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The Word 'we' Is As Lime Poured Over Men, Which Sets And Hardens To Stone, And Crushes All Beneath It, And That Which Is White And That Which Is Black Are Lost Equally In The Grey Of It. It Is The Word By Which The Depraved Steal The Virtue Of The Good, By Which The Weak Steal The Might Of The Strong, By Which The Fools Steal The Wisdom Of The Sages.

-Ayn Rand

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The Word 'we' Is

Ayn Rand

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The Word 'we' Is As Lime Poured Over Men, Which Sets And Hardens To Stone, And Crushes All Beneath It, And That Which Is White And That Which Is Black Are Lost Equally In The Grey Of It. It Is The Word By Which The Depraved Steal The Virtue Of The Good, By Which The Weak Steal The Might Of The Strong, By Which The Fools Steal The Wisdom Of The Sages.

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

To Be Free, A Man Must Be Free Of His Brothers. That Is Freedom. That And Nothing Else.

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

Capitalism Is Based On Individual Rights - Not On The Sacrifice Of The Individual To The 'public Good' Of The Collective.

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.

When I Listen To A Symphony I Love, I Don't Get From It What The Composer Got. His 'yes' Was Different From Mine. He Could Have No Concern For Mine And No Exact Conception Of It. That Answer Is Too Personal To Each Man. But In Giving Himself What He Wanted, He Gave Me A Great Experience.

Place Nothing Above The Verdict Of Your Own Mind.

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish In Lonely Frustration For The Life You Deserved And Have Never Been Able To Reach.

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

If There Is Any One Proof Of A Man's Incompetence, It Is The Stagnant Mentality Of A Worker Who, Doing Some Small Routine Job In A Vast Undertaking, Does Not Care To Look Beyond The Lever Of A Machine, Does Not Choose To Know How The Machine Got There Or What Makes His Job Possible, And Proclaims That The Management Of The Undertaking Is Parasitical And Unnecessary.

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

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

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

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.

That Something Happened To You Is Of No Importance To Anyone, Not Even To You. The Important Thing About You Is What You Choose To Make Happen - Your Values And Choices. That Which Happened By Accident - What Family You Were Born Into, In What Country, And Where You Went To School - Is Totally Unimportant.

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

A Man's Sexual Choice Is The Result And The Sum Of His Fundamental Convictions.... He Will Always Be Attracted To The Woman Who Reflects His Deepest Vision Of Himself, The Woman Whose Surrender Permits Him To Experience A Sense Of Self-esteem. The Man Who Is Proudly Certain Of His Own Value, Will Want The Highest Type Of Woman He Can Find, The Woman He Admires, The Strongest, The Hardest To Conquer--because Only The Possession Of A Heroine Will Give Him The Sense Of An Achievement.

The Action Required To Sustain Human Life Is Primarily Intellectual; Everything Man Needs Has To Be Discovered By His Mind And Produced By His Effort.

Civilization Is The Progress Toward A Society Of Privacy. The Savage's Whole Existence Is Public, Ruled By The Laws Of His Tribe. Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

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.

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

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

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.

Observe How Many People Evade, Rationalize And Drive Their Minds Into A State Of Blind Stupor, In Dread Of Discovering That Those They Deal With- Their "loved Ones" Or Friends Or Business Associates Or Political Rulers- Are Not Merely Mistaken, But Evil. Observe That This Dread Leads Them To Sanction, To Help And To Spread The Very Evil Whose Existence They Fear To Acknowledge.

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.

Every Major Horror Of History Was Committed In The Name Of An Altruistic Motive. Has Any Act Of Selfishness Ever Equalled The Carnage Perpetrated By Disciples Of Altruism.

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

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.

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

Money Will Not Purchase Happiness For The Man Who Has No Concept Of What He Wants.

A Businessman Cannot Force You To Buy His Product; If He Makes A Mistake, He Suffers The Consequences; If He Fails, He Takes The Loss. If Bureaucrat Makes A Mistake, You Suffer The Consequences; If He Fails, He Passes The Loss On To You.

