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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.

-Ayn Rand

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There Must Be Only

Ayn Rand

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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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Rationalization Is A Cover-up, A Process Of Providing One's Emotions With A False Identity, Of Giving Them Spurious Explanations And Justifications - In Order To Hide One's Motives, Not Just From Others, But Primarily From Oneself. The Price Of Rationalizing Is The Hampering, The Distortion, And, Ultimately, The Destruction Of One's Cognitive Faculty. Rationalization Is A Process Not Of Perceiving Reality, But Of Attempting To Make Reality Fit One's Emotions.

There Are Two Principles On Which All Men Of Intellectual Integrity And Good Will Can Agree, As A 'basic Minimum,' As A Precondition Of Any Discussion, Co-operation Or Movement Toward An Intellectual Renaissance. . . . They Are Not Axioms, But Until A Man Has Proved Them To Himself And Has Accepted Them, He Is Not Fit For An Intellectual Discussion. These Two Principles Are: A. That Emotions Are Not Tools Of Cognition; B. That No Man Has The Right To Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others.

Guilt Is A Rope That Wears Thin.

The Men Who Are Not Interested In Philosophy Need It Most Urgently; They Are Most Helplessly In Its Power.

Now You See, Dr. Stadler, You're Speaking As If This Book Were Addressing To A Thinking Audience. If It Were, One Would Have To Be Concerned With Such Matters As Accuracy, Validity, Logic And The Prestige Of Science. But It Isn't. It's Addressed To The Public.

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.

Individual Rights Are Not Subject To A Public Vote; A Majority Has No Right To Vote Away The Rights Of A Minority.

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.

When I Die, I Hope To Go To Heaven, Whatever The Hell That Is.

You Don't Build For The Way People Live, But For The Way They Should Live. I Don't Write About People As They Are, But As They Could Be And Should Be.

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.

I Don't Build In Order To Have Clients. I Have Clients In Order To Build.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Since Only An Individual Man Can Possess Rights, The Expression "individual Rights"? Is A Redundancy (which One Has To Use For Purposes Of Clarification In Today's Intellectual Chaos). But The Expression "collective Rights"? Is A Contradiction In Terms.

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.

Whatever May Be Open To Disagreement, There Is One Act Of Evil That May Not, The Act That No Man May Commit Against Others And No Man May Sanction Or Forgive. So Long As Men Desire To Live Together, No Man May Initiate—do You Hear Me? No Man May Start—the Use Of Physical Force Against Others.

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

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

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

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

The Plot Of A Movie Is Its Motor. It Is Not An Accident That People Call Pictures 'vehicles' For Stars. A Vehicle Has To Move. A Plotless Story Is Like An Expensive Car With A Wonderful Body Design, Luxurious Seats, Upholstery, Headlights (production, Direction, Cast) - And No Motor Under Its Hood. That Is Why It Gets Nowhere.

If You Tell An Amateur That His Story Is Not Good, He Always Declares Indignantly: 'oh, But It Really Happened Just Like This!' The Writer Who Doesn't Understand That This Is Beside The Point Is Not A Writer At All.

The Creed Of Sacrifice Is A Morality For The Immoral.

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

Their Eyes Were Dark And Hard And Glowing, With No Fear In Them, No Kindness And No Guilt.

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.

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

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

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.

I Write - And Read - For The Sake Of The Story... My Basic Test For Any Story Is: 'would I Want To Meet These Characters And Observe These Events In Real Life? Is This Story An Experience Worth Living Through For Its Own Sake? Is The Pleasure Of Contemplating These Characters An End Itself?

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

Do Not Let The Hero In Your Soul Perish.

The [u.s.] Constitution Is A Limitation On The Government, Not On Private Individuals ... It Does Not Prescribe The Conduct Of Private Individuals, Only The Conduct Of The Government ... It Is Not A Charter For Government Power, But A Charter Of The Citizen's Protection Against The Government.

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

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.

