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Your Emotional Capacity Is An Empty Motor, And Your Values Are The Fuel With Which Your Mind Fills It. If You Choose A Mix Of Contradictions, It Will Clog Your Motor, Corrode Your Transmission And Wreck You On Your First Attempt To Move With A Machine Which You, The Driver, Have Corrupted.

-Ayn Rand

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Your Emotional Capacity Is

Ayn Rand

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Your Emotional Capacity Is An Empty Motor, And Your Values Are The Fuel With Which Your Mind Fills It. If You Choose A Mix Of Contradictions, It Will Clog Your Motor, Corrode Your Transmission And Wreck You On Your First Attempt To Move With A Machine Which You, The Driver, Have Corrupted.

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This Is Pity,” He Thought, And Then He Lifted His Head In Wonder. He Thought That There Must Be Something Terribly Wrong With A World In Which This Monstrous Feeling Is Called A Virtue.

To Hold An Unchanging Youth Is To Reach At The End, The Vision With Which One Started.

The Conservatives See Man As A Body Freely Roaming The Earth, Building Sand Piles Or Factories - With An Electronic Computer Inside His Skull, Controlled From Washington. The Liberals See Man As A Soul Freewheeling To The Farthest Reaches Of The Universe - But Wearing Chains From Nose To Toes When He Crosses The Street To Buy A Loaf Of Bread.

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.

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.

He Liked To Observe Emotions; They Were Like Red Lanterns Strung Along The Dark Unknown Of Another's Personality, Marking Vulnerable Points.

There's Only One Passion In Most Artists More Violent Than Their Desire For Admiration: Their Fear Of Identifying The Nature Of Such Admiration As They Do Receive.

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.

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

Happiness Is A State Of Non-contradictory Joy . . . Happiness Is Possible Only To A Rational Man, The Man Who Desires Nothing But Rational Goals, Seeks Nothing But Rational Values, And Finds His Joy In Nothing But Rational Actions.

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

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

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

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.

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

For The First Time Since Her Return, She Felt Pain, A Violent Pain, But It Made Her Feel Alive, Because It Was Worth Feeling.

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

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.

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

It's So Graceless, Being A Martyr. It's Honoring Your Adversaries Too Much.

An Inventor Is A Man Who Asks 'why?' Of The Universe And Lets Nothing Stand Between The Answer And His Mind.

A Conformist Is A Man Who Declares, "it's True Because Others Believe It" - But An Individualist Is Not A Man Who Declares, "it's True Because I Believe It." An Individual Declares, "i Believe It Because I See In Reason That It Is True.

Since Nature Does Not Endow All Men With Equal Beauty Or Equal Intelligence, And The Faculty Of Volition Leads Men To Make Different Choices, The Egalitarians Propose To Abolish The "unfairness" Of Nature And Of Volition, And To Establish Universal Equality In Fact - In Defiance Of Facts. It Is Not Equality Before The Law That They Seek, But Inequality: The Establishment Of An Inverted Social Pyramid, With A New Aristocracy On Top - The Aristocracy Of Non-value.

Living In A Society, Instead Of On A Desert Island, Does Not Relieve A Man Of The Responsibility Of Supporting His Own Life.

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.

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

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

But Why Should You Care What People Will Say? All You Have To Do Is Please Yourself.

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.

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

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

The Government's Only Proper Job Is To Protect Individual Rights Against Violence By Force Or Fraud ... To Protect Men From Foreign Invaders ... To Settle Disputes Among Men According To Objective Laws ... The Greatness Of The Founding Fathers Was How Well They Understood This Issue And How Close Some Of Them Came To Understanding It Perfectly.

He Never Felt Lonliness Except When He Was Happy.

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

Self Confidence

There’s Nothing As Significant As A Human Face. Nor As Eloquent. We Can Never Really Know Another Person, Except By Our First Glance At Him. Because, In That Glance, We Know Everything. Even Though We’re Not Always Wise Enough To Unravel The Knowledge.

Worry Is A Waste Of Emotional Reserve".

Do Not Consider Collectivists As "sincere But Deluded Idealists". The Proposal To Enslave Some Men For The Sake Of Others Is Not An Ideal; Brutality Is Not "idealistic," No Matter What Its Purpose. Do Not Ever Say That The Desire To "do Good" By Force Is A Good Motive. Neither Power-lust Nor Stupidity Are Good Motives.

The Genius Must Have His Freedom And His Independence.

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

If You Surrender Everything To The Government And Give It Total Power To Plan The Whole Economy, This Will Not Guarantee Your Economic Security, But It Will Guarantee The Descent Of The Entire Nation To A Level Of Miserable Poverty--as The Practical Results Of Every Totalitarian Economy, Communist Or Fascist, Have Demonstrated.

There Are Two Side To Every Issue.

Sacrifice Does Not Mean The Rejection Of The Worthless, But Of The Precious

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

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

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

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

There Are Two Sides To Every Issue: One Side Is Right And The Other Is Wrong, But The Middle Is Always Evil.

But What Man Does Out Of Despair, Is Not Necessarily A Key To His Character. I Have Always Thought That The Real Key Is In That Which He Seeks For His Enjoyment.

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

But Their Eyes Were As Cold Blue Glass Buttons.

Degrees Of Ability Vary, But The Basic Principle Remains The Same: The Degree Of A Man's Independence, Initiative And Personal Love For His Work Determines His Talent As A Worker And His Worth As A Man. Independence Is The Only Gauge Of Human Virtue And Value. What A Man Is And Makes Of Himself; Not What He Has Or Hasn't Done For Others. There Is No Substitute For Personal Dignity. There Is No Standard Of Personal Dignity Except Independence.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

It Is One's Own Personal, Selfish Happiness That One Seeks, Earns, And Derives From Love.

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

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

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.

