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The Only Proper Functions Of A Government Are: The Police, To Protect You From Criminals; The Army, To Protect You From Foreign Invaders; And The Courts, To Protect Your Property And Contracts From Breach Or Fraud By Others, And To Settle Disputes By Rational Rules, According To Objective Law.

-Ayn Rand

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The Only Proper Functions

Ayn Rand

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The Only Proper Functions Of A Government Are: The Police, To Protect You From Criminals; The Army, To Protect You From Foreign Invaders; And The Courts, To Protect Your Property And Contracts From Breach Or Fraud By Others, And To Settle Disputes By Rational Rules, According To Objective Law.

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When You See Corruption Being Rewarded And Honesty Becoming A Self-sacrifice, You May Know That Your Society Is Doomed

Serenity Comes From The Ability To Say “yes” To Existence. Courage Comes From The Ability To Say “no” To The Wrong Choices Made By Others.

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values.

What I Am Fighting Is The Idea That Charity Is A Moral Duty And A Primary Virtue.

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

Mr. Ward, What Is It That The Foulest Bastards On Earth Denounce Us For, Among Other Things? Oh Yes, For Our Motto Of 'business As Usual.' Well-business As Usual, Mr. Ward!

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.

Guilt Is A Rope That Wears Thin.

Whoever Defends His Own Rights Defends The Rights Of All.

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

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

... Reason Accepts No Commandments.

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?

Man Has A Single Basic Choice: To Think Or Not, And That Is The Gauge Of His Virtue. Moral Perfection Is An Unbreached Rationality-not The Degree Of Your Intelligence, But The Full And Relentless Use Of Your Mind, Not The Extent Of Your Knowledge, But The Acceptance Of Reason As An Absolute.

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

Thousands Of Years Ago The First Man Discovered How To Make Fire. He Was Probably Burnt At The Stake He'd Taught His Brothers To Light, But He Left Them A Gift They Had Not Conceived And He Lifted Darkness From The Face Of The Earth.

Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible.

Property Rights

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

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

Self Confidence

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".

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.

But Neither Life Nor Happiness Can Be Achieved By The Pursuit Of Irrational Whims. Just As Man Is Free To Attempt To Survive In Any Random Manner, But Will Perish Unless He Lives As His Nature Requires, So He Is Free To Seek His Happiness In Any Mindless Fraud, But The Torture Of Frustration Is All He Will Find, Unless He Seeks The Happiness Proper To Man. The Purpose Of Morality Is To Teach You, Not To Suffer And Die, But To Enjoy Yourself And Live.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contradictions Do Not Exist. Whenever You Think You Are Facing A Contradiction, Check Your Premises. You Will Find That One Of Them Is Wrong.

It Is Not Fools That I Seek To Address.

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.

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

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.

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.

Self-esteem Is Reliance On Ones Power To Think.

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

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

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

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.

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.

A Quest For Self-respect Is Proof Of Its Lack

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Those Who Tell You That Man Is Unable To Perceive A Reality Undistorted By His Senses, Mean That They Are Unwilling To Perceive A Reality Undistorted By Their Feelings. "things As They Are" Are Things As Perceived By Your Mind; Divorce Them From Reason And They Become "things As Perceived By Your Wishes.

One Must Never Fail To Pronounce Moral Judgment.

That Love Is Reverence, And Worship, And Glory, And The Upward Glance. Not A Bandage For Dirty Sores. But They Don’t Know It. Those Who Speak Of Love Most Promiscuously Are The Ones Who’ve Never Felt It. They Make Some Sort Of Feeble Stew Out Of Sympathy, Compassion, Contempt, And General Indifference, And They Call It Love. Once You’ve Felt What It Means To Love As You And I Know It – The Total Passion For The Total Height – You’re Incapable Of Anything Less.

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

Any Refusal To Recognize Reality, For Any Reason Whatever, Has Disastrous Consequences. There Are No Evil Thoughts Except One: The Refusal To Think. Don't Ignore Your Own Desires.... Don't Sacrifice Them. Examine Their Cause. There Is A Limit To How Much You Should Have To Bear.

