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It's Strange. There's Your Life. You Begin It, Feeling That It's Something So Precious And Rare, So Beautiful That It's Like A Sacred Treasure. Now It's Over, And It Doesn't Make Any Difference To Anyone, And It Isn't That They Are Indifferent, It's Just That They Don't Know, They Don't Know What It Means, That Treasure Of Mine, And There's Something About It That They Should Understand. I Don't Understand It Myself, But There's Something That Should Be Understood By All Of Us. Only What Is It? What?

-Ayn Rand

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It's Strange. There's Your

Ayn Rand

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It's Strange. There's Your Life. You Begin It, Feeling That It's Something So Precious And Rare, So Beautiful That It's Like A Sacred Treasure. Now It's Over, And It Doesn't Make Any Difference To Anyone, And It Isn't That They Are Indifferent, It's Just That They Don't Know, They Don't Know What It Means, That Treasure Of Mine, And There's Something About It That They Should Understand. I Don't Understand It Myself, But There's Something That Should Be Understood By All Of Us. Only What Is It? What?

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In Any Compromise Between Food And Poison, It Is Only Death That Can Win. In Any Compromise Between Good And Evil, It Is Only Evil That Can Profit.

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

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

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

Laissez Faire Capitalism

Unjust Laws Have To Be Fought Ideologically; They Cannot Be Fought Or Corrected By Means Of Mere Disobedience And Futile Martyrdom.

Ask Anything Of Men. Ask Them To Achieve Wealth, Fame, Love, Brutality, Murder, Self-sacrifice. But Don’t Ask Them To Achieve Self-respect. They Will Hate Your Soul.

An Irresponsible Person Is A Person Who Makes Vague Promises, Then Breaks His Word, Blames It On Circumstances And Expects Other People To Forgive It.

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.

I Feel That Others Live Up To Me, If They Want Me.

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

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

Guilt Is A Rope That Wears Thin.

There Is No Such Thing As Duty. If You Know That A Thing Is Right, You Want To Do It. If You Don't Want To Do It - It Isn't Right. If It's Right And You Don't Want To Do It - You Don't Know What Right Is And You're Not A Man.

I Can Say-not As A Patriotic Bromide, But With Full Knowledge Of The Necessary Metaphysical, Epistemological , Ethical, Political And Esthetic Roots-that The United States Of America Is The Greatest, The Noblest And, In Its Original Founding Principles, The Only Moral Country In The History Of The World.

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

It's A Rare Gift, You Know, To Feel Reverence For Your Own Life And To Want The Best, The Greatest, The Highest Possible, Here, Now, For Your Very Own.

Those Touchy Mediocrities Who Sit Trembling Lest Someone's Work Prove Greater Than Their Own - They Have No Inkling Of The Loneliness That Comes When You Reach The Top. The Loneliness For An Equal - For A Mind To Respect And An Achievement To Admire.

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

I Think, Therefore I'll Think.

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

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.

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.

No Speech Is Ever Considered, But Only The Speaker. It's So Much Easier To Pass Judgement On A Man Than On An Idea.

The Sky Is Like A Black Sieve Pierced By Silver Drops That Tremble, Ready To Burst Through.

They Had Rejected The Soul-body Dichotomy, With Its Two Corollaries: The Impotence Of Man's Mind And The Damnation Of This Earth; They Had Rejected The Doctrine Of Suffering As Man's Metaphysical Fate, They Proclaimed Man's Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness And Were Determined To Establish On Earth The Conditions Required For Man's Proper Existence, By The "unaided" Power Of Their Intellect.

Pursuit Of Happiness

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.

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

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

Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

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.

Since Nature Does Not Endow All Men With Equal Beauty Or Equal Intelligence, And The Faculty Of Volition Leads Men To Make Different Choices, The Egalitarians Propose To Abolish The "unfairness" Of Nature And Of Volition, And To Establish Universal Equality In Fact - In Defiance Of Facts. It Is Not Equality Before The Law That They Seek, But Inequality: The Establishment Of An Inverted Social Pyramid, With A New Aristocracy On Top - The Aristocracy Of Non-value.

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

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

The Goal Of The 'liberals' - As It Emerges From The Record Of The Past Decades - Was To Smuggle This Country Into Welfare Statism By Means Of Single, Concrete, Specific Measures, Enlarging The Power Of The Government A Step At A Time, Never Permitting These Steps To Be Summed Up Into Principles, Never Permitting Their Direction To Be Identified Or The Basic Issue To Be Named. Thus, Statism Was To Come, Not By Vote Or By Violence, But By Slow Rot - By A Long Process Of Evasion And Epistemological Corruption, Leading To A Fait Accompli.

