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

-Ayn Rand

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So Long As Men

Ayn Rand

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

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I Could Die For You. But I Couldn't, And Wouldn't, Live For You.

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

Man Needs Knowledge In Order To Survive, And Only Reason Can Achieve It; Men Who Reject The Responsibility Of Thought And Reason, Can Exist Only As Parasites On The Thinking Of Others.

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.

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

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

Professional Intellectuals Are The Voice Of A Culture And Are, Therefore, Its Leaders, Its Integrators And Its Bodyguards.

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

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

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

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

Place Nothing Above The Verdict Of Your Own Mind.

It Only Stands To Reason That Where There's Sacrifice, There's Someone Collecting The Sacrificial Offerings. Where There's Service, There Is Someone Being Served. The Man Who Speaks To You Of Sacrifice Is Speaking Of Slaves And Masters, And Intends To Be The Master.

Why No. I’m Too Conceited. If You Want To Call It That. I Don’t Make Comparisons. I Never Think Of Myself In Relation To Anyone Else. I Just Refuse To Measure Myself As Part Of Anything. I’m An Utter Egotist.

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

By What He Chooses To Present And By How He Presents It, Any Author Expresses His Fundamental, Metaphysical Values.

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.

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

A Rational Mind Does Not Work Under Compulsion; It Does Not Subordinate Its Grasp Of Reality To Anyone's Orders, Directives, Or Controls; It Does Not Sacrifice Its Knowledge, Its View Of The Truth, To Anyone's Opinions, Threats, Wishes, Plans.

It's The Hardest Thing In The World - To Do What We Want. And It Takes The Greatest Kinds Of Courage.

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.

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.

If One's Actions Are Honest, One Does Not Need The Predated Confidence Of Others.

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

I Started My Life With A Single Absolute: That The World Was Mine To Shape In The Image Of My Highest Values And Never To Be Given Up To A Lesser Standard, No Matter How Long Or Hard The Struggle.

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.

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

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.

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

Faith Is The Commitment Of One's Consciousness To Beliefs For Which One Has No Sensory Evidence Or Rational Proof. A Mystic Is A Man Who Treats His Feelings As Tools Of Cognition. Faith Is The Equation Of Feeling With Knowledge.

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

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

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

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.

Do Not Lose Your Knowledge That Man's Proper Estate Is An Upright Posture, An Intransigent Mind, And A Step That Travels Unlimited Roads.

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.

I Can Accept Anything, Except What Seems To Be The Easiest For Most People: The Half-way, The Almost, The Just-about, The In-between.

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.

The Only Purpose Of Education Is To Teach A Student How To Live His Life-by Developing His Mind And Equipping Him To Deal With Reality. The Training He Needs Is Theoretical, I.e., Conceptual. He Has To Be Taught To Think, To Understand, To Integrate, To Prove. He Has To Be Taught The Essentials Of The Knowledge Discovered In The Past-and He Has To Be Equipped To Acquire Further Knowledge By His Own Effort.

The Concept Of Free Competition Enforced By Law Is A Grotesque Contradiction In Terms.

Humor Is Not An Unconditional Virtue; Its Moral Character Depends On Its Object. To Laugh At The Contemptible, Is A Virtue; To Laugh At The Good, Is A Hideous Vice. Too Often, Humor Is Used As The Camouflage Of Moral Cowardice.

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

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

No Matter How Vast Your Knowledge Or How Modest, It Is Your Own Mind That Has To Acquire It. It Is Only With Your Own Knowledge That You Can Deal. It Is Only Your Own Knowledge That You Can Claim To Possess Or Ask Others To Consider. Your Mind Is Your Only Judge Of Truth - And If Others Dissent From Your Verdict, Reality Is The Court Of Final Appeal. Nothing But A Man's Mind Can Perform That Complex, Delicate, Crucial Process Of Identification Which Is Thinking. Nothing Can Direct The Process But His Own Judgment. Nothing Can Direct His Judgment But His Moral Integrity.

A Rational Man Is Guided By His Thinking - By A Process Of Reason - Not By His Feelings And Desires.

The View That Man Was Ever To Be Drawn By Some Vision Of The Unattainable Shining Ahead, Doomed Ever To Aspire, But Not To Achieve, My Life And My Values Could Not Bring Me To That.