The Skyline Of New York Is A Monument Of A Splendour That No Pyramids Or Palaces Will Ever Equal Or Approach.

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.

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

Overcoming Addiction

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

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

Let No Man Posture As An Advocate Of Peace If He Proposes Or Supports Any Social System That Initiates The Use Of Force Against Individual Men, In Any Form.

Every Dictator Is A Mystic, And Every Mystic Is A Potential Dictator. A Mystic Craves Obedience From Men, Not Their Agreement. He Wants Them To Surrender Their Consciousness To His Assertions, His Edicts, His Wishes, His Whims - As His Consciousness Is Surrendered To Theirs. He Wants To Deal With Men By Means Of Faith And Force - He Finds No Satisfaction In Their Consent If He Must Earn It By Means Of Facts And Reason.

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

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

When She Had Gone Upstairs, He Walked To A Window And Stood Looking Up At The Sky. His Head Thrown Back, He Felt The Pull Of His Throat Muscles And He Wondered Whether The Peculiar Solemnity Of Looking At The Sky Comes, Not From What One Contemplates, But From That Uplift Of One's Head.

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

The Only Proper Purpose Of A Government Is To Protect Man's Rights, Which Means: To Protect Him From Physical Violence. A Proper Government Is Only A Policeman, Acting As An Agent Of Man's Self-defense, And, As Such, May Only Resort To Force Only Against Those Who Start The Use Of Force.

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

The Truly And Deliberately Evil Men Are A Very Small Minority; It Is The Appeaser Who Unleashes Them On Mankind; It Is The Appeaser's Intellectual Abdication That Invites Them To Take Over. When A Culture's Dominant Trend Is Geared To Irrationality, The Thugs Win Over The Appeasers. When Intellectual Leaders Fail To Foster The Best In The Mixed, Unformed, Vacillating Character Of People At Large, The Thugs Are Sure To Bring Out The Worst. When The Ablest Men Turn Into Cowards, The Average Men Turn Into Brutes.

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

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

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

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.

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

Capitalism Has Been Called A System Of Greed—yet It Is The System That Raised The Standard Of Living Of Its Poorest Citizens To Heights No Collectivist System Has Ever Begun To Equal, And No Tribal Gang Can Conceive Of.

From The Smallest Necessity To The Highest Religious Abstraction, From The Wheel To The Skyscraper, Everything We Are And Everything We Have Comes From One Attribute Of Man - The Function Of His Reasoning Mind.

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.

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.

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

If The Truth Shall Kill Them, Let Them Die.

Words Of Wisdom

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

He Never Felt Lonliness Except When He Was Happy.

A Society Without Intellectuals Is Like A Body Without A Head

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

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

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

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

Love Is Not Self-sacrifice, But The Most Profound Assertion Of Your Own Needs And Values. It Is For Your Own Happiness That You Need The Person You Love, And That Is The Greatest Compliment, The Greatest Tribute You Can Pay To That Person.

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.

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.

If Any Part Of Your Uncertainty, Is A Conflict Between Your Heart And Your Mind - Follow Your Mind.

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.

Are My Characters Copies Of People In Real Life? ... Don't Ever Believe The Stories About Authors Putting People Into Novels. That Idea Is A Kind Of Joke On Both Authors And Readers. All The Readers Believe That Authors Do It. All The Authors Know That It Can't Be Done.

We Are On Strike, We, The Men Of The Mind. We Are On Strike Against Self-immolation. We Are On Strike Against The Creed Of Unearned Rewards And Unrewarded Duties. We Are On Strike Against The Dogma That The Pursuit Of One's Happiness Is Evil. We Are On Strike Against The Doctrine That Life Is Guilt.

Every Aspect Of Western Culture Needs A New Code Of Ethics - A Rational Ethics - As A Precondition Of Rebirth.