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

I'm Not Brave Enough To Be A Coward; I See The Consequences Too Clearly.

Men Have Been Taught That It Is A Virtue To Stand Together. But The Creator Is The Man Who Stands Alone.

No Man May Initiate The Use Of Physical Force Against Others. No Man-or Group Or Society Or Government-has The Right To Assume The Role Of A Criminal And Initiate The Use Of Physical Compulsion Against Any Man. Men Have The Right To Use Physical Force Only In Retaliation And Only Against Those Who Initiate Its Use. The Ethical Principle Involved Is Simple And Clear-cut: It Is The Difference Between Murder And Self-defense.

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

There Are No Little People In America. There Are Only People, Equal Before The Law, Yearning To Breathe Free And Wanting To Achieve The Best Within Them.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Never Ask People About Your Work.

She Watched The Prairies The Rivers, The Towns Slipping Past At An Untouchable Distance Below - And She Noted That The Sense Of Detachment One Feels When Looking At The Earth From A Plane Was The Same Sense She Felt When Looking At People: Only Her Distance From People Seemed Longer. - Dagny Taggart

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

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

Libertarian Party

These Are The Things Before Me. And As I Stand Here At The Door Of Glory, I Look Behind Me For The Last Time. I Look Upon The History Of Men, Which I Have Learned From The Books, And I Wonder. It Was A Long Story, And The Spirit Which Moved It Was The Spirit Of Man’s Freedom. 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. This And Nothing Else.

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.

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.

Another Current Catch-phrase Is The Complaint That The Nations Of The World Are Divided Into 'haves' And The 'have-nots.' Observe That The 'haves' Are Those Who Have Freedom, And That It Is Freedom That The 'have-nots' Have Not.

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

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

I Feel That Others Live Up To Me, If They Want Me.

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

Delusions Of Grandeur

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

Man’s Rights Can Be Violated Only By The Use Of Physical Force. It Is Only By Means Of Physical Force That One Man Can Deprive Another Of His Life, Or Enslave Him, Or Rob Him, Or Prevent Him From Pursuing His Own Goals, Or Compel Him To Act Against His Own Rational Judgment.

That Time And Those People Are Upon You!

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

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 ' Pleasure' Of Being Drunk Is Obviously The Pleasure Of Escaping From The Responsibility Of Consciousness.

For The Coming Of That Day Shall I Fight, I And My Sons And My Chosen Friends. For The Freedom Of Man. For His Rights. For His Life. For His Honor.

Because, You See, God - Whatever Anyone Chooses To Call God - Is One's Highest Conception Of The Highest Possible. And Whoever Places His Highest Conception Above His Own Possibility Thinks Very Little Of Himself And His Life. It's A Rare Gift, You Know, To Feel Reverence For Your Own Life And To Want The Best, The Greatest, The Highest Possible, Here, Now, For Your Very Own. To Imagine A Heaven And Then Not To Dream Of It, But To Demand It.

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.

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.

Money Is The Root Of All Good.

Place Nothing Above The Verdict Of Your Own Mind.

It's Not About Who's Going To Let Me; It's About Who's Going To Stop Me.

The Right To Life Is The Source Of All Rights -- And The Right To Property Is Their Only Implementation. Without Property Rights, No Other Rights Are Possible. Since Man Has To Sustain His Life By His Own Effort, The Man Who Has No Right To The Product Of His Effort Has No Means To Sustain His Life. The Man Who Produces While Others Dispose Of His Product, Is A Slave.

About Mike The Construction Worker, Friend Of Roark: "he Worshipped Expertness Of Any Kind. He Loved His Work Passionately And Had No Tolerance For Anything Save For Other Single-track Devotions. He Was A Master In His Own Filed And Felt No Sympathy Except For Mastery. His View Of The World Was Simple: There Were The Able And There Were The Incompetent; He Was Not Concerned With The Latter."

Construction Workers

People Said It Because Other People Said It. They Did Not Know Why It Was Being Said And Heard Everywhere. They Did Not Give Or Ask For Reasons.

Wealth Is The Product Of Man's Capacity To Think.

Theirs Is The Banner In My Hand. And I Wish I Had The Power To Tell Them That The Despair Of Their Hearts Was Not To Be Final, And Their Night Was Not Without Hope. For The Battle They Lost Can Never Be Lost. For That Which They Died To Save Can Never Perish. Through All The Darkness, Through All The Shame Of Which Men Are Capable, The Spirit Of Man Will Remain Alive On This Earth. It May Sleep, But It Will Awaken. It May Wear Chains, But It Will Break Through. And Man Will Go On. Man, Not Men. ~equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), Pgs 103-104

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.

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.

Collectivism Is The Ancient Principle Of Savagery. ... Collectivism Is Not The 'new Order Of Tomorrow.' It Is The Order Of A Very Dark Yesterday.

Racism Is The Lowest, Most Crudely Primitive Form Of Collectivism.

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

I Love You, Dominique. As Selfishly As The Fact That I Exist. As Selfishly As My Lungs Breathe Air. I Breathe For My Own Necessity, For The Fuel Of My Body, For My Survival. I've Given You, Not My Sacrifice Or My Pity, But My Ego And My Naked Need. This Is The Only Way I Can Want You To Love Me.

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

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

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

I Don't Like People Who Speak Or Think In Terms Of Gaining Anybody's Confidence. If One's Actions Are Honest, One Does Not Need The Predated Confidence Of Others, Only Their Rational Perception. The Person Who Craves A Moral Blank Check Of That Kind, Has Dishonest Intentions, Whether He Admits It To Himself Or Not.

One Must Differentiate Between One's Thoughts And One's Emotions With Full Clarity And Precision...no Discussion, Cooperation, Agreement, Or Understanding Is Possible Among Men Who Substