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Look Around You And Look At History. You Will See The Achievements Of Man’s Mind. You Will See Man’s Unlimited Potentiality For Greatness, And The Faculty That Makes It Possible. You Will See That Man Is Not A Helpless Monster By Nature, But He Becomes One When He Discards That Faculty: His Mind. And If You Ask Me, What Is Greatness? I Will Answer, It Is The Capacity To Live By The Three Fundamental Values Of John Galt: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

-Ayn Rand

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Look Around You And

Ayn Rand

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Look Around You And Look At History. You Will See The Achievements Of Man’s Mind. You Will See Man’s Unlimited Potentiality For Greatness, And The Faculty That Makes It Possible. You Will See That Man Is Not A Helpless Monster By Nature, But He Becomes One When He Discards That Faculty: His Mind. And If You Ask Me, What Is Greatness? I Will Answer, It Is The Capacity To Live By The Three Fundamental Values Of John Galt: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

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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.

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.

Potentially, A Government Is The Most Dangerous Threat To Man's Rights; It Holds A Legal Monopoly On The Use Of Physical Force Against Legally Disarmed Victims. When Unlimited And Unrestricted By Individual Rights, A Government Is Man's Deadliest Enemy. It Is Not As Protection Against Private Actions, But Against Governmental Actions That The Bill Of Rights Was Written.

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.

To Achieve, You Need Thought. You Have To Know What You Are Doing And That's Real Power.

There Is A Fundamental Conviction Which Some People Never Acquire, Some Hold Only In Their Youth, And A Few Hold To The End Of Their Days-the Conviction That Ideas Matter . . . . That Ideas Matter Means That Knowledge Matters, That Truth Matters, That One's Mind Matters . . .

It's So Graceless, Being A Martyr. It's Honoring Your Adversaries Too Much.

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

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.

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

Kant Is The Most Evil Man In Mankind's History.

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

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.

An Artist Reveals His Naked Soul In His Work.

Most American Men Are Repressors.

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

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

No Man May Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others. No Man-or Group Or Society Or Government-has The Right To Assume The Role Of A Criminal And Initiate The Use Of Physical Compulsion Against Any Man. Men Have The Right To Use Physical Force Only In Retaliation And Only Against Those Who Initiate Its Use. The Ethical Principle Involved Is Simple And Clear-cut: It Is The Difference Between Murder And Self-defense.

The Only Thing That Matters My Goal My Reward My Beginning My End Is The Work Itself. My Work Done My Way. A Private Personal Selfish Egotistical Motivation. That’s The Only Way I Function. That’s All I Am.

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

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

She Had Learned, In The Slums Of Her Childhood, That Honest People Were Never Touchy About The Matter Of Being Trusted.

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.

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 Moral Absolute Should Be: If And When, In Any Dispute, One Side Initiates The Use Of Physical Force, That Side Is Wrong - And No Consideration Or Discussion Of The Issues Is Necessary Or Appropriate.

Identify The Dominant Philosophy Of A Society And You Can Predict Its Future.

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

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.

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

Man Has Been Called A Rational Being, But Rationality Is A Matter Of Choice... Man Has To Be A Man-by Choice; He Has To Hold His Life As A Value-by Choice; He Has To Learn To Sustain It-by Choice; He Has To Discover The Values It Requires And Practice His Virtues By Choice. A Code Of Values Accepted By Choice Is A Code Of Morality.

Evil Requires The Sanction Of The Victim.

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.

There Is A Fundamental Moral Difference Between A Man Who Sees His Self-interest In Production And A Man Who Sees It In Robbery. The Evil Of A Robber Does Not Lie In The Fact That He Pursues His Own Interests, But In What He Regards As To His Own Interest; Not In The Fact That He Pursues His Values, But In What He Chose To Value; Not In The Fact That He Wants To Live, But In The Fact That He Wants To Live On A Subhuman Level.

Why Have You Been Staring At Me Ever Since We Met? Because I’m Not The Gail Wynand You’d Heard About. You See, I Love You. And Love Is Exception-making. If You Were In Love You’d Want To Be Broken, Trampled, Ordered, Dominated, Because That’s The Impossible, In The Inconceivable For You In Your Relations With People. That Would Be The One Gift, The Great Exception You’d Want To Offer The Man You Loved. But It Wouldn’t Be Easy For You.