Western Culture

She Knew That She Could Not Have Reached This White Serenity Except As The Sum Of All The Colors, Of All The Violence She Had Known.

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

While, Politically, A Mixed Economy Preserves The Semblance Of An Organized Society With A Semblance Of Law And Order, Economically It Is The Equivalent Of The Chaos That Had Ruled China For Centuries: A Chaos Of Robber Gangs Looting-and Draining-the Productive Elements Of The Country.

To Rest One's Case On Faith Means To Concede That Reason Is On The Side Of One's Enemies- That One Has No Rational Arguments To Offer.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men.

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.

When One Acts On Pity Against Justice, It Is The Good Whom One Punishes For The Sake Of The Evil; When One Saves The Guilty From Suffering, It Is The Innocent Whom One Forces To Suffer. There Is No Escape From Justice, Nothing Can Be Unearned And Unpaid For In The Universe, Neither In Matter Nor In Spirit—and If The Guilty Do Not Pay, Then The Innocent Have To Pay It.

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

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.

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.

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

An Individualist Is A Man Who Says: 'i Will Not Run Anyone's Life - Nor Let Anyone Run Mine. I Will Not Rule Or Be Ruled. I Will Not Be A Master Nor A Slave. I Will Not Sacrifice Myself To Anyone - Nor Sacrifice Anyone To Myself.'

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

Man's Character Is The Product Of His Premises.

To Fear To Face An Issue Is To Believe That The Worst Is True.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I Understood That Centuries Of Chains And Lashes Will Not Kill The Spirit Of Man Nor The Sense Of Truth Within Him.

There Can Be No Compromise On Basic Principles. There Can Be No Compromise On Moral Issues. There Can Be No Compromise On Matters Of Knowledge, Of Truth, Of Rational Conviction.

To Abstain From Condemning A Torturer, Is To Become An Accessory To The Torture And Murder Of His Victims.

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.

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.

Do Not Ever Say That The Desire To 'do Good' By Force Is A Good Motive. Neither Power-lust Nor Stupidity Are Good Motives.

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.

Contrary To The Vulgar Belief That Men Are Motivated Primarily By Materialistic Considerations, We Now See The Capitalist System Being Discredited And Destroyed All Over The World, Even Though This System Has Given Men The Greatest Material Comforts.

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

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

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.

Political Freedom Cannot Exist Without Economic Freedom; A Free Mind And A Free Market Are Corollaries.

Every Man Builds His World In His Own Image; He Has The Power To Choose, But No Power To Escape The Necessity Of Choice. If He Abdicates His Power, He Abdicates The Status Of Man, And The Grinding Chaos Of The Irrational Is What He Achieves As His Sphere Of Existence—by His Own Choice.

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

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

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.

Words Are A Lens To Focus One's Mind.

Freedom, In A Political Context, Means Freedom From Government Coercion. It Does Not Mean Freedom From The Landlord, From The Employer, Or Freedom From The Laws Of Nature Which Do Not Provide Men With Automatic Prosperity. It Means Freedom From The Coercive Power Of The State ' And Nothing Else

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.

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 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.

I Can't Compete And When I Do, The Rules Of Engagement Change In The Middle Of The Game. I'll Let The Powers That Be Vanquish Themselves And Return In Three To Five Years To Sift Through The Remains.

My Views On Charity Are Very Simple. I Do Not Consider It A Major Virtue And, Above All, I Do Not Consider It A Moral Duty. There Is Nothing Wrong In Helping Other People, If And When They Are Worthy Of The Help And You Can Afford To Help Them. I Regard Charity As A Marginal Issue. What I Am Fighting Is The Idea That Charity Is A Moral Duty And A Primary Virtue.

Individualism Regards Man-every Man-as An Independent, Sovereign Entity Who Possesses An Inalienable Right To His Own Life, A Right Derived From His Nature As A Rational Being.

I Am A Man Who Does Not Exist For Others.

The Code Of Competence Is The Only System Of Morality That's On A Gold Standard.