The Desire Not To Be Anything Is The Desire Not To Be.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Emotions Are Inherent In Your Nature, But Their Content Is Dictated By Your Mind. Your Emotional Capacity Is An Empty Motor, And Your Values Are The Fuel With Which Your Mind Fills It.

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.

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.

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

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

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

If Some Men Are Entitled By Right To The Products Of The Work Of Others, It Means That Those Others Are Deprived Of Rights And Condemned To Slave Labor.

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

He, Too, Stood Looking At Her For A Moment - And It Seemed To Her That It Was Not A Look Of Greeting After An Absence, But The Look Of Someone Who Had Thought Of Her Every Day Of That Year. She Could Not Be Certain, It Was Only An Instant, So Brief That Just As She Caught It, He Was Turning.

We Didn't Really Have To Take Everything So Seriously, Did We?

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.

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

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.

You'd Let The Whole World Perish Rather Than Soil That Immaculate Self Of Yours With A Single Spot Of Which You'd Have To Be Ashamed.

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.

Any Group Or "collective", Large Or Small, Is Only A Number Of Individuals. A Group Can Have No Rights Other Than The Rights Of Its Individual Members.

If The Truth Shall Kill Them, Let Them Die.

Words Of Wisdom

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

Altruism Does Not Mean Mere Kindness Or Generosity, But The Sacrifice Of The Best Among Men To The Worst, The Sacrifice Of Virtues To Flaws, Of Ability To Incompetence, Of Progress To Stagnation-and The Subordinating Of All Life And Of All Values To The Claims Of Anyone's Suffering.

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

If You Agree With Some Tenets Of Objectivism, But Disagree With Others, Do Not Call Yourself An Objectivist; Give Proper Authorship Credit For The Parts You Agree With

The Age Of The Skyscraper Is Gone. This Is The Age Of The Housing Project. Which Is Always A Prelude To The Age Of The Cave.

A Code Of Values Accepted By Choice Is A Code Of Morality.

Don't Bother To Examine A Folly-ask Yourself Only What It Accomplishes.

Integrity Is The Ability To Stand By An Idea.

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.

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

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

The Causes Of Illusions Are Not Pretty To Discover. They're Either Vicious Or Tragic.

A Genius Is A Genius, Regardless Of The Number Of Morons Who Belong To The Same Race - And A Moron Is A Moron, Regardless Of The Number Of Geniuses Who Share His Racial Origin.

One Must Never Allow Oneself To Acquire An Exaggerated Sense Of One's Own Importance. There's No Necessity To Burden Oneself With Absolutes

Honor Is Self-esteem Made Visible In Action.

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

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?

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

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.

Government 'help' To Business Is Just As Disastrous As Government Persecution... The Only Way A Government Can Be Of Service To National Prosperity Is By Keeping Its Hands Off.

Run For Your Life From Any Man Who Tells You That Money Is Evil. That Sentence Is The Leper's Bell Of An Approaching Looter. So Long As Men Live Together On Earth And Need Means To Deal With One Another--their Only Substitute, If They Abandon Money, Is The Muzzle Of A Gun.

In That World, You'll Be Able To Rise In The Morning With The Spirit You Had Known In Your Childhood: That Spirit Of Eagerness, Adventure And Certainty Which Comes From Dealing With A Rational Universe.

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 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.

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.

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

There Were Things In My Past Which I Have Not Liked. But All The Things Of Which I Was Proud Will Remain.

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".

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

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

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

Through All The Centuries Of The Worship Of The Mindless, Whatever Stagnation Humanity Chose To Endure, Whatever Brutality To Practice-it Was Only By The Grace Of The Men Who Perceived That Wheat Must Have Water In Order To Grow, That Stones Laid In A Curve Will Form An Arch, That Two And Two Make Four, That Love Is Not Served By Torture And Life Is Not Fed By Destruction-only By The Grace Of Those Men Did The Rest Of Them Learn To Experience Moments When They Caught The Spark Of Being Human.

The Only Power Any Government Has Is The Power To Crack Down On Criminals. Well, When There Aren't Enough Criminals, One Makes Them. One Declares So Many Things To Be A Crime That It Becomes Impossible For Men To Live Without Breaking Laws.

There Is Fear Hanging In The Air Of The Sleeping Halls, And The Air Of The Streets. Fear Walks Through The City, Fear Without Name, Without Shape. All Men Feel It And None Dare Speak.

