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In Proportion To The Mental Energy He Spent, The Man Who Creates A New Invention Receives But A Small Percentage Of His Value In Terms Of Material Payment, No Matter What Fortune He Makes, No Matter What Millions He Earns. But The Man Who Works As A Janitor In The Factory Producing That Invention, Receives An Enormous Payment In Proportion To The Mental Effort That His Job Requires Of Him. And The Same Is True Of All Men Between, On All Levels Of Ambition And Ability.

-Ayn Rand

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In Proportion To The

Ayn Rand

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In Proportion To The Mental Energy He Spent, The Man Who Creates A New Invention Receives But A Small Percentage Of His Value In Terms Of Material Payment, No Matter What Fortune He Makes, No Matter What Millions He Earns. But The Man Who Works As A Janitor In The Factory Producing That Invention, Receives An Enormous Payment In Proportion To The Mental Effort That His Job Requires Of Him. And The Same Is True Of All Men Between, On All Levels Of Ambition And Ability.

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Faith And Force ... Are Corollaries: Every Period Of History Dominated By Mysticism, Was A Period Of Statism, Of Dictatorship, Of Tyranny.

Parties Are Intended To Be Celebrations, And Celebrations Should Be Only For Those Who Have Something To Celebrate.

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

Under The Antitrust Laws, A Man Becomes A Criminal From The Moment He Goes Into Business, No Matter What He Does. If He Complies With One Of These Laws, He Faces Criminal Prosecution Under Several Others. For Instance, If He Charges Prices Which Some Bureaucrats Judge As Too High, He Can Be Prosecuted For Monopoly Or For A Successful 'intent To Monopolize'; If He Charges Prices Lower Than Those Of His Competitors, He Can Be Prosecuted For 'unfair Competition' Or 'restraint Of Trade'; And If He Charges The Same Prices As His Competitors, He Can Be Prosecuted For 'collusion' Or 'conspiracy.'

The Moral Justification Of Capitalism Does Not Lie In The Altruist Claim That It Represents The Best Way To Achieve 'the Common Good.' It Is True That Capitalism Does -- If That Catch-phrase Has Any Meaning -- But This Is Merely A Secondary Consequence. The Moral Justification For Capitalism Lies In The Fact That It Is The Only System Consonant With Man's Rational Nature, That It Protects Man's Survival Qua Man, And That Its Ruling Principle Is: Justice

Man's Mind Is His Basic Tool Of Survival.

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.

It's Not About Who's Going To Let Me; It's About Who's Going To Stop Me.

Let Me Give You A Tip On A Clue To Men's Characters: The Man Who Damns Money Has Obtained It Dishonorably; The Man Who Respects It Has Earned It.

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

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

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.

Whether It’s A Symphony Or A Coal Mine, All Work Is An Act Of Creating And Comes From The Same Source: From An Inviolate Capacity To See Through One’s Own Eyes-which Means: The Capacity To Perform A Rational Identification- Which Means: The Capacity To See, To Connect And To Make What Had Not Been Seen, Connected And Made Before.

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.

She Felt A Board Indifference Toward The Immediate World Around Her Toward Other Children And Adults Alike. She Took It As A Regrettable Accident To Be Borne Patiently For A While, That She Happened To Be Imprisoned Among People Who Were Dull. She Had Caught A Glimpse Of Another World And She Knew It Existed Somewhere, The World That Had Created Trains, Bridges, Telegraph Wires And Signal Lights Winking In The Night. She Had To Wait She Thought, And Grow Up To That World. - Dagny Taggart

There Can Be No Compromise Between Freedom And Government Controls; To Accept 'just A Few Controls' Is To Surrender The Principle Of Inalienable Individual Rights And To Substitute For It The Principle Of The Government’s Unlimited, Arbitrary Power, Thus Delivering Oneself Into Gradual Enslavement. As An Example Of This Process, Observe The Present Domestic Policy Of The United States.

One Method Of Destroying A Concept Is By Diluting Its Meaning. Observe That By Ascribing Rights To The Unborn, I.e., The Nonliving, The Anti-abortionists Obliterate The Rights Of The Living.

I Say That Man Is Entitled To His Own Happiness And That He Must Achieve It Himself. But That He Cannot Demand That Others Give Up Their Lives To Make Him Happy.

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.

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.

The Right Of A Nation To Determine Its Own Form Of Government Does Not Include The Right To Establish A Slave Society (that Is, To Legalize The Enslavement Of Some Men By Others). There Is No Such Thing As "the Right To Enslave." A Nation Can Do It, Just As A Man Can Become A Criminal- But Neither Can Do It By Right.