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

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

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

Each Man Must Live As An End In Himself And Follow His Own Rational Self-interest.

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

Mysticism Requires The Notion Of The Unknowable, Which Is Revealed To Some And Withheld From Others; This Divides Men Into Those Who Feel Guilt And Those Who Cash In On It.

I Can Say-not As A Patriotic Bromide, But With Full Knowledge Of The Necessary Metaphysical, Epistemological , Ethical, Political And Esthetic Roots-that The United States Of America Is The Greatest, The Noblest And, In Its Original Founding Principles, The Only Moral Country In The History Of The World.

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

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

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

Under The Antitrust Laws, A Man Becomes A Criminal From The Moment He Goes Into Business, No Matter What He Does. If He Complies With One Of These Laws, He Faces Criminal Prosecution Under Several Others. For Instance, If He Charges Prices Which Some Bureaucrats Judge As Too High, He Can Be Prosecuted For Monopoly Or For A Successful 'intent To Monopolize'; If He Charges Prices Lower Than Those Of His Competitors, He Can Be Prosecuted For 'unfair Competition' Or 'restraint Of Trade'; And If He Charges The Same Prices As His Competitors, He Can Be Prosecuted For 'collusion' Or 'conspiracy.'

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Man-worshipers, In My Sense Of The Term, Are Those Who See Man's Highest Potential And Strive To Actualize It. The Man-haters Are Those Who Regard Man As A Helpless, Depraved, Contemptible Creature-and Struggle Never To Let Him Discover Otherwise.

Whoever Claims The Right To Redistribute The Wealth Produced By Others Is Claiming The Right To Treat Human Beings As Chattel.

There Is No Hope For The World Unless And Until We Formulate, Accept And State Publicly A True Moral Code Of Individualism, Based On Man's Inalienable Right To Live For Himself. Neither To Hurt Nor To Serve His Brothers, But To Be Independent Of Them In His Function And In His Motive. Neither To Sacrifice Them For Himself Nor To Sacrifice Himself For Them.

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

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.

When You See That Trading Is Done, Not By Consent, But By Compulsion - When You See That In Order To Produce, You Need To Obtain Permission From Men Who Produce Nothing - When You See That Money Is Flowing To Those Who Deal, Not In Goods, But In Favors - When You See That Men Get Richer By Graft And By Pull Than By Work, And Your Laws Don't Protect You Against Them, But Protect Them Against You - When You See Corruption Being Rewarded And Honesty Becoming A Self-sacrifice - You May Know That Your Society Is Doomed.

Doctors Are Not Servants Of Their Patients, They Are Traders Like Everyone Else In A Free Society And They Should Bear That Title Proudly Considering The Crucial Importance Of The Services They Offer.

If Any Civilization Is To Survive, It Is The Morality Of Altruism That Men Have To Reject.

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?

And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men.

Any Work Is Creative Work If Done By A Thinking Mind.

Productive Work

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

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 Only Man Never To Be Redeemed Is The Man Without Passion.

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.

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

There Can Be No Compromise On Moral Principles.

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

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?

Morality Pertains Only To The Sphere Of Man's Free Will - Only To Those Actions Which Are Open To His Choice.

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

We Have Come To See How Great Is The Unexplored.

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

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

The Worst Guilt Is To Accept An Undeserved Guilt — And That Is What You Have Been Doing All Your Life.

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

He Stepped To The Window And Pointed To The Skyscrapers Of The City. He Said That We Had To Extinguish The Lights Of The World, And When We Would See The Lights Of New York Go Out, We Would Know That Our Job Was Done.

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

One's Own Independent Judgment Is The Means By Which One Must Choose One's Actions, But It Is Not A Moral Criterion Nor A Moral Validation; Only Reference To A Demonstrable Principle Can Validate One's Choices.

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?

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

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.

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.'

America's Abundance Was Not Created By Public Sacrifices To The Common Good, But By The Productive Genius Of Free Men Who Pursued Their Own Personal Interests And The Making Of Their Own Private Fortunes.