That Time And Those People Are Upon You!

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

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.

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

Self Confidence

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.

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

To Preserve One's Mind Intact Through A Modern College Education Is A Test Of Courage And Endurance, But The Battle Is Worth It And The Stakes Are The Highest Possible To Man: The Survival Of Reason.

If One Doesn't Respect Oneself One Can Have Neither Love Nor Respect For Others.

Guilt Is Altruism's Stock In Trade, And The Inducing Of Guilt Is Its Only Means Of Self-perpetuati On.

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.

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.

There Are No White Lies, There Is Only The Blackest Of Destruction, And A White Lie Is The Blackest Of All.

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.

Truth Is The Recognition Of Reality; Reason, Man's Only Means Of Knowledge, Is His Only Standard Of Truth.

[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.

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

Self-esteem Is Reliance On Ones Power To Think.

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

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.

I Think That When In Doubt About The Truth Of An Issue, It's Safer And In Better Taste To Select The Least Numerous Of The Adversaries.

The Smallest Minority On Earth Is The Individual. Those Who Deny Individual Rights Cannot Claim To Be Defenders Of Minorities.

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.

If Workers Struggle For Higher Wages, This Is Hailed As "social Gains", If Businessmen Struggle For Higher Profits, This Is Damned As "selfish Greed".

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.

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

I Made My Fortune By Being Able To Spot A Certain Kind Of Man.

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

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

And Questions Give Us No Rest. We Know Not Why Our Curse Makes Us Seek We Know Not What, Ever And Ever. But We Cannot Resist It. It Whispers To Us That There Are Great Things On This Earth Of Ours, And That We Can Know Them If We Try, And That We Must Know Them. We Ask, Why Must We Know, But It Has No Answer To Give Us. We Must Know That We May Know.

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.

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.

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

When A Man Attempts To Deal With Me By Force, I Answer Him, By Force.

I Love You. As The Same Value, As The Same Expression, With The Same Pride And The Same Meaning As I Love My Work, My Mills, My Metal, My Hours At A Desk, At A Furnace, In A Laboratory, In An Ore Mine, As I Love My Ability To Work, As I Love The Act Of Sight And Knowledge, As I Love The Action Of My Mind When It Solves A Chemical Equation Or Grasps A Sunrise, As I Love The Things I've Made And The Things I've Felt, As *my* Product, As *my* Choice, As A Shape Of My World, As My Best Mirror, As The Wife I've Never Had, As That Which Makes All The Rest Of It Possible: As My Power To Live.

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

He Never Felt Lonliness Except When He Was Happy.

Dominique As Gail Looks At Her "... There Is A Stage Of Worship Which Makes The Worshiper Himself An Object Of Reverence."

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

He Wanted Her. He Knew Where To Find Her. He Waited. It Amused Him To Wait, Because He Knew That The Waiting Was Unbearable To Her. He Knew That His Absence Bound Her To Him In A Manner More Complete And Humiliating Than His Presence Could Enforce. He Was Giving Her Time To Attempt An Escape, In Order To Let Her Know Her Own Helplessness When He Chose To See Her Again.

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.

You Still Love Me - Even If There's One Expression Of It That You Will Always Feel And Want, But Will Not Give Me No Longer. I'm Still What I Was, And You'll Always See It, And You'll Always Grant Me The Same Response, Even If There's A Greater One That You Grant Another Man. No Matter What You Feel For Him, It Will Not Change What You Feel For Me, And It Won't Treason To Either, Because It Comes From The Same Root, It's The Same Payment In Answer To The Same Values.

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.

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

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

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

A Building Has Integrity, Just As A Man And Just As Seldom! It Must Be True To Its Own Idea, Have Its Own Form, And Serve Its Own Purpose!

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

That An Error Made On Your Own Is Safer Than Ten Truths Accepted On Faith, Because The First Leaves You The Means To Correct It But The Second Destroys Your Capacity To Distinguish Truth From Error.

Abortion Is A Moral Right-which Should Be Left To The Sole Discretion Of The Woman Involved; Morally, Nothing Other Than Her Wish In The Matter Is To Be Considered. Who Can Conceivably Have The Right To Dictate To Her What Disposition She Is To Make Of The Functions Of Her Body?