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

Sacrifice Is The Surrender Of That Which You Value In Favor Of Which You Dont

There's Nothing Of Any Importance In Life — Except How Well You Do Your Work. Nothing. Only That. Whatever Else You Are, Will Come From That. It's The Only Measure Of Human Value.

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.

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.

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.

It's True That There's No Such Thing As Free Will. We Can't Help What We Are Or What We Do. It's Not Our Fault. Nobody's To Blame For Anything. It's All In Your Background ... And Your Glands. If You're Good, That's No Achievement Of Yours - You Were Lucky In Your Glands. If You're Rotten, Nobody Should Punish You - You Were Unlucky, That's All.

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

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

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.

Every Coercive Monopoly Was Created By Government Intervention Into The Economy: By Special Privileges, Such As Franchises Or Subsidies, Which Closed The Entry Of Competitors Into A Given Field, By Legislative Action.

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

Ferris: Are You Going To Be As Impractical As That? Rearden: The Evaluation Of An Action As Practical, Dr. Ferris, Depends On What It Is That One Wishes To Practice. Ferris: Haven't You Always Placed Your Self-interest Above All Else? Rearden: That Is What I Am Doing Right Now.

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.

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.

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

Why Is It Immoral For You To Desire, But Moral For Others To Do So? Why Is It Immoral To Produce A Value And Keep It, But Moral To Give It Away? And If It Is Not Moral For You To Keep A Value, Why Is It Moral For Others To Accept It? If You Are Selfless And Virtuous When You Give It, Are They Not Selfish And Vicious When They Take It?

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

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.

What Greater Wealth Is There Than To Own Your Life And To Spend It On Growing? Every Living Thing Must Grow. It Can't Stand Still. It Must Grow Or Perish.

Observe How Many People Evade, Rationalize And Drive Their Minds Into A State Of Blind Stupor, In Dread Of Discovering That Those They Deal With- Their "loved Ones" Or Friends Or Business Associates Or Political Rulers- Are Not Merely Mistaken, But Evil. Observe That This Dread Leads Them To Sanction, To Help And To Spread The Very Evil Whose Existence They Fear To Acknowledge.

I Am Unwilling To Be Wholly Good—and Please Don't Regard Me As Wholly Evil!

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

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

To Deal With Men By Force Is As Impractical As To Deal With Nature By Persuasion.

It Meant Nothing To Him Any Longer, Only A Faint Tinge Of Sadness--and Somewhere Within Him, A Drop Of Pain Moving Briefly And Vanishing, Like A Raindrop On The Glass Of A Window, Its Course In The Shape Of A Question Mark.

Lobbying' Is The Activity Of Attempting To Influence Legislation By Privately Influencing The Legislators. It Is The Result And Creation Of A Mixed Economy-of Government By Pressure Groups. Its Methods Range From Mere Social Courtesies And Cocktail-party Or Luncheon "friendships" To Favors, Threats, Bribes, Blackmail.

Pressure Groups

Since Only An Individual Man Can Possess Rights, The Expression "individual Rights"? Is A Redundancy (which One Has To Use For Purposes Of Clarification In Today's Intellectual Chaos). But The Expression "collective Rights"? Is A Contradiction In Terms.

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

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

Thinking Men Cannot Be Ruled; Ambitious Men Do Not Stagnate.

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

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.

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.

Achieving Life Is Not The Equivalent Of Avoiding Death.

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

The Worst Evil That You Can Do, Psychologically, Is To Laugh At Yourself. That Means Spitting In Your Own Face.

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.

She Did Not Know What It Was About Him That Had Always Made Her Want To See Him Broken.

Collectivism Requires Self-sacrifice, The Subordination Of One's Interests To Those Of Others.

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

Every Major Horror Of History Was Committed In The Name Of An Altruistic Motive. Has Any Act Of Selfishness Ever Equalled The Carnage Perpetrated By Disciples Of Altruism.

A Gun Is Not An Argument.

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

The Creator's Concern Is The Conquest Of Nature. The Parasite's Concern Is The Conquest Of Men.

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.

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.

You Are Damned, And We Wish To Share Your Damnation.

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.

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

I Am Not The Means To Any End Others May Wish To Accomplish. I Am Not A Tool For Their Use. I Am Not A Servant Of Their Needs. I Am Not A Bandage For Their Wounds, I Am Not A Sacrifice On Their Altars.