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

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

I Will Not Die, It's The World That Will End." Paraphrase Of Unknown Philosopher

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

There Is Only One Source Of Authentic Self-confidence: Reason.

Self Confidence

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.

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'.

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.

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

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.

Look Around You And Look At History. You Will See The Achievements Of Man’s Mind. You Will See Man’s Unlimited Potentiality For Greatness, And The Faculty That Makes It Possible. You Will See That Man Is Not A Helpless Monster By Nature, But He Becomes One When He Discards That Faculty: His Mind. And If You Ask Me, What Is Greatness? I Will Answer, It Is The Capacity To Live By The Three Fundamental Values Of John Galt: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

Ever Since Kant Divorced Reason From Reality, His Intellectual Descendants Have Been Diligently Widening The Breach.

Through All The Years That I Spent Formulating My Philosophical System, I Was Looking Desperately For “intelligent Agreement” Or At Least For “intelligent Disagreement.” I Found Neither. Today, I Am Not Looking For “intelligent Disagreement” Any Longer ... What I Am Looking For Is Intelligent Agreement.

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

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).

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

The Only Proper Purpose Of A Government Is To Protect Man's Rights, Which Means: To Protect Him From Physical Violence.

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

Style Is Not An End In Itself, It Is Only A Means To An End - The Means Of Telling A Story.

She's A Writer. The Kind Of Writer Who Wouldn't Be Published Outside. She Believes That When One Deals With Words, One Deals With The Mind.

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

Don't Ever Give Up What You Want In Life. The Struggle Is Worth It.

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.

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

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.

One Must Never Fail To Pronounce Moral Judgment.

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

Have You Felt It Too? Have You Seen How Your Best Friends Love Everything About You- Except The Things That Count? And Your Most Important Is Nothing To Them; Nothing, Not Even A Sound They Can Recognize.

It Is Not Fools That I Seek To Address.

There Can Be No Compromise On Moral Principles.

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

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

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.

Joy Is The Goal Of Existence, And Joy Is Not To Be Stumbled Upon, But To Be Achieved, And The Act Of Treason Is To Let Its Vision Drown In The Swamp Of The Moment's Torture.

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

Why Had We Let It Go? Why Had We Both Been Condemned...to An Exile Among Dreary Strangers Who Had Made Us Give Up All Desire For Rest, For Friendship, For The Sound Of Human Voices? Could I Now Reclaim A Single Hour Spent Talking To My Brother, Philip, And Give It To Ken Daggart? Who Made It Our Duty To Accept, As The Only Reward For Our Work, The Gray Torture Of Pretending Love For Those Who Roused Nothing But Contempt?

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.

Nobody Has Ever Given A Reason Why Men Should Be Their Brother's Keepers.

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

But A Few Understand That Building Is A Great Symbol We Live In Our Minds, And Existence Is The Attempt To Bring That Life Into Physical Reality, To State It In Gesture And Form. For The Man Who Understands This, A House He Owns Is A Statement Of His Life.

One Of The Methods Used By Statists To Destroy Capitalism Consists In Establishing Controls That Tie A Given Industry Hand And Foot, Making It Unable To Solve Its Problems, Then Declaring That Freedom Has Failed And Stronger Controls Are Necessary.

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

But The Mind Is An Attribute Of The Individual. There Is No Such Thing As A Collective Brain. There Is No Such Thing As A Collective Thought. An Agreement Reached By A Group Of Men Is Only A Compromise Or An Average Drawn Upon Many Individual Thoughts.

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

And Here, Over The Portals Of My Fort, I Shall Cut In The Stone The Word Which Is To Be My Beacon And My Banner. The Word Which Will Not Die Should We All Perish In Battle. The Word Which Can Never Die On This Earth, For It Is The Heart Of It And The Meaning And The Glory. The Sacred Word: Ego

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.

Man Cannot Demand That Others Give Up Their Lives To Make Him Happy.

Your Eyes Are As A Flame, But Our Brothers Have Neither Hope Nor Fire. Your Mouth Is Cut Of Granite, But Our Brothers Are Soft And Humble. Your Head Is High, But Our Brothers Cringe. You Walk, But Our Brothers Crawl. We Wish To Be Damned With You, Rather Than Blessed With All Our Brothers. Do As You Please With Us, But Do Not Send Us Away From You.