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

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

In A Capitalist Society, All Human Relationships Are Voluntary.

Human Relations

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?

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

The Political Function Of 'the Right Of Free Speech' Is To Protect Dissenters And Unpopular Minorities From Forcible Suppression - Not To Guarantee Them The Support, Advantages, And Rewards Of A Popularity They Have Not Gained.

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.

In Order To Live, Man Must Act; In Order To Act, He Must Make Choices; In Order To Make Choices, He Must Define A Code Of Values; In Order To Define A Code Of Values, He Must Know What He Is And Where He Is – I.e. He Must Know His Own Nature (including His Means Of Knowledge) And The Nature Of The Universe In Which He Acts – I.e. He Needs Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Which Means: Philosophy. He Cannot Escape From This Need; His Only Alternative Is Whether The Philosophy Guiding Him Is To Be Chosen By His Mind Or By Chance.

If Men Want To Oppose War, It Is Statism That They Must Oppose. So Long As They Hold The Tribal Notion That The Individual Is Sacrificial Fodder For The Collective, That Some Men Have The Right To Rule Others By Force, And That Some (any) Alleged “good” Can Justify It-there Can Be No Peace Within A Nation And No Peace Among Nations.

Andrei, Did You Like The Opera?" "not Particularly." "andrei, Do You See What You're Missing?" "i Don't Think I Do, Kira. It's All Rather Silly. And Useless." "can't You Enjoy Things That Are Useless, Merely Because They Are Beautiful?" "no. But I Enjoyed It." "the Music?" "no. The Way You Listened To It.

I Am Opposed To All Forms Of Control. I Am For An Absolute, Laissez-faire, Free, Unregulated Economy.

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.

The Man Who Refuses To Judge, Who Neither Agrees Nor Disagrees, Who Declares That There Are No Absolutes And Believes That He Escapes Responsibility, Is The Man Responsible For All The Blood That Is Now Spilled In The World

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

One Can't Love Man Without Hating Most Of The Creatures Who Pretend To Bear His Name.

The Question Of Whether One Alleges The Superiority Or Inferiority Of Any Given Race Is Irrelevant; Racism Has Only One Psychological Root: The Racist's Sense Of His Own Inferiority.

You Love Your Work. God Help You, You Love It! And Thats The Curse. That's The Brand On Your Forehead For All Of Them To See. You Love It And They Know It, And They Know They Have You. Do You Ever Look At The People In The Street? Aren't You Afraid Of Them? I Am. They Move Past You And They Wear Hats And They Carry Bundles. But That's Not The Substance Of Them. The Substance Of Them Is Hatred For Any Man Who Loves His Work. That's The Only Kind They Fear. I Don't Know Why

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

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

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

Freedom Comes From Seeing The Ignorance Of Your Critics And Discovering The Emptiness Of Their Virtue.

I Came Here To Say That I Do Not Recognize Anyone's Right To One Minute Of My Life.

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

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

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.

A Mystic Is A Man Who Treats His Feelings As Tools Of Cognition.

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

Money Is The Root Of All Good.

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.

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.

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

An Idea Is A Light Turned On In A Man's Soul. Comic-strip Artists Are In The Habit Of Representing It By Means Of A Light Bulb Flashing On, Above The Head Of A Character Who Has Suddenly Grasped An Idea. In Simple, Primitive Terms, This Is An Appropriate Symbol.

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.

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.

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

Overcoming Addiction

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

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

We Are Born Into This World Unarmed - Our Mind Is Our Only Weapon.

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

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

Civilization Is The Progress Toward A Society Of Privacy.

Progress Of Society

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

Collectivism, As An Intellectual Power And A Moral Ideal, Is Dead. But Freedom And Individualism, And Their Political Expression, Capitalism, Have Not Yet Been Discovered.