A Society That Robs An Individual Of The Product Of His Effort ... Is Not Strictly Speaking A Society, But A Mob Held Together By Institutionalized Gang Violence.

Live A Life As A Monument To Your Soul.

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.

If You Want To Save Capitalism There Is Only One Type Of Argument That You Should Adopt, The Only One That Has Ever Won In Any Moral Issue: The Argument From Self-esteem. Check Your Premises, Convince Yourself Of The Rightness Of Your Cause, Then Fight For Capitalism With Full, Moral Certainty.

The Majority Of Those Who Are Loosely Identified By The Term 'liberals' Are Afraid To Let Themselves Discover That What They Advocate Is Statism. They Want To Keep All The Advantages And Effects Of Capitalism, While Destroying The Cause, And They Want To Establish Statism Without Its Necessary Effects. They Do Not Want To Know Or To Admit That They Are The Champions Of Dictatorship And Slavery.

Your Soul Has A Single Basic Function-the Act Of Valuing.

Evil Requires The Sanction Of The Victim.

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

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

[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.

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.

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

No Advocate Of Reason Can Claim The Right To Force His Ideas On Others. No Advocate Of The Free Mind Can Claim The Right To Force The Minds Of Others. No Rational Society, No Co-operation, No Agreement, No Understanding, No Discussion Are Possible Among Men Who Propose To Substitute Guns For Rational Persuasion.

One Loses Everything When One Loses One's Sense Of Humor.

We'll Meet Again. We'll Meet When Years Have Passed, And Years Make Such A Difference, Don't They?

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

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

Because The Beauty Of The Human Body Is That It Hasn't A Single Muscle Which Doesn't Serve Its Purpose; That There's Not A Line Wasted; That Every Detail Of It Fits One Idea, The Idea Of A Man And The Life Of A Man.

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.

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

For Centuries, The Mystics Of Spirit Had Existed By Running A Protection Racket - By Making Life On Earth Unbearable, Then Charging You For Consolation And Relief, By Forbidding All The Virtues That Make Existence Possible, Then Riding On The Shoulders Of Your Guilt, By Declaring Production And Joy To Be Sins, Then Collecting Blackmail From The Sinners.

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.

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

Even If Smog Were A Risk To Human Life, We Must Remember That Life In Nature, Without Technology, Is Wholesale Death.

What Objectivity And The Study Of Philosophy Requires Is Not An 'open Mind,' But An Active Mind - A Mind Able And Eagerly Willing To Examine Ideas, But To Examine Them Criticially.

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.

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

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.

Words Are A Lens To Focus One's Mind.

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

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.

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.

All Depressions Are Caused By Government Interference And The Cure Is Always Offered To Take More Of The Poison That Caused The Disaster. Depressions Are Not The Result Of A Free Economy.

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.

To Say 'i Love You' One Must First Be Able To Say The 'i.'

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

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.

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.

Every Coercive Monopoly Was Created By Government Intervention Into The Economy: By Special Privileges, Such As Franchises Or Subsidies, Which Closed The Entry Of Competitors Into A Given Field, By Legislative Action.

Man's Mind Is His Basic Tool Of Survival.

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.

A 'mixed Economy' Is A Society In The Process Of Committing Suicide.

Government Control Of The Economy, No Matter In Whose Behalf, Has Been The Source Of All The Evils In Our Industrial Society -- And The Solution Is Laissez-faire Capitalism, I.e., The Abolition Of Any And All Forms Of Intervention In Production And Trade, The Separation Of State And Economics, In The Same Way And For The Same Reasons As The Separation Of Church And State.

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Working To Improve My Methods, And Every Hour I Save Is An Hour Added To My Life.

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

The Man Who Produces While Others Dispose Of His Product Is A Slave.

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

A 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.

Collectivism Answers: The Power Of Society Is Unlimited. Society May Make Any Laws It Wishes, And Force Them Upon Anyone In Any Manner It Wishes.