Men Have Died In Torture Chambers, On The Stake, In Concentration Camps, In Front Of Firing Squads, Rather Than Renounce Their Convictions. The Appeaser Renounces His Under The Pressure Of A Frown On A Vacant Face.

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.

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

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.

Just As Man Can't Exist Without His Body, So No Rights Can Exist Without The Right To Translate One's Rights Into Reality, To Think, To Work And Keep The Results, Which Means: The Right Of Property.

It's Not A Question Of Who Will Allow Me To Do It, It's A Question Of Who Will Stop Me.

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

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

The Charming Aspect Of Christmas Is The Fact That It Expresses Good Will In A Cheerful, Happy, Benevolent, Non-sacrificial Way. One Says: “merry Christmas”-not “weep And Repent.” And The Good Will Is Expressed In A Material, Earthly Form-by Giving Presents To One's Friends, Or By Sending Them Cards In Token Of Remembrance . . . .

It Is Futile To Fight Against, If One Does Not Know What One Is Fighting For.

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.

If You Want To Know The One Reason That's Taking Me Back, I'll Tell You: I Cannot Bring Myself To Abandon To Destruction All The Greatness Of The World, All That Which Was Mine And Yours, Which Was Made By Us And Is Still Ours By Right - Because I Cannot Believe That Men Refuse To See, That They Can Remain Blind And Deaf To Us Forever, When The Truth Is Ours And Their Lives Depend On Accepting It.

Self-sacrifice? But It Is Precisely The Self That Cannot And Must Not Be Sacrificed.

Morally, The Promise Of An Impossible “right” To Economic Security Is An Infamous Attempt To Abrogate The Concept Of Rights. It Can And Does Mean Only One Thing: A Promise To Enslave The Men Who Produce, For The Benefit Of Those Who Don’t.

A Government Is The Most Dangerous Threat To Man

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

They Proclaim That Every Man Is Entitled To Exist Without Labor And, The Laws Of Reality To The Contrary Notwithstanding, Is Entitled To Receive His 'minimum Sustenance' His Food, His Clothes, His Shelter With No Effort On His Part, As His Due And His Birthright. To Receive It From Whom.

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.

America’s Founding Ideal Was The Principle Of Individual Rights. Nothing More-and Nothing Less. The Rest-everything That America Achieved, Everything She Became, Everything 'noble And Just,' And Heroic, And Great, And Unprecedented In Human History-was The Logical Consequence Of Fidelity To That One Principle.

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

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

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

...only The Pleasure Which Proceeds From A Rational Value Judgement Can Be Regarded As Moral, Pleasure, As Such, Is Not A Guide To Action Nor A Standard Of Morality.

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

It Is Not Death That We Wish To Avoid, But Life That We Wish To Live.

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.

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

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.

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 .)

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.

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

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

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.

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

I Am Interested In Politics So That One Day I Will Not Have To Be Interested In Politics.

Only The Man Who Does Not Need It, Is Fit To Inherit Wealth, The Man Who Would Make His Fortune No Matter Where He Started.

No One's Happiness But My Own Is In My Power To Achieve Or To Destroy.

Overcoming Addiction

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.

A 'whim' Is A Desire Experienced By A Person Who Does Not Know And Does Not Care To Discover Its Cause.

The Man Who Attempts To Live For Others Is A Dependent. He Is A Parasite In Motive And Makes Parasites Of Those He Serves.

Live For Others

If A Man Wants Love He Should Correct His Weaknesses, Or His Flaws, And He May Deserve It. But He Cannot Expect The Unearned, Either In Love Or In Money; Either In Matter Or In Spirit.

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

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 Too Early To Feel Fear Of The Future When One Is Under 30, And Too Late After That. What I Mean Is That One Must Never Allow Fear To Become One's Permanent Sense Of Life. The Important Thing Is To Prepare Yourself Intellectually To Deal With Whatever Circumstances You May Encounter, Which Requires That You Define Your Values Fully, Clearly And Rationally -- And Never Betray Them.

It's Because...you See, If We Had Souls, Which We Haven't, And If Our Souls Met--yours And Mine--they'd Fight To The Death. But After They Had Torn Each Other To Pieces, To The Very Bottom, They'd See That They Had The Same Root.

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.

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Martha Plimpton

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