The Uncontested Absurdities Of Today Are The Accepted Slogans Of Tomorrow. They Come To Be Accepted By Degrees, By Dint Of Constant Pressure On One Side And Constant Retreat On The Other - Until One Day When They Are Suddenly Declared To Be The Country's Official Ideology.

All Work Is An Act Of Philosophy.

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.

It's Good To Suffer. Dont Complain. Bear, Bow, Accept - And Be Grateful That God Has Made You Suffer. For This Makes You Better Than The People Who Are Laughing And Happy.

The Government Has Created A Nation Of Paper Criminals. People Can Be Put In Jail And Lose Civil Rights And Liberties Through Bureaucratic Procedures.the Only Thing That Is Keeping You Out Of Jail Is Government Goodwill.

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?

My Pride And My Power Of Vision Were All That I Owned When I Started - And Whatever I Achieved, Was Achieved By Means Of Them. Both Are Greater Now. Now I Have The Knowledge Of The Superlative Value I Had Missed: Of My Right To Be Proud Of My Vision. The Rest Is Mine To Reach.

Collectivism Holds That The Individual Has No Rights, That His Life And Work Belong To The Group (to "society," To The Tribe, The State, The Nation) And That The Group May Sacrifice Him At Its Own Whim To Its Own Interests. The Only Way To Implement A Doctrine Of That Kind Is By Means Of Brute Force - And Statism Has Always Been The Poltical Corollary Of Collectivism.

Man Is The Only Living Species That Has The Power To Act As His Own Destroyer - And That Is The Way He Has Acted Through Most Of His History.

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.

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.

To Love Money Is To Know 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I Want It Real. I Want To Know That There Is Someone, Somewhere, Who Wants It, Too. Or Else What Is The Use Of Seeing It, And Working, And Burning Oneself For An Impossible Vision? A Spirit, Too, Needs Fuel. It Can Run Dry

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.

When You See That Trading Is Done, Not By Consent, But By Compulsion...th At In Order To Produce, You Need To Obtain Permission From Men Who Produce Nothing-you May Know That Your Society Is Doomed.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Look, Gail." Roark Got Up, Reached Out, Tore A Thick Branch Off A Tree, Held It In Both Hands, One Fist Closed At Each End; Then, His Wrists And Knuckles Tensed Against The Resistance, He Bent The Branch Slowly Into An Arc. "now I Can Make What I Want Of It: A Bow, A Spear, A Cane, A Railing. That's The Meaning Of Life." "your Strength?" "your Work." He Tossed The Branch Aside. "the Material The Earth Offers You And What You Make Of It . . .

Don't Rely On Our Knowledge Of What's Best For Your Future. We Do Know, But It Can't Be Best Until You Know It.

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

I Don't Want To See You. I Don't Like You. I Don't Like Your Face. You Look Like An Insufferable Egotist. You're Impertinent. You're Too Sure Of Yourself. Twenty Years Ago I Would Have Punched Your Face With The Greatest Of Pleasure.

Peter Keating: "do You Always Have To Have A Purpose? Do You Always Have To Be So Damn Serious? Can't You Ever Do Things Without Reason, Just Like Everybody Else? You're So Serious, So Old. Everything's Important With You. Everything's Great, Significant In Some Way, Every Minute, Even When You Keep Still. Can't You Ever Be Comfortable-and Unimportant?" | Howard Roark: "no."

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

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.

Statism Needs War; A Free Country Does Not. Statism Survives By Looting; A Free Country Survives By Producing.

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.

If A Life Can Have A 'theme-song' - And I Believe Every Worthwhile One Has - Mine Is [best] Expressed In One Word: Individualism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Am Opposed To All Forms Of Control; I Am For An Absolute Laissez Faire, Free, Unregulated Economy. I Am For The Separation Of The State And Economics, Just As We Had Separation Of State And Church, Which Led To Peaceful Coexistence Among Different Religions...so The Same Applies To Economics. If You Separate The Government From Economics, If You Do Not Regulate Production And Trade, You Will Have Peaceful Cooperation, And Harmony And Justice Among Men.