The Entire History Of Science Is A Progression Of Exploded Fallacies.

History Of Science

I Cannot Be Called Upon To Know A Negative Or To Prove A Negative. If There Is A God And You Prove It, That's Fine. But You Don't Tell Me You Can't Know That There Isn't. I Would Say Yes I Know There Isn't Because I Have Been Given No Evidence.

If There Is A God

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

Love Is Our Response To Our Highest Values.

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

I Am Unwilling To Be Wholly Good—and Please Don't Regard Me As Wholly Evil!

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

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

Overcoming Addiction

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

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.

It Is A Sin To Write This.

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

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

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.

Have You Ever Felt The Longing For Someone You Could Admire? For Something, Not To Look Down At, But Up To?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Selfishness Does Not Mean Only To Do Things For One's Self. One May Do Things, Affecting Others, For His Own Pleasure And Benefit. This Is Not Immoral, But The Highest Of Morality.

Only A Man Of Integrity Can Possess The Virtue Of Honesty, Since Only The Faking Of One’s Consciousness Can Permit The Faking Of Existence.

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

She Was Incapable Of Love For Any Object Not Of Her Own Choice And She Resented Anyone's Demand For It.

Paper Is A Check Drawn By Legal Looters Upon An Account Which Is Not Theirs: Upon The Virtue Of The Victims. Watch For The Day When It Bounces, Marked: 'account Overdrawn.'

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

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.

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.

If He Can Give His Readers No Reason Why They Should Read His Book, Except That The Events Happened To Him, It Is Not A Valid Book.

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.

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

Man's Basic Vice, The Source Of All His Evils, Is The Act Of Unfocusing His Mind, The Suspension Of His Consciousness, Which Is Not Blindness, But The Refusal To See, Not Ignorance, But The Refusal To Know.

Since A Rational Man's Ambition Is Unlimited, Since His Pursuit And Achievement Of Values Is A Life-long Process — And The Higher The Values, The Harder The Struggle — He Needs A Moment, An Hour Or Some Period Of Time In Which He Can Experience The Sense Of His Completed Task, The Sense Of Living In A Universe Where His Values Have Been Successfully Achieved.

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

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

A Government Is The Most Dangerous Threat To Man

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.

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

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.

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.

But There Are People Who'll Try To Hurt You Through The Good They See In You--knowing That It's The Good, Needing It And Punishing You For It. Don't Let It Break You When You Discover That.

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.

Rulers Exist Entirely Through The Persons Of Others. Their Goal Is In Their Subjects, In The Activity Of Enslaving. They Are As Dependent As The Beggar, The Social Worker And The Bandit. The Form Of Dependence Does Not Matter.

The Meaning Ascribed In Popular Usage To The Word 'selfishness' Is Not Merely Wrong: It Represents A Devastating Intellectual 'package-deal,' Which Is Responsible, More Than Any Other Single Factor, For The Arrested Moral Development Of Mankind.

Moral Development

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Science Was Born As A Result And Consequence Of Philosophy; It Cannot Survive Without A Philosophical Base. If Philosophy Perishes, Science Will Be Next To Go.

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.

An Animal Is Equipped For Sustaining Its Life; Its Senses Provide It With An Automatic Code Of Action, An Automatic Knowledge Of What Is Good For It Or Evil... Man Has No Automatic Code Of Survival. His Particular Distinction From All Other Living Species Is The Necessity To Act In The Face Of Alternatives By Means Of Volitional Choice.

The Purpose Of The Law Is Not To Prevent A Future Offense, But To Punish The One Actually Committed.

I Came Here To Say That I Do Not Recognize Anyone's Right To One Minute Of My Life. Nor To Any Part Of My Energy. Nor To Any Achievement Of Mine. No Matter Who Makes The Claim, How Large Their Number Or How Great Their Need. I Wished To Come Here And Say That I Am A Man Who Does Not Exist For Others." - Howard Roark

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