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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.

-Ayn Rand

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Or Did You Say

Ayn Rand

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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.

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

You Love Only Those Who Deserve It.

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

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.

This Was The Great Clarity Of Being Beyond Emotion, After The Reward Of Having Felt Everything One Could Feel.

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

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.

One Must Never Fail To Pronounce Moral Judgment.

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

No Man Can Have A Right To Impose An Unchosen Obligation , An Unrewarded Duty Or An Involuntary Servitude On Another Man. There Can Be No Such Thing As " The Right To Enslave .

Man's Character Is The Product Of His Premises.

It Is True That The Welfare-statists Are Not Socialists, That They Never Advocated Or Intended The Socialization Of Private Property, That They Want To 'preserve' Private Property-with Government Control Of Its Use And Disposal. But That Is The Fundamental Characteristic Of Fascism.

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.

Anyone Who Fights For The Future, Lives In It Today.

She Stood At The Window, Her Arms Spread Wide, Holding On To Each Side Of The Frame, It Was As If She Held A Piece Of The City.

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

Positive Thinking

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.

The Man Without A Purpose Is A Man Who Drifts At The Mercy Of Random Feelings Or Unidentified Urges And Is Capable Of Any Evil, Because He Is Totally Out Of Control Of His Own Life. In Order To Be In Control Of Your Life, You Have To Have A Purpose-a Productive Purpose.

And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men.

Racism Is A Doctrine Of, By And For Brutes.

A Rational Man Knows-or Makes It A Point To Discover-the Source Of His Emotions, The Basic Premises From Which They Come.

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

Now Look At Me! Take A Good Look! I Was Born And I Knew I Was Alive And I Knew What I Wanted. What Do You Think Is Alive In Me? Why Do You Think I'm Alive? Because I Have A Stomach And Eat And Digest The Food? Because I Breathe And Work And Produce More Food To Digest? Or Because I Know What I Want, And That Something Which Knows How To Want—isn't That Life Itself? And Who—in This Damned Universe—who Can Tell Me Why I Should Live For Anything But For That Which I Want?

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.

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.

We Are On Strike Against Martyrdom—and Against The Moral Code That Demands It. We Are On Strike Against Those Who Believe That One Man Must Exist For The Sake Of Another. We Are On Strike Against The Morality Of Cannibals, Be It Practiced In Body Or In Spirit. We Will Not Deal With Men On Any Terms But Ours—and Our Terms Are A Moral Code Which Holds That Man Is An End In Himself And Not The Means To Any End Of Others.

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

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

There 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.

The Verdict You Pronounce Upon The Source Of Your Livelihood Is The Verdict You Pronounce Upon Your Life.

And Now I See The Face Of God, And I Raise This God Over The Earth, This God Whom Men Have Sought Since Men Came Into Being, This God Who Will Grant Them Joy And Peace And Pride. This God, This One Word: 'i.

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

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. I Mean, What We Really Want.

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

What I Want You To Understand, Is The Full Evil Of Those Who Claim To Have Become Convinced That This Earth, By Its Nature, Is A Realm Of Malevolence Where The Good Has No Chance To Win. Let Them Check Their Premises. Let Them Check Their Standards Of Value. Let Them Check - Before They Grant Themselves The Unspeakable License Of Evil-as-necessity - Whether They Know What Is The Good And What Are The Conditions It Requires.

... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

Whose Steps Were A Restless Substitute For Flight.

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.

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.

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

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

I Dont Work With Collectives. I Don't Consult, I Don't Co-operate, I Don't Collaborate.

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

One Can Study What Exists And How Consciousness Functions; But One Cannot Analyze (or “prove”) Existence As Such, Or Consciousness As Such. These Are Irreducible Primaries. (an Attempt To “prove” Them Is Self-contradict Ory: It Is An Attempt To “prove” Existence By Means Of Nonexistence, And Consciousness By Means Of Unconsciousness .)