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.

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

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

What Is The Basic, The Essential, The Crucial Principle That Differentiates Freedom From Slavery? It Is The Principle Of Voluntary Action Versus Physical Coercion Or Compulsion.

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.

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

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

Most American Men Are Repressors.

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.

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.

I Like To Receive Money For My Work. But I Can Pass That Up This Time. I Like To Have People Know My Work Is Done By Me. But I Can Pass That Up. I Like To Have Tenants Made Happy By My Work. But That Doesn't Matter Too Much. The Only Thing That Matters, My Goal, My Reward, My Beginning, My End Is The Work Itself. My Work Done My Way. Peter, There's Nothing In The World That You Can Offer Me, Except This. Offer Me This And You Can Have Anything I've Got To Give. My Work Done My Way. A Private, Personal, Selfish, Egotistical Motivation. That's The Only Way I Function. That's All I Am.

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

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

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

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.

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

Get The Hell Out Of My Way!

Roark Smiled, "gail, If This Boat Were Sinking, I'd Give My Life To Save You. Not Because It's Any Kind Of Duty. Only Because I Like You, For Reasons And Standards Of My Own. I Could Die For You. But I Couldn't And Wouldn't Live For You.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Economic Power Is Exercised By Means Of A Positive, By Offering Men A Reward, An Incentive, A Payment, A Value; Political Power Is Exercised By Means Of A Negative, By The Threat Of Punishment, Injury, Imprisonment, Destruction. The Businessman's Tool Is Values; The Bureaucrat's Tool Is Fear.

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

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

The Secret Dread Of Modern Intellectuals, Liberals And Conservatives Alike, The Unadmitted Terror At The Root Of Their Anxiety, Which All Of Their Current Irrationalities Are Intended To Stave Off And To Disguise, Is The Unstated Knowledge That Soviet Russia [was] The Full, Actual, Literal, Consistent Embodiment Of The Morality Of Altruism, That Stalin Did Not Corrupt A Noble Ideal, That This Is The Only Way Altruism Has To Be Or Can Ever Be Practiced.

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

Allies Never Trust Each Other, But That Doesn't Spoil Their Effectiveness.

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

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.

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?

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

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.

It Was Beautiful And Rare, And You Have Every Right To Despise Me." She Stood Pressed To The Wall, Not Moving. "when You Came In, I Thought 'send Her Away.' But I Knew That If You Went Away, I'd Run After You. I Thought 'i Won't Say A Word.' But I Knew That You'd Know It Before You Left. I Love You. I Know You'd Think Kindlier Of Me If I Said That I Hate You.

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 No Transgression Blacker Than To Do Or Think Alone.

To Demand 'sense' Is The Hallmark Of Nonsense. Nature Does Not Make Sense. Nothing Makes Sense.

The Good, Say The Mystics Of Spirit, Is God, A Being Whose Only Definition Is That He Is Beyond Man's Power To Conceive — A Definition That Invalidates Man's Consciousness And Nullifies His Concepts Of Existence. The Good, Say The Mystics Of Muscle, Is Society — A Thing Which They Define As An Organism That Possesses No Physical Form, A Super-being Embodied In No One In Particular And Everyone In General Except Yourself.... The Purpose Of Man's Life, Say Both, Is To Become An Abject Zombie Who Serves A Purpose He Does Not Know, For Reasons He Is Not To Question.

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.

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

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.

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

Money Is The Root Of All Good.

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

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.

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.

Individualism Regards Man - Every Man - As An Independent, Sovereign Entity Who Possesses An Inalienable Right To His Own Life, A Right Derived From His Nature As A Rational Being. Individualism Holds That A Civilized Society, Or Any Form Of Association, Cooperation Or Peaceful Co-existence Among Men, Can Be Achieved Only On The Basis Of The Recognition Of Individual Rights - And That A Group, As Such, Has No Rights Other Than The Individual Rights Of Its Members.

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.

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

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