant Him A Feeling Which He Does Not Deserve. He Means That 'to Feel' Is To Go Against Reason, Against Moral Values, Against Reality.

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

To Discuss Evil In A Manner Implying Neutrality, Is To Sanction It.

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

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

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

Married People Dont Look Like They Have Bedrooms On Their Minds When They Look At Each Other. In This World, Either You're Virtuous Or You Enjoy Yourself. Not Both...not Both.

The Ladder Of Success Is Best Climbed By Stepping On The Rungs Of Opportunity.

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.

No Value Is Higher Than Self-esteem, But You've Invested It In Counterfeit Securities-and Now Your Morality Has Caught You In A Trap Where You Are Forced To Protect Your Self-esteem By Fighting For The Creed Of Self-destruction. The Grim Joke Is On You: That Need Of Self-esteem, Which You're Unable To Explain Or To Define, Belongs To My Morality, Not Yours; It's The Objective Token Of My Code, It Is My Proof Within Your Own Soul.

Even In Dialogue, Your Own Style Rules Your Selection. Do Not Give Yourself A Blank Check Of This Kind: 'i'll Merely Reproduce What I Think A Character Like So-and-so Would Say.' You Have To Reproduce It In The Way Your Literary Premises Dictate.

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

The Romanticists Predominantly, Were Enemies Of Capitalism, Which They Regarded As A Prosaic, Materialistic, “petty Bourgeois” System — Never Realizing That It Was The Only System That Could Make Freedom, Individuality And The Pursuit Of Values Possible In Practice.

Laissez Faire Capitalism

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

Whatever May Be Open To Disagreement, There Is One Act Of Evil That May Not, The Act That No Man May Commit Against Others And No Man May Sanction Or Forgive. So Long As Men Desire To Live Together, No Man May Initiate—do You Hear Me? No Man May Start—the Use Of Physical Force Against Others.

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.

There's Only One Passion In Most Artists More Violent Than Their Desire For Admiration: Their Fear Of Identifying The Nature Of Such Admiration As They Do Receive.

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

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

Whatever Road I Take, The Guiding Star Is Within Me; The Guiding Star And The Loadstone Which Point The Way. They Point In But One Direction. They Point To Me.

The Art Of Writing Is The Art Of Doing What You Think You're Doing. This Is Not As Simple As It Sounds. It Implies A Very Difficult Undertaking: The Necessity To Think. And It Implies The Requirement To Think Out Three Separate, Very Hard Problems: What Is It You Want To Say? How Are You Going To Say It? Have You Really Said It?

One Loses Everything When One Loses One's Sense Of Humor.

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