The More Neurotic And Evasive A Person Is, The Shorter The Range Of His Interests.

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.

Words Are A Lens To Focus One's Mind.

So Long As Men Desire To Live Together, No Man May Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others. . . . When A Man Attempts To Deal With Me By Force, I Answer Him By Force. It Is Only As Retaliation That Force May Be Used And Only Against The Man Who Starts Its Use. No, I Do Not Share His Evil Or Sink To His Concept Of Morality: I Merely Grant Him His Choice, Destruction, The Only Destruction He Had The Right To Choose: His Own.

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

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

Civilization Is The Progress Toward A Society Of Privacy.

Progress Of Society

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

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

If You Don't Know, The Thing To Do Is Not To Get Scared, But To Learn.

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

You Love Only Those Who Deserve It.

The Leaves Streamed Down, Trembling In The Sun. They Were Not Green, Only A Few, Scattered Through The Torrent, Stood Out In Single Drops Of Green So Bright And Pure That It Hurt The Eyes; The Rest Were Not A Color, But A Light, The Substance Of Fire On Metal, Living Sparks Without Edges. And It Looked As If The Forest Were A Spread Of Light Boiling Slowly To Produce This Color, The Green Rising In Small Bubbles, The Condensed Essence Of Spring. The Trees Met, Blending Over The Road And The Spots Of Sun On The Ground Moved With The Shifting Of The Branches, Like A Conscious Caress.

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.

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.

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

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.

If There Is Any One Proof Of A Man's Incompetence, It Is The Stagnant Mentality Of A Worker Who, Doing Some Small Routine Job In A Vast Undertaking, Does Not Care To Look Beyond The Lever Of A Machine, Does Not Choose To Know How The Machine Got There Or What Makes His Job Possible, And Proclaims That The Management Of The Undertaking Is Parasitical And Unnecessary.

Fransisco, You're Some Kind Of Very High Nobility, Aren't You?" He Answered, "not Yet. The Reason My Family Has Lasted For Such A Long Time Is That None Of Us Has Ever Been Permitted To Think He Is Born A D'anconia. We Are Expected To Become One.

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

If You Tell An Amateur That His Story Is Not Good, He Always Declares Indignantly: 'oh, But It Really Happened Just Like This!' The Writer Who Doesn't Understand That This Is Beside The Point Is Not A Writer At All.

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.

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.

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

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

I Am An Innovator. This Is A Term Of Distinction, A Term Of Honor, Rather Than Something To Hide Or Apologize For. Anyone Who Has New Or Valuable Ideas To Offer Stands Outside The Intellectual Status Quo. But The Status Quo Is Not A Stream, Let Alone A 'mainstream'. It Is A Stagnant Swamp. It Is The Innovators Who Carry Mankind Forward.

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?

You Must Be The Kind Of Man Who Can Get Things Done. But To Get Things Done, You Must Love The Doing, Not The Secondary Consequences.

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

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

What Objectivity And The Study Of Philosophy Requires Is Not An 'open Mind,' But An Active Mind - A Mind Able And Eagerly Willing To Examine Ideas, But To Examine Them Criticially.

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

Indiscriminate Tolerance And Indiscriminate Condemnation Are Not Two Opposites: They Are Two Variants Of The Same Evasion. To Declare That “everybody Is White” Or “everybody Is Black” Or “everybody Is Neither White Nor Black, But Gray,” Is Not A Moral Judgment, But An Escape From The Responsibility Of Moral Judgment.

The Argument From Intimidation Is A Confession Of Intellectual Impotence.

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

Namely, If I Am Challenging The Base Of All These Institutions, I'm Challenging The Moral Code Of Altruism. The Precept That Man's Moral Duty Is To Live For Others. That Man Must Sacrifice Himself To Others. Which Is The Present Day Morality.

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.

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.

Don't Help Me Or Serve Me, But Let Me See It Once, Because I Need It. Don't Work For My Happiness, My Brothers — Show Me Yours — Show Me That It Is Possible — Show Me Your Achievement — And The Knowledge Will Give Me Courage For Mine.

Happiness Is Not Something You Have In Your Hands; It's Something You Carry In Your Heart. Happiness Is One Thing That Multiplies By Division. Happiness Is That Peculiar Sensation You Acquire When You Are Too Busy To Be Miserable. Happiness Is That State Of Consciousness Which Proceeds From The Achievement Of One's Values.

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

A Man Doesn't Borrow Pieces Of His Body. A Building Doesn't Borrow Hunks Of Its Soul. Its Maker Gives It The Soul And Every Wall, Window And Stairway To Express 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.