A Rational Process Is A Moral Process.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

In Western Civilization, The Period Ruled By Mysticism Is Known As The 'dark Ages' And The 'middle Ages'. I Will Assume That You Know The Nature Of That Period And The State Of Human Existence In Those Ages. The Renaissance Broke The Rules Of The Mystics. "renaissance" Means The "rebirth". Few People Today Will Care To Remind You That It Was A Rebirth Of Reason - Of Man's Mind.

Do Not Make The Mistake...of Thinking That A Worker Is A Slave And That He Holds His Job By His Employer's Permission. He Does Not Hold It By Permission - But By Contract, That Is, By A Voluntary Mutual Agreement. A Worker Can Quit His Job; A Slave Cannot.

A Government Is The Most Dangerous Threat To Man

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

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

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

The Great Creators-the Thinkers, The Artists, The Scientists, The Inventors-stood Alone Against The Men Of Their Time.

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

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

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.

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

I Never Found Beauty In Longing For The Impossible And Never Found The Possible To Be Beyond My Reach.

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

So You Think That Money Is The Root Of All Evil. Have You Ever Asked What Is The Root Of All Money?

Only The Man Who Extols The Purity Of Love Devoid Of Desire, Is Capable Of The Depravity Of A Desire Devoid Of Love.

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

It Is The Metaphysically Given That Must Be Accepted: It Cannot Be Changed. It Is The Man-made That Must Never Be Accepted Uncritically: It Must Be Judged, Then Accepted Or Rejected And Changed When Necessary.

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

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

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.

It's Not That I Don't Suffer, It's That I Know The Unimportance Of Suffering. I Know That Pain Is To Be Fought And Thrown Aside, Not To Be Accepted As Part Of One's Soul And As A Permanent Scar Across One's View Of Existence.

The Conservatives Want To Rule Man's Consciousness; The Liberals, His Body.

Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Agree With Others. But The Creator Is The Man Who Disagrees. Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Swim With The Current. But The Creator Is The Man Who Goes Against The Current. Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Stand Together. But The Creator Is The Man Who Stands Alone.

The Man Of Authentic Self-confidence Is The Man Who Relies On The Judgment Of His Own Mind. Such A Man Is Not Malleable; He May Be Mistaken, He May Be Fooled In A Given Instance, But He Is Inflexible In Regard To The Absolutism Of Reality, I.e., In Seeking And Demanding Truth.

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.

To Achieve, You Need Thought

I Don't Wish To Be The Symbol Of Anything. I'm Only Myself.

You'll Get Everything Society Can Give A Man. You'll Keep All The Money. You'll Take Any Fame Or Honor Anyone Might Want To Grant. You'll Accept Such Gratitude As The Tenants Might Feel. And I - I'll Take What Nobody Can Give A Man, Except Himself. I Will Have Built Cortlandt. - Howard Roark

Integrity Is The Ability To Stand By An Idea.

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

It'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.

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

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.

There's Something I Want You To Know,' Said Cherryl, Her Voice Taut And Harsh, 'so That There Won't Be Any Pretending About It. I'm Not Going To Put On The Sweet Relative Act. I Know What You've Done To Jim And How You've Made Him Miserable All His Life. I'm Going To Protect Him Against You. I'll Put You In Your Place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm The Woman In This Family Now.' 'that's Quite All Right,' Said Dagny. 'i'm The Man.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Three Values Which Men Had Held For Centuries And Which Have Now Collapsed Are: Mysticism, Collectivism, Altruism. Mysticism — As A Cultural Power — Died At The Time Of The Renaissance. Collectivism — As A Political Ideal — Died In World War Ii. As To Altruism — It Has Never Been Alive. It Is The Poison Of Death In The Blood Of Western Civilization, And Men Survived It Only To The Extent To Which They Neither Believed Nor Practiced It.

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

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.

An Emotion As Much Tells You Nothing About Reality, Beyond The Fact That Something Makes You Feel Something.

I Refuse To Apologize For My Ability -- I Refuse To Apologize For My Success -- I Refuse To Apologize For My Money. If This Is Evil, Make The Most Of It.