I Want To Be Prepared To Claim The Greatest Virtue Of All - That I Was A Man Who Made Money

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.

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.

Civilization Is The Process Of Setting Man Free From Men.

Progress Of Society

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.

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

The Hardest Thing To Explain Is The Glaringly Evident Which Everybody Had Decided Not To See.

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

If The Truth Shall Kill Them, Let Them Die.

Words Of Wisdom

Who Was It That Said He Needed A Fulcrum? Give Me An Unobstructed Right-of-way And I'll Show Them How To Move The Earth!

I Am Speaking To Those Among You Who Have Retained Some Sovereign Shred Of Their Soul, Unsold And Unstamped: '- To The Order Of Others'. If, In The Chaos Of The Motives That Have Made You Listen To The Radio Tonight, There Was An Honest, Rational Desire To Learn What Is Wrong With The World, You Are The Man Whom I Wished To Address. By The Rules And Terms Of My Code, One Owes A Rational Statement To Those Whom It Does Concern And Who Are Making An Effort To Know. Those Who Are Making An Effort To Fail To Understand Me, Are Not A Concern Of Mine.

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 .)

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.

It Is Fairly Easy To Grasp Abstract Moral Principles; It Can Be Very Difficult To Apply Them To A Given Situation, Particularly When It Involves The Moral Character Of Another Person.

If A Drought Strikes Them, Animals Perish--man Builds Irrigation Canals; If A Flood Strikes Them, Animals Perish--man Builds Dams; If A Carnivorous Pack Attacks Them, Animals Perish--man Writes The Constitution Of The United States.

Every Honest Man Lives For Himself. Every Man Worth Calling A Man Lives For Himself. The One Who Doesn't - Doesn't Live At All.

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

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

Many Words Have Been Granted Me, And Some Are Wise, And Some Are False, But Only Three Are Holy: "i Will It!

Freedom Of Association Includes The Freedom Not To Associate.

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.

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.

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?

No Individual Or Private Group Or Private Organization Has The Legal Power To Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Other Individuals Or Groups And To Compel Them To Act Against Their Own Voluntary Choice. Only A Government Holds That Power. The Nature Of Governmental Action Is: Coercive Action. The Nature Of Political Power Is: The Power To Force Obedience Under Threat Of Physical Injury-the Threat Of Property Expropriation, Imprisonment, Or Death.

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.

Man Cannot Survive Except Through His Mind. He Comes On Earth Unarmed. His Brain Is His Only Weapon. Animals Obtain Food By Force. Man Had No Claws, No Fangs, No Horns, No Great Strength Of Muscle. He Must Plant His Food Or Hunt It. To Plant, He Needs A Process Of Thought. To Hunt, He Needs Weapons,and To Make Weapons - A Process Of Thought. From This Simplest Necessity To The Highest Religious Abstraction, From The Wheel To The Skyscraper, Everything We Are And We Have Comes From A Single Attribute Of Man -the Function Of His Reasoning Mind.

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.

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

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

The First Right On Earth Is The Right Of The Ego. Man's First Duty Is To Himself. His Moral Law Is Never To Place His Prime Goal Within The Persons Of Others. His Moral Obligation Is To Do What He Wishes, Provided His Wish Does Not Depend Primarily Upon Other Men.

The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Need It Most Urgently: They Are Most Helplessly In Its Power. The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Absorb Its Principles From The Cultural Atmosphere Around Them-from Schools, Colleges, Books, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, Television, Etc. Who Sets The Tone Of A Culture? A Small Handful Of Men: The Philosophers. Others Follow Their Lead, Either By Conviction Or By Default.

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

Creation Comes Before Distribution -- Or There Will Be Nothing To Distribute.

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.

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.

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

Whose Steps Were A Restless Substitute For Flight.

You Have Been Called Selfish For The Courage Of Acting On Your Own Judgement And Bearing Sole Responsibility For Your Own Life. You Have Been Called Arrogant For Your Independent Mind. You Have Been Called Cruel For Your Unyielding Integrity. You Have Been Calle Anti Social For The Vision That Made You Venture Upon Undiscovered Roads.