Individual Rights Are The Means Of Subordinating Society To Moral Law.

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

In All Proper Relationships There Is No Sacrifice Of Anyone To Anyone. An Architect Needs Clients, But He Does Not Subordinate His Work To Their Wishes. They Need Him, But They Do Not Order A House Just To Give Him Commission. Men Exchange Their Work By Free, Mutual Consent To Mutual Advantage When Their Personal Interests Agree And They Both Desire The Exchange.

What You Think Is An Illusion Created By Your Glands, Your Emotions And, In The Last Analysis, By The Content Of Your Stomach. That Gray Matter You're So Proud Of Is Like A Mirror In An Amusement Park Which Transmits To You Nothing But Distorted Signals From Reality Forever Beyond Your Grasp.

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

The Middle Ages Were An Era Of Mysticism, Ruled By Blind Faith And Blind Obedience To The Dogma That Faith Is Superior To Reason. The Renaissance Was Specifically The Rebirth Of Reason, The Liberation Of Man's Mind, The Triumph Of Rationality Over Mysticism - A Faltering, Incomplete, But Impassioned Triumph That Led To The Birth Of Science, Of Individualism, Of Freedom.

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.

Congress Shall Make No Law Abridging The Freedom Of Production And Trade.

Ordinary Human Concern For Human Distress Does Not Manifest Itself Ordinarily In The Form Of A Gun Aimed At The Wallets And Earnings Of One's Neighbors.

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

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out.

Overcoming Addiction

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.

It Is A Policeman’s Duty To Retrieve Stolen Property And Return It To Its Owners. But When Robbery Becomes The Purpose Of The Law, And The Policeman’s Duty Becomes, Not Protection, But The Plunder Of Property - Then It Is An Outlaw Who Has To Become A Policeman.

The Political Function Of 'the Right Of Free Speech' Is To Protect Dissenters And Unpopular Minorities From Forcible Suppression - Not To Guarantee Them The Support, Advantages, And Rewards Of A Popularity They Have Not Gained.

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

For They Have Nothing To Fight Me With, Save The Brute Force Of Their Numbers. I Have My Mind.

The Difference Between [socialism And Fascism] Is Superficial And Purely Formal, But It Is Significant Psychologically: It Brings The Authoritarian Nature Of A Planned Economy Crudely Into The Open. The Main Characteristic Of Socialism (and Of Communism) Is Public Ownership Of The Means Of Production, And, Therefore, The Abolition Of Private Property. The Right To Property Is The Right Of Use And Disposal. Under Fascism, Men Retain The Semblance Or Pretense Of Private Property, But The Government Holds Total Power Over Its Use And Disposal.

He Despised Causeless Affection, Just As He Despised Unearned Wealth. They Professed To Love Him For Some Unknown Reason And They Ignored All The Things For Which He Could Wish To Be Loved.

You'll Come Back, Because Yours Is An Error Of Knowledge, Not A Moral Failure, Not An Act Of Surrender To Evil, But Only The Last Act Of Being Victim To Your Own Virtue. We'll Wait For You And When You Come Back, You Will Have Discovered That There Need Never Be Any Conflict Among Your Desires, Nor So Tragic A Clash Of Values As The One You've Borne So Well.

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

The 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.

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

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

I Got The Idea [for Anthem's Theme] In My School Days, In Soviet Russia, When I Heard All The Vicious Attacks On Individualism, And Asked Myself What The World Would Be Like If Men Lost The Word 'i.'

In Order To Fight Any Issue, It Is Necessary To Fight For Something, Not Merely Against Something.

The More You Learn, The More You Know That You Know Nothing.

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.

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.

The Government Was Set To Protect Man From Criminals-and The Constitution Was Written To Protect Man From The Government. The Bill Of Rights Was Not Directed At Private Citizens, But Against The Government-as An Explicit Declaration That Individual Rights Supersede Any Public Or Social Power.

"mediocrity" Doesn't Mean Average Intelligence, It Means An Average Intelligence That Resents And Envies Its Betters.

Love Should Be Treated Like A Business Deal, But Every Business Deal Has Its Own Terms And Its Own Currency. And In Love, The Currency Is Virtue. You Love People Not For What You Do For Them Or What They Do For You. You Love Them For The Values, The Virtues, Which They Have Achieved In Their Own Character.