Consider The Reasons Which Make Us Certain That We Are Right, But Not The Fact That We Are Certain. If You Are Not Convinced, Ignore Our Certainty. Don't Be Tempted To Substitute Our Judgment For Your Own.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Virtue Is Not An End In Itself. Virtue Is Not Its Own Reward Or Sacrificial Fodder For The Reward Of Evil. Life Is The Reward Of Virtue-and Happiness Is The Goal And The Reward Of 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.

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.

Money Demands That You Sell, Not Your Weakness To Men's Stupidity, But Your Talent To Their Reason.

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.

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

He Liked To Observe Emotions; They Were Like Red Lanterns Strung Along The Dark Unknown Of Another's Personality, Marking Vulnerable Points.

The Lust That Drives Others To Enslave An Empire, Had Become, In Her Limits, A Passion For Power Over Him. She Had Set Out To Break Him, As If, Unable To Equal His Value, She Could Surpass It By Destroying It, As If The Measure Of His Greatness Would Thus Become The Measure Of Hers, As If The Vandal Who Smashed A Statue Were Greater Than The Artist Who Had Made It, As If The Murderer Who Killed A Child Were Greater Than The Mother Who Had Given It Birth.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Important Consideration Is Not Your Opponents, But Yourself. It Is Bad To Scream At Them, Not Because It Hurts Them, They Ought To Be Hurt, But Because It Hurts You. Anger Is A Form Of Recognition. It Amounts To Admitting That Those People Are Important To You And That They Have The Power To Hurt You. Actually, They Haven't.

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.

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.

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

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

If A Society Is To Be Free, Its Government Has To Be Controlled.

[altruism] Is A Moral System Which Holds That Man Has No Right To Exist For His Own Sake, That Service To Others Is The Sole Justification Of His Existence, And That Self-sacrifice Is His Highest Moral Duty, Value And Virtue. This Is The Moral Base Of Collectivism, Of All Dictatorships.

I Am. I Think. I Will.

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.

I Want To Know That I've Accomplished Something. I Want To Feel That It Had Some Meaning. At The Last Summing Up, I Want To Be Sure It Wasn't All-for Nothing.

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

Freedom (n.): To Ask Nothing. To Expect Nothing. To Depend On Nothing.

Independent Women

She Looked At The Crowd And She Felt Simultaneously Astonishment That They Should Stare At Her When This Event Was So Personally Her Own That No Communication About It Was Possible And A Sense Of Fitness That They Should Be Here That They Should Want To See It. Because The Sight Of An Achievement Was The Greatest Gift A Human Being Could Offer To Others.

If I Were To Speak Your Kind Of Language, I Would Say That Man's Only Moral Commandment Is: Thou Shalt Think. But A 'moral Commandment' Is A Contradiction In Terms. The Moral Is The Chosen, Not The Forced; The Understood, Not The Obeyed. The Moral Is The Rational, And Reason Accepts No Commandments.

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

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.

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.'

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.

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

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

Racism Is A Doctrine Of, By And For Brutes.

That Time And Those People Are Upon You!

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.

Man Is A Being With Free Will; Therefore, Each Man Is Potentially Good Or Evil, And It's Up To Him And Only Him (through His Reasoning Mind) To Decide Which He Wants To Be.

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.

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

Can You Sacrifice A Few? When Those Few Are The Best? Deny The Best Its Right To The Top--and You Have No Best Left. What Are Your Masses But Millions Of Dull, Shriveled, Stagnant Souls That Have No Thoughts Of Their Own, No Dreams Of Their Own, No Will Of Their Own, Who Eat And Sleep And Chew Helplessly The Words Others Put Into Their Brains? And For Those You Would Sacrifice The Few Who Know Life, Who Are Life? I Loathe [andrei] Your Ideals Because I Know No Worse Injustice Than The Giving Of The Undeserved. Because Men Are Not Equal In Ability And One Can't Trust Them As If They Were.

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.

Government Holds A Legal Monopoly On The Use Of Physical Force.

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

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

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

I Sat There Beside Him Till Morning - And As I Watched His Face In The Starlight, Then The First Ray Of The Sun On His Untroubled Forehead And Closed Eyelids, What I Experienced Was Not A Prayer, I Do Not Pray, But That State Of Spirit At Which A Prayer Is A Misguided Attempt: A Full, Confident, Affirming Self-dedication To My Love Of The Right, To The Certainty That The Right Would Win And That This Boy Would Have The Kind Of Future He Deserved... I Did Not Expect It To Be As Great As This - Or As Hard.