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

Whenever Destroyers Appear Among Men, They Start By Destroying Money, For Money Is Men's Protection, And The Base Of A Moral Existence.

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

Delusions Of Grandeur

A Culture Is Made — Or Destroyed — By Its Articulate Voices.

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

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?

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.

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

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

I Am An Innovator. This Is A Term Of Distinction, A Term Of Honor, Rather Than Something To Hide Or Apologize For. Anyone Who Has New Or Valuable Ideas To Offer Stands Outside The Intellectual Status Quo. But The Status Quo Is Not A Stream, Let Alone A 'mainstream'. It Is A Stagnant Swamp. It Is The Innovators Who Carry Mankind Forward.

John Galt Is Prometheus Who Changed His Mind. After Centuries Of Being Torn By Vultures In Payment For Having Brought To Men The Fire Of The Gods, He Broke His Chains—and He Withdrew His Fire—until The Day When Men Withdraw Their Vultures.

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.

But What Is Freedom? Freedom From What? There Is Nothing To Take A Man's Freedom Away From Him, Save Other Men. To Be Free, A Man Must Be Free Of His Brothers. That Is Freedom. That And Nothing Else.

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.

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

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

Independent Women

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.

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.

You Must Be The Kind Of Man Who Can Get Things Done. But To Get Things Done, You Must Love The Doing, Not The Secondary Consequences.

It Is A Policeman’s Duty To Retrieve Stolen Property And Return It To Its Owners. But When Robbery Becomes The Purpose Of The Law, And The Policeman’s Duty Becomes, Not Protection, But The Plunder Of Property - Then It Is An Outlaw Who Has To Become A Policeman.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

There Are No Contradictions. If You Find One, Check Your Premises.

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.

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.

To Love Is To Value. Only A Rationally Selfish Man, A Man Of Self Esteem, Is Capable Of Love - Because He Is The Only Man Capable Of Holding Firm, Consistent, Uncompromising, Unbetrayed Value. The Man Who Does Not Value Himself, Cannot Value Anything Or Anyone

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.

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

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

Socialism Is The Doctrine That Man Has No Right To Exist For His Own Sake, That His Life And His Work Do Not Belong To Him, But Belong To Society, That The Only Justification Of His Existence Is His Service To Society, And That Society May Dispose Of Him In Any Way It Pleases For The Sake Of Whatever It Deems To Be Its Own Tribal, Collective Good.

Independence Is The Recognition Of The Fact That Yours Is The Responsibility Of Judgement And Nothing Can Help You Escape It - That No Substitute Can Do Your Thinking, As No Pinch-hitter Can Live Your Life.

It's Easy To Run To Others. It's So Hard To Stand On One's Own Record. You Can Fake Virtue For An Audience. You Can't Fake It In Your Own Eyes. Your Ego Is Your Strictest Judge. They Run From It. They Spend Their Lives Running. It's Easier To Donate A Few Thousand To Charity And Think Oneself Noble Than To Base Self-respect On Personal Standards Of Personal Achievement. It's Simple To Seek Substitutes For Competence--such Easy Substitutes: Love, Charm, Kindness, Charity. But There Is No Substitute For Competence.

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.

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

You Are Never Called Upon To Prove A Negative. That's A Law Of Logic.

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.

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

The 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.

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

When It Is Established That Government By Right Can Take Wealth From Some And Give It To Others. When A Society Establishes Criminals-by-right And Looters-by-law, Men Will Use Force To Seize The Wealth Of Disarmed Victims. Such Looters Believe It Safe To Rob Defenseless Men, Once They Have Passed A Law To Disarm Them. But Their Loot Becomes The Magnet For Other Looters, Who Get It From Them As They Got It. Then The Race Goes, Not To The Ablest At Production, But To Those Most Ruthless At Brutality. When Force Is The Standard, The Murderer Wins Over The Pickpocket.