Art Is The Indispensable Medium For The Communication Of A Moral Ideal.

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

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

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.

That Which You Call Your Soul Or Spirit Is Your Consciousness, And That Which You Call 'free Will' Is Your Mind's Freedom To Think Or Not, The Only Will You Have, Your Only Freedom, The Choice That Controls All The Choices You Make And Determines Your Life And Your Character.

She Fell Asleep, Lying There, Her Hand Clasping His. Her Last Awareness, Before She Surrendered The Responsibility Of Consciousness, Was The Sense Of An Enormous Void, The Void Of A City And Of A Continent, Where She Would Never Be Able To Find The Man Whom She Had No Right To Seek.

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.

The Men Who Attempt To Survive, Not By Means Of Reason, But By Means Of Force, Are Attempting To Survive By The Method Of Animals.

Neither Life Nor Happiness Can Be Achieved By The Pursuit Of Irrational Whims.

America's Abundance Was Created Not By Public Sacrifices To The Common Good, But By The Productive Genius Of Free Men Who Pursued Their Own Personal Interests And The Making Of Their Own Private Fortunes. They Did Not Starve The People To Pay For America's Industrialization. They Gave The People Better Jobs, Higher Wages, And Cheaper Goods With Every New Machine They Invented, With Every Scientific Discovery Or Technological Advance- And Thus The Whole Country Was Moving Forward And Profiting, Not Suffering, Every Step Of The Way.

You Have No Choice About Your Capacity To Feel That Something Is Good For You Or Evil, But What You Will Consider Good Or Evil, What Will Give You Joy Or Pain, What You Will Love Or Hate, Desire Or Fear, Depends On Your Standard Of Value.

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

Productive Work

Man Holds These Rights [life, Liberty And Property], Not From The Collective Nor For The Collective, But Against The Collective - As A Barrier Which The Collective Cannot Cross... These Rights Are Man's Protection Against All Other Men.

Live A Life As A Monument To Your Soul.

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

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

When The Common Good Of A Society Is Regarded As Something Apart From And Superior To The Individual Good Of Its Members, It Means That The Good Of Some Men Takes Precedence Over The Good Of Others, With Those Others Consigned To The Status Of Sacrificial Animals.

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.

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?

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

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

Since There Is No Such Entity As 'the Public,' Since The Public Is Merely A Number Of Individuals, The Idea That 'the Public Interest' Supersedes Private Interests And Rights Can Have But One Meaning: That The Interests And Rights Of Some Individuals Take Precedence Over The Interests And Rights Of Others.

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

Capitalism And Altruism Are Incompatible; They Are Philosophical Opposites; They Cannot Co-exist In The Same Man Or In The Same Society.

A House Can Have Integrity, Just Like A Person.

No Happy Person Can Be Quite So Impervious To Pain (gail Wynand To Dominique Francon)

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

Whoever, To Whatever Purpose Or Extent, Initiates The Use Of Force, Is A Killer Acting On The Premise Of Death In A Manner Wider Than Murder: The Premise Of Destroying Man's Capacity To Live.

The Man At The Top Of The Intellectual Pyramid Contributes The Most To All Those Below Him, But Gets Nothing Except His Material Payment, Receiving No Intellectual Bonus From Others To Add To The Value Of His Time. The Man At The Bottom Who, Left To Himself, Would Starve In His Hopeless Ineptitude, Contributes Nothing To Those Above Him, But Receives The Bonus Of All Of Their Brains. Such Is The Nature Of The 'competition' Between The Strong And The Weak Of The Intellect. Such Is The Pattern Of 'exploitation' For Which You Have Damned The Strong.

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.

You Don't Love Causes. You Don't Love Everybody Indiscriminately. You Love Only Those Who Deserve It.

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.

It Is A Free Market That Makes Monopolies Impossible.

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

My Morality, The Morality Of Reason, Is Contained In A Single Axiom: Existence Exists - And In A Single Choice: To Live.