She Smiled. She Knew She Was Dying. But It Did Not Matter Any Longer. She Had Known Something Which No Human Words Could Ever Tell And She Knew It Now. She Had Been Awaiting It And She Felt It, As If It Had Been, As If She Had Lived It. Life Had Been, If Only Because She Had Known It Could Be, And She Felt It Now As A Hymn Without Sound, Deep Under The Little Whole That Dripped Red Drops Into The Snow, Deeper Than That From Which The Red Drops Came. A Moment Or An Eternity- Did It Matter? Life, Undefeated, Existed And Could Exist. She Smiled, Her Last Smile, To So Much That Had Been Possible.

Courage And Confidence Are Practical Necessities . . . Courage Is The Practical Form Of Being True To Existence, Of Being True To Truth, And Confidence Is The Practical Form Of Being True To One’s Own Consciousness.

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.

The World You Desire Can Be Won, It Exists, It Is Real, It Is Possible, It Is Yours.

Altruism Declares That Any Action Taken For The Benefit Of Others Is Good, And Any Action Taken For One's Own Benefit Is Evil. Thus The Beneficiary Of An Action Is The Only Criterion Of Moral Value - And So Long As That Beneficiary Is Anybody Other Than Oneself, Anything Goes.

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.

A Good Novel Is An Indivisible Sum; Every Scene, Sequence And Passage Of A Good Novel Has To Involve, Contribute To And Advance All Three Of Its Major Attributes: Theme, Plot, Characterization.

The Freedom Of Speech Of Private Individuals Includes The Right To Not Agree, Not To Listen, And Not To Finance One's Own Antagonists.

Freedom Of Speech

There’s Nothing As Significant As A Human Face. Nor As Eloquent. We Can Never Really Know Another Person, Except By Our First Glance At Him. Because, In That Glance, We Know Everything. Even Though We’re Not Always Wise Enough To Unravel The Knowledge.

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

Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

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.

Is It Advisable To Spread Out All The Conveniences Of Culture Before People To Whom A Few Steps Up A Stair To A Library Is A Sufficient Deterrent From Reading?

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

I Am Older Than You. Believe Me, There Is No Other Way To Live On Earth. Men Are Not Open To Truth Or Reason. They Cannot Be Reached By A Rational Argument. The Mind Is Powerless Against Them. Yet We Have To Deal With Them. If We Want To Accomplish Anything, We Have To Deceive Them Into Letting Us Accomplish It. Or Force Them. They Understand Nothing Else. We Cannot Expect Their Support For Any Endeavor Of The Intellect, For Any Goal Of The Spirit. They Are Nothing But Vicious Animals. They Are Greedy, Self-indulgent, Predatory Dollar-chasers

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

The Word Which Can Never Die On This Earth, For It Is The Heart Of It And The Meaning And The Glory. The Sacred Word: Ego.

I Cannot Project The Degree Of Hatred Required To Make Those Women Run Around In Crusades Against Abortion. Hatred Is What They Certainly Project, Not Love For The Embryos, Which Is A Piece Of Nonsense No One Could Experience, But Hatred, A Virulent Hatred For An Unnamed Object...their Hatred Is Directed Against Human Beings As Such, Against The Mind, Against Reason, Against Ambition, Against Success, Against Love, Against Any Value That Brings Happiness To Human Life. In Compliance With The Dishonesty That Dominates Today's Intellectual Field, They Call Themselves "pro-life".

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 Right To Agree With Others Is Not A Problem In Any Society; It Is The Right To Disagree That Is Crucial. It Is The Institution Of Private Property That Protects And Implements The Right To Disagree - And Thus Keeps The Road Open To Man's Most Valuable Attribute: The Creative Mind.

It Is My Eyes Which See, And The Sight Of My Eyes Grants Beauty To The Earth. It Is My Ears Which Hear, And The Hearing Of My Ears Gives Its Song To The World. It Is My Mind Which Thinks, And The Judgement Of My Mind Is The Only Searchlight That Can Find The Truth. It Is My Will Which Chooses, And The Choice Of My Will Is The Only Edict I Must Respect.

It's The Person Who Would Sell His Soul For A Nickel, Who Is Loudest In Proclaiming His Hatred Of Money.

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