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

We Are On Strike Against The Doctrine That Life Is Guilt.

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.

You'll Come Back, Because Yours Is An Error Of Knowledge, Not A Moral Failure, Not An Act Of Surrender To Evil, But Only The Last Act Of Being Victim To Your Own Virtue. We'll Wait For You And When You Come Back, You Will Have Discovered That There Need Never Be Any Conflict Among Your Desires, Nor So Tragic A Clash Of Values As The One You've Borne So Well.

All The Evils, Abuses, And Iniquities, Popularly Ascribed To Businessmen And To Capitalism, Were Not Caused By An Unregulated Economy Or By A Free Market, But By Government Intervention Into The Economy.

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.

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

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

This Was Solidarity. The Debutante Having Her Toenails Pedicured - The Housewife Buying Carrots From A Pushcart - The Bookkeeper Who Had Wanted To Be A Pianist, But Has The Excuse Of A Sister To Support - The Businessman Who Hated His Business - The Worker Who Hated His Work - The Intellectual Who Hated Everybody - All Were United As Brothers In The Luxury Of Common Anger That Cured Boredom And Took Them Out Of Themselves, And They Knew Well Enough What A Blessing It Was To Be Taken Out Of Themselves.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Pleasure Is Nought But Virtue's Gayer Name-- I Wrong Her Still, I Rate Her Worth Too Low: Virtue The Root, And Pleasure Is The Flow'r.

We Are All Brothers Under The Skin - And I, For One, Would Be Willing To Skin Humanity To Prove It.

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

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

A Story Is An End In Itself. It Is Not Written To Teach, Sell, Explain Or Destroy Anything. It Is Not Written Even To Entertain. It Is Written As A Man Is Born - An Organic Whole, Dictated Only By Its Own Laws And Its Own Necessity - An End In Itself, Not A Means To An End.

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

A Chronic Lack Of Pleasure, Of Any Enjoyable, Rewarding Or Stimulating Experiences, Produces A Slow, Gradual, Day-by-day Erosion Of Man's Emotional Vitality, Which He May Ignore Or Repress, But Which Is Recorded By The Relentless Computer Of His Subconscious Mechanism That Registers An Ebbing Flow, Then A Trickle, Then A Few Last Drops Of Fuel--until The Day When His Inner Motor Stops And He Wonders Desperately Why He Has No Desire To Go On, Unable To Find Any Definable Cause Of His Hopeless, Chronic Sense Of Exhaustion.

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

Remember That Rights Are Moral Principles Which Define And Protect A Man's Freedom Of Action, But Impose No Obligations On Other Men.

It Meant Nothing To Him Any Longer, Only A Faint Tinge Of Sadness--and Somewhere Within Him, A Drop Of Pain Moving Briefly And Vanishing, Like A Raindrop On The Glass Of A Window, Its Course In The Shape Of A Question Mark.

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.

The Word 'we' Is As Lime Poured Over Men, Which Sets And Hardens To Stone, And Crushes All Beneath It, And That Which Is White And That Which Is Black Are Lost Equally In The Grey Of It. It Is The Word By Which The Depraved Steal The Virtue Of The Good, By Which The Weak Steal The Might Of The Strong, By Which The Fools Steal The Wisdom Of The Sages.

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.

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.

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

To Achieve, You Need Thought

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.

I Am. I Think. I Will.

One Must Never Fail To Pronounce Moral Judgment.

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

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.

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.

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

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

A Morality That Holds Need As A Claim, Holds Emptiness-non-existence-as Its Standard Of Value; It Rewards An Absence, A Defect: Weakness, Inability, Incompetence, Suffering, Disease, Disaster, The Lack, The Fault, The Flaw-the Zero.

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

What Greater Wealth Is There Than To Own Your Life And To Spend It On Growing? Every Living Thing Must Grow. It Can't Stand Still. It Must Grow Or Perish.

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