A Society That Robs An Individual Of The Product Of His Effort, Or Enslaves Him, Or Attempts To Limit The Freedom Of His Mind, Or Compels Him To Act Against His Own Rational Judgment-a Society That Sets Up A Conflict Between Its Edicts And The Requirements Of Man’s Nature—is Not, Strictly Speaking, A Society, But A Mob Held Together By Institutionalized Gang-rule.

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

What Is Greatness? I Will Answer: It Is The Capacity To Live By The Three Fundamental Values Of John Galt: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

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.

A Man Of Independent Judgment Is A Man Of Profound Self-esteem.

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

Do Not Make The Mistake Of The Ignorant Who Think That An Individualist Is A Man Who Says: “i’ll Do As I Please At Everybody Else’s Expense.” An Individualist Is A Man Who Recognizes The Inalienable Individual Rights Of Man—his Own And Those Of Others.

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

I Hold That Such A Question Can Never Arise Except In A Society Of Cannibals.

I Guard My Treasures: My Thoughts, My Will, My Freedom. And The Greatest Of These Is Freedom.

Aristotle May Be Regarded As The Cultural Barometer Of Western History. Whenever His Influence Dominated The Scene, It Paved The Way For One Of History's Brilliant Eras; Whenever It Fell, So Did Mankind.

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.

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

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.

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.

If The Humanists Wish To Be Champions Of Reason, They Should Consider The Following: Just As They Would Not Admit Mystics Into Their Camp, Since No Rational Discussion Is Possible With Men Who Substitute Supernatural Revelations For Rational Evidence-so They Cannot Admit Advocates Of Force Into Their Camp, Because No Rational Discussion Or Agreement Is Possible With Men Who Substitute Guns For Rational Persuasion.

Collectivism Means The Subjugation Of The Individual To A Group - Whether To A Race, Class Or State Does Not Matter. Collectivism Holds That Man Must Be Chained To Collective Action And Collective Thought For The Sake Of What Is Called 'the Common Good'.

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

When You Have Established That One Alternative Is Good And The Other Is Evil, There Is No Justification For The Choice Of A Mixture. There Is No Justification Ever For Choosing Any Part Of What You Know To Be Evil.

Im Waiting, For What, My Kind Of People, What Kind Is That, I Can Tell My Kind Of People By Their Faces, By Something In Their Faces.

She Did Not Know The Nature Of Her Loneliness. The Only Words That Named It Were: This Is Not The World I Expected.

The Worst Wars Are Religious Wars Between Sects Of The Same Religion Or Civil Wars Between Brothers Of The Same Race.

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.

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

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?

All The Evils, Abuses, And Iniquities, Popularly Ascribed To Businessmen And To Capitalism, Were Not Caused By An Unregulated Economy Or By A Free Market, But By Government Intervention Into The Economy.

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.

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

Theirs Is The Banner In My Hand. And I Wish I Had The Power To Tell Them That The Despair Of Their Hearts Was Not To Be Final, And Their Night Was Not Without Hope. For The Battle They Lost Can Never Be Lost. For That Which They Died To Save Can Never Perish. Through All The Darkness, Through All The Shame Of Which Men Are Capable, The Spirit Of Man Will Remain Alive On This Earth. It May Sleep, But It Will Awaken. It May Wear Chains, But It Will Break Through. And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men. ~equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), Pgs 103-104

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

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.

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

Degrees Of Ability Vary, But The Basic Principle Remains The Same: The Degree Of A Man's Independence, Initiative And Personal Love For His Work Determines His Talent As A Worker And His Worth As A Man. 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. There Is No Standard Of Personal Dignity Except Independence.

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

People Want Nothing But Mirrors Around Them. To Reflect Them While They’re Reflecting Too ... Reflections Of Reflections And Echoes Of Echoes. No Beginning And No End. No Center And No Purpose.

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

Through All The Darkness, Through All The Shame Of Which Men Are Capable, The Spirit Of Man Will Remain Alive On This Earth. It May Sleep, But It Will Awaken. It May Wear Chains, But It Will Break Through.

Faith Is The Wors Curse Of Mankind, As The Exact Antithesis And Enemy Of Thought.

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.

The Fight We Are In Here, Make No Mistake About It, Is A Fight Of Individualism Versus Collectivism.

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

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

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

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

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.

Andrei, Did You Like The Opera?" "not Particularly." "andrei, Do You See What You're Missing?" "i Don't Think I Do, Kira. It's All Rather Silly. And Useless." "can't You Enjoy Things That Are Useless, Merely Because They Are Beautiful?" "no. But I Enjoyed It." "the Music?" "no. The Way You Listened To It.

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

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