Through The Dry Phases Of Calculations In Her Mind, She Noticed That She Did Have Time To Feel Something: It Was The Hard, Exhilarating Pleasure Of Action.

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.

"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."

The Creed Of Sacrifice Is A Morality For The Immoral.

Every Loneliness Is A Pinnacle

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

...if Peace Were The Goal Of Today's Intellectuals, A Failure Of That Magnitude -- And The Evidence Of Unspeakable Suffering On So Large A Scale -- Would Make Them Pause And Check Their Statist Premises. Instead, Blind To Everything But Their Hatred For Capitalism, They Are Now Asserting That 'poverty Breeds Wars' ... But The Question Is: What Breeds Poverty? If You Look A The World Of Today And If You Look Back At History, You Will See The Answer: The Degree Of A Country's Freedom Is The Degree Of Its Prosperity.

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

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

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.

There Can Be No Justification For Choosing Any Part Of That Which One Knows To Be Evil.

Now Take A Human Body. Why Wouldn't You Like To See A Human Body With A Curling Tail With A Crest Of Ostrich Feathers At The End? And With Ears Shaped Like Acanthus Leaves? It Would Be Ornamental, You Know, Instead Of The Stark, Bare Ugliness We Have Now. Well, Why Don't You Like The Idea? Because It Would Be Useless And Pointless. Because The Beauty Of The Human Body Is That Is Hasn't A Single Muscle Which Doesn't Serve Its Purpose; That There's Not A Line Wasted; That Every Detail Of It Fits One Idea, The Idea Of A Man And The Life Of A Man.

If Parasitism, Favoritism, Corruption, And Greed For The Unearned Did Not Exist, A Mixed Economy Would Bring Them Into Existence.

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

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

We Cannot Fight Against Collectivism, Unless We Fight Against Its Moral Base: Altruism. We Cannot Fight Against Altruism, Unless We Fight Against Its Epistemological Base: Irrationalism. We Cannot Fight Against Anything, Unless We Fight For Something--and What We Must Fight For Is The Supremacy Of Reason And A View Of Man As A Rational Being.

Money Is The Barometer Of A Society's Virtue.

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.

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

To Say ‘i Love You’ One Must First Know How To Say The ‘i.’ The Meaning Of The ‘i’ Is An Independent, Self-sufficient Entity That Does Not Exist For The Sake Of Any Other Person. A Person Who Exists Only For The Sake Of His Loved One Is Not An Independent Entity, But A Spiritual Parasite. The Love Of A Parasite Is Worth Nothing.

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

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

The Basic Need Of The Creator Is Independence. The Reasoning Mind Cannot Work Under Any Form Of Compulsion. It Cannot Be Curbed, Sacrificed Or Subordinated To Any Consideration Whatsoever. It Demands Total Independence In Function And In Motive.

What Is Man? He's Just A Collection Of Chemicals With Delusions Of Grandeur.

Delusions Of Grandeur

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

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.

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

Existence Is Identity, Consciousness Is Identification.

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

Whoever Defends His Own Rights Defends The Rights Of All.

Freedom Of Association Includes The Freedom Not To Associate.

I Do Not Seek The Good Of Others As A Sanction For My Right To Exist, Nor Do I Recognize The Good Of Others As A Justification For Their Seizure Of My Property Or Their Destruction Of My Life.

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

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.

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

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

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

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

It Is A Sin To Write This.

Of All The Statist Violations Of Individual Rights In A Mixed Economy, The Military Draft Is The Worst. It Is An Abrogation Of Rights. It Negates Man’s Fundamental Right-the Right To Life-and Establishes The Fundamental Principle Of Statism: That A Man’s Life Belongs To The State, And The State May Claim It By Compelling Him To Sacrifice It In Battle. Once That Principle Is Accepted, The Rest Is Only A Matter Of Time.

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

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.

An Attempt To Achieve The Good By Force Is Like An Attempt To Provide A Man With A Picture Gallery At The Price Of Cutting Out His Eyes.