You Don't Have To See Through The Eyes Of Others, Hold Onto Yours, Stand On Your Own Judgment, You Know That What Is, Is–say It Aloud, Like The Holiest Of Prayers, And Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise.

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.

Indiscriminate Tolerance And Indiscriminate Condemnation Are Not Two Opposites: They Are Two Variants Of The Same Evasion.

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.

The Founding Fathers Were Neither Passive, Death-worshipin G Mystics Nor Mindless, Power-seeking Looters; As A Political Group They Were A Phenomenon Unprecedented In History: They Were Thinkers Who Were Also Men Of Action.

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.'

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

If The Rest Of Them Can Survive Only By Destroying Us, Then Why Should We Wish Them To Survive? . . . Nothing Can Make It Moral To Destroy The Best. One Can't Be Punished For Being Good. One Can't Be Penalized For Ability.

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

Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out, Spark By Irreplaceable Spark In The Hopeless Swamps Of The Not-quite, The Not-yet, And The Not-at-all. Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish In Lonely Frustration For The Life You Deserved And Have Never Been Able To Reach. The World You Desire Can Be Won. It Exists.. It Is Real.. It Is Possible.. It's Yours.

Civilization Is The Progress Toward A Society Of Privacy.

Progress Of Society

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!'

The Spread Of Evil Is The Symptom Of A Vacuum. Whenever Evil Wins, It Is Only By Default: By The Moral Failure Of Those Who Evade The Fact That There Can Be No Compromise On Basic Principles.

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

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

There Is No Difference Between Communism And Socialism, Except In The Means Of Achieving The Same Ultimate End: Communism Proposes To Enslave Men By Force, Socialism - By Vote. It Is Merely The Difference Between Murder And Suicide.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Mark Of An Honest Man... Is That He Means What He Says And Knows What He Means.

The Creed Of Sacrifice Is A Morality For The Immoral.

Hence The Sterile, Uninspiring Futility Of A Great Many Theoretical Discussions Of Ethics, And The Resentment Which Many People Feel Towards Such Discussions: Moral Principles Remain In Their Minds As Floating Abstractions, Offering Them A Goal They Cannot Grasp And Demanding That They Reshape Their Souls In Its Image, Thus Leaving Them With A Burden Of Undefinable Moral Guilt.

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

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.

The End Does Not Justify The Means. No One's Rights Can Be Secured By The Violation Of The Rights Of Others.

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

Achieving Life Is Not The Equivalent Of Avoiding Death.

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

As Long As Men Are Free To Speak, A Small, Rational Minority Will Always Prevail Over An Irrational Majority.

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

Man's Mind Is His Basic Tool Of Survival.

Happiness Is A State Of Non-contradictory Joy--a Joy Without Penalty Or Guilt, A Joy That Does Not Clash With Any Of Your Values And Does Not Work For Your Own Destruction, Not The Joy Of Escaping From Your Mind, But Of Using Your Mind's Fullest Power, Not The Joy Of Faking Reality, But Of Achieving Values That Are Real, Not The Joy Of A Drunkard, But Of A Producer.

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

When A Man Feels Fear Without Reason, You Call Him To The Attention Of A Psychiatrist; You Are Not So Careful To Protect The Meaning, The Nature And The Dignity Of Love.

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.

It Is Easier To Donate A Few Thousand To Charity And Think Oneself Noble Than To Base Self-respect On Personal Standards Of Personal Achievement.

Reason Can Be Fought With Reason. How Are You Going To Fight The Unreasonable? The Trouble With You, My Dear, And With Most People, Is That You Don’t Have Sufficient Respect For The Senseless. The Senseless Is The Major Factor In Our Lives. You Have No Chance If It Is Your Enemy.

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

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.

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.

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

A Majority Vote Is Not An Epistemological Validation Of An Idea. Voting Is Merely A Proper Political Device--within A Strictly, Constitutionall Y Delimited Sphere Of Action--for Choosing The Practical Means Of Implementing A Society’s Basic Principles. But Those Principles Are Not Determined By Vote.

Politically, The Goal Of Today’s Dominant Trend Is Statism. Philosophically , The Goal Is The Obliteration Of Reason; Psychologically , It Is The Erosion Of Ambition. The Political Goal Presupposes The Two Others. The Human Characteristic Required By Statism Is Docility, Which Is The Product Of Hopelessness And Intellectual Stagnation. Thinking Men Cannot Be Ruled; Ambitious Men Do Not Stagnate.

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

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?