What Is Morality, She Asked. Judgement To Distinguish Right And Wrong, Vision To See The Truth, And Courage To Act Upon It, Dedication To That Which Is Good, Integrity To Stand By The Good At Any Price.

Self-esteem Is Reliance On One's Power To Think. It Cannot Be Replaced By One's Power To Deceive. The Self-confidence Of A Scientist And The Self-confidence Of A Con Man Are Not Interchangeable States, And Do Not Come From The Same Psychological Universe. The Success Of A Man Who Deals With Reality Augments His Self-confidence. The Success Of A Con Man Augments His Panic.

Most American Men Are Repressors.

Nobody Stays Here By Faking Reality In Any Manner Whatever.

I Cannot Stand Tolstoy, And Reading Him Was The Most Boring Literary Duty I Ever Had To Perform, His Philosophy And His Sense Of Life Are Not Merely Mistaken, But Evil, And Yet, From A Purely Literary Viewpoint, On His Own Terms, I Have To Evaluate Him As A Good Writer.

Because, You See, God - Whatever Anyone Chooses To Call God - Is One's Highest Conception Of The Highest Possible. And Whoever Places His Highest Conception Above His Own Possibility Thinks Very Little Of Himself And His Life. 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. To Imagine A Heaven And Then Not To Dream Of It, But To Demand It.

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.

Poverty Is Not A Mortgage On The Labor Of Others-misfortu Ne Is Not A Mortgage On Achievement-fai Lure Is Not A Mortgage On Success-sufferi Ng Is Not A Claim Check, And Its Relief Is Not The Goal Of Existence-man Is Not A Sacrificial Animal On Anyone’s Altar Nor For Anyone’s Cause-life Is Not One Huge Hospital.

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.

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.

When You Force A Man To Act Against His Own Choice And Judgment, It's His Thinking That You Want Him To Suspend.

When You Are Asked To Love Everybody Indiscriminately, That Is To Love People Without Any Standard, To Love Them Regardless Of Whether They Have Any Value Or Virtue, You Are Asked To Love Nobody.

It Is The Basic, Metaphysical Fact Of Man's Nature -- The Connection Between His Survival And His Use Of Reason -- That Capitalism Recognizes And Protects.

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.

Our Dearest One. Fear Nothing Of The Forest. There Is No Danger In Solitude. We Have No Need Of Our Brothers. Let Us Forget Their Good And Our Evil, Let Us Forget All Things Save That We Are Together And That There Is Joy As A Bond Between Us. Give Us Your Hand. Look Ahead. It Is Our Own World, Golden One, A Strange, Unknown World, But Our Own.

If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Overdoing.

I Regret Nothing. There Have Been Things I Missed, But I Ask No Questions, Because I Have Loved It, Such As It Has Been, Even The Moments Of Emptiness, Even The Unanswered-and That I Loved It, That Is The Unanswered In My Life.

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

Two World Wars, Three Monstrous Dictatorships-in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China-plus Every Lesser Variant Of Devastating Socialist Experimentation In A Global Spread Of Brutality And Despair, Have Not Prompted Modern Intellectuals To Question Or Revise Their Dogma. They Still Think That It Is Daring, Idealistic And Unconventional To Denounce The Rich. They Still Believe That Money Is The Root Of All Evil-except Government Money, Which Is The Solution To All Problems.

The Nation Which Once Held The Creed That Greatness Is Achieved By Production, Is Now Told That It Is Achieved By Squalor.

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

Reality Confronts Man With A Great Many Musts, But All Of Them Are Conditional The Formula Of Realistic Necessity Is You Must, If And The If Stands For Man's Choice

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

Capitalism Demands The Best Of Every Man - His Rationality - And Rewards Him Accordingly. It Leaves Every Man Free To Choose The Work He Likes, To Specialize In It, To Trade His Product For The Products Of Others, And To Go As Far On The Road Of Achievement As His Ability And Ambition Will Carry Him.

The Government Was Set To Protect Man From Criminals, And The Constitution Was Written To Protect Man From The Government.

Libertarian Party

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

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