Capitalism Is Not The System Of The Past; It Is The System Of The Future -- If Mankind Is To Have A Future

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

Everything Has Strings Leading To Everything Else. We're All So Tied Together. We're All In A Net, The Net Is Waiting, And We're Pushed Into It By One Single Desire. You Want A Thing And It's Precious To You. Do You Know Who Is Standing Ready To Tear It Out Of Your Hands? You Can't Know, It May Be So Involved And So Far Away, But Someone Is Ready, And You're Afraid Of Them All. And You Cringe And You Crawl And You Beg And You Accept Them--just So They'll Let You Keep It. And Look At Whom You Come To Accept.

Life Is The Reward Of Virtue. And Happiness Is The Goal And Reward Of Life.

To Be The Kind Of Writer You Want To Be, You Must First Be The Kind Of Thinker You Want To Be.

A Rational Process Is A Moral Process. You May Make An Error At Any Step Of It, With Nothing To Protect You But Your Own Severity, Or You May Try To Cheat, To Fake The Evidence And Evade The Effort Of The Quest - But If Devotion To The Truth Is The Hallmark Of Morality, Then There Is No Greater, Nobler, More Heroic Form Of Devotion Than The Act Of A Man Who Assumes The Responsibility Of Thinking.

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

Ask Yourself Why Totalitarian Dictatorships Find It Necessary To Pour Money And Effort Into Propaganda For Their Own Helpless, Chained, Gagged Slaves, Who Have No Means Of Protest Or Defense. The Answer Is That Even The Humblest Peasant Or The Lowest Savage Would Rise In Blind Rebellion, Were He To Realize That He Is Being Immolated, Not To Some Incomprehensible Noble Purpose, But To Plain, Naked Human Evil.

She Was Incapable Of Love For Any Object Not Of Her Own Choice And She Resented Anyone's Demand For It.

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

And What, Incidentally, Do You Think Integrity Is? The Ability Not To Pick A Watch Out Of Your Neighbor's Pocket? No, It's Not As Easy As That. If That Were All, I'd Say Ninety-five Percent Of Humanity Were Honest, Upright Men. Only, As You Can See, They Aren't. Integrity Is The Ability To Stand By An Idea.

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

Existence Is Identity, Consciousness Is Identification.

Show Me Your Achievement, And The Knowledge Will Give Me Courage For Mine.

The Moral Cannibalism Of All Hedonist And Altruist Doctrines Lies In The Premise That The Happiness Of One Man Necessitates The Injury Of Another.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Degree Of A Country's Freedom Is The Degree Of Its Prosperity.

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

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

Observe, In Politics, That The Term Extremism Has Become A Synonym Of "evil," Regardless Of The Content Of The Issue (the Evil Is Not What You Are Extreme About, But That You Are "extreme" - I.e., Consistent).

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

I Am Neither Foe Nor Friend To My Brothers, But Such As Each Of Them Shall Deserve Of Me. And To Earn My Love, My Brothers Must Do More Than To Have Been Born. I Do Not Grant My Love Without Reason, Nor To Any Chance Passer-by Who May Wish To Claim It. I Honor Men With My Love. But Honor Is A Thing To Be Earned.

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.

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.

My Dear Fellow, Who Will Let You?" "that's Not The Point. The Point Is, Who Will Stop Me?

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.

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.

She Thought: At This Moment, The Glass Stem Between His Fingers Feels Just Like The One Between Mine. We Have This Much In Common.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Every Form Of Happiness If One, Every Desire Is Driven By The Same Motor--by Our Love For A Single Value, For The Highest Potentiality Of Our Own Existence--and Every Achievement Is An Expression Of It.

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.

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

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

... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

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

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

There Is Nothing To Take A Man’s Freedom Away From Him, Save Other Men.

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

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

If There Is A God

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

Dictatorship Nations Are Outlaws. Any Free Nation Had The Right To Invade Nazi Germany And, Today, Has The Right To Invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, Or Any Other Slave Pen. Whether A Free Nation Chooses To Do So Or Not Is A Matter Of Its Own Self-interest, Not Of Respect For The Nonexistent 'rights' Of Gang Rulers. It Is Not A Free Nation's Duty To Liberate Other Nations At The Price Of Self-sacrifice, But A Free Nation Has The Right To Do It, When And If It So Chooses.

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

In All Proper Relationships There Is No Sacrifice Of Anyone To Anyone.

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.

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

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.

My Philosophy, In Essence, Is The Concept Of Man As A Heroic Being, With His Own Happiness As The Moral Purpose Of His Life, With Productive Achievement As His Noblest Activity, And Reason As His Only Absolute.

You Will Follow Me, If We Are What We Are, You And I, If We Live, If The World Exists, If You Know The Meaning Of This Moment And Can't Let It Slip By, As Others Let It Slip, Into The Senselessness Of The Unwilled And Unreached.

Creation Comes Before Distribution - Or There Will Be Nothing To Distribute. The Need Of The Creator Comes Before The Need Of Any Possible Beneficiary. Yet We Are Taught To Admire The Second-hander Who Dispenses Gifts He Has Not Produced Above The Man Who Made The Gifts Possible. We Praise An Act Of Charity. We Shrug At An Act Of Achievement.

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.

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

Ideas Cannot Be Fought Except By Means Of Better Ideas. The Battle Consists, Not Of Opposing, But Of Exposing; Not Of Denouncing, But Of Disproving; Not Of Evading, But Of Boldly Proclaiming A Full, Consistent, And Radical Alternative.

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

You're Not Sorry. You Could've Been Here If You Made The Effort. But When Did You Ever Make An Effort For Anybody But Yourself? You're Not Interested In Any Of Us Or In Anything We Do. You Think If You Pay The Bills, That's Enough, Don't You? Money! That's All You Know. And All You Give Us Is Money. Have You Even Given Us Any Time?

To The Extent To Which A Man Is Rational, Life Is The Premise Directing His Actions. To The Extent To Which He Is Irrational, The Premise Directing His Actions Is Death.

And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men.

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

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.

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

"you Were Not Born To Be A Second-hander." Howard Roark To Gail Wynand In "the Fountainhead"

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

Compromise Does Not Satisfy, But Dissatisfies Everybody; It Does Not Lead To Any General Fulfillment, But To General Frustration; Those Who Try To Become Everything To All People End Up By Not Being Anything To Anyone.

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

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

Don't Worry. They're All Against Me. But I Have One Advantage: They Don't Know What They Want. I Do.

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.

When One Turns From Reason To Faith, When One Rejects The Absolutism Of Reality, One Undercuts The Absolutism Of One's Consciousness - And One's Mind Becomes An Organ One Cannot Trust Any Longer. It Becomes What The Mystics Claim It To Be: A Tool Of Distortion.

The Essential Characteristic Of Socialism Is The Denial Of Individual Property Rights.

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

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

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.

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.

The Man-worshipers, In My Sense Of The Term, Are Those Who See Man's Highest Potential And Strive To Actualize It. The Man-haters Are Those Who Regard Man As A Helpless, Depraved, Contemptible Creature-and Struggle Never To Let Him Discover Otherwise.

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

The Virtue Involved In Helping Those One Loves Is Not 'selflessness' Or 'sacrifice,' But Integrity.

Self-esteem Is Reliance On Ones Power To Think.

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

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

[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.

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?

I Think It's A Sin To Sit Down And Let Your Life Go Without Making A Try For It.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

To Arrive At A Contradiction Is To Confess An Error In One's Thinking; To Maintain A Contradiction Is To Abdicate One's Mind And To Evict Oneself From The Realm Of Reality.

A Government Is The Most Dangerous Threat To Man

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

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

That Which Exists Possesses Identity; He Could Keep It Out Of Existence By Refusing To Identify It.

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

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

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

If He Can Give His Readers No Reason Why They Should Read His Book, Except That The Events Happened To Him, It Is Not A Valid Book.

Emotions Are Not Tools Of Cognition. They Tell You Nothing About The Nature Of Reality.

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 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.

The Meaning Ascribed In Popular Usage To The Word 'selfishness' Is Not Merely Wrong: It Represents A Devastating Intellectual 'package-deal,' Which Is Responsible, More Than Any Other Single Factor, For The Arrested Moral Development Of Mankind.

Moral Development

Do You Know That My Personal Crusade In Life (in The Philosophical Sense) Is Not Merely To Fight Collectivism, Nor To Fight Altruism? These Are Only Consequences, Effects, Not Causes. I Am Out After The Real Cause, The Real Root Of Evil On Earth The Irrational.

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

Until And Unless You Discover That Money Is The Root Of All Good, You Ask For Your Own Destruction. When Money Ceases To Become The Means By Which Men Deal With One Another, Then Men Become The Tools Of Other Men. Blood, Whips And Guns--or Dollars. Take Your Choice--there Is No Other.

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.

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.

Never Ask People. Not About Your Work. Don't You Know What You Want? How Can You Stand It, Not To Know?

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

Whenever Destroyers Appear Among Men, They Start By Destroying Money, For Money Is Men's Protection And The Base Of A Moral Existence. Destroyers Seize Gold And Leave To Its Owners A Counterfeit Pile Of Paper. This Kills All Objective Standards And Delivers Men Into The Arbitrary Power Of An Arbitrary Setter Of Values. 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.

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

It Is A Sin To Write This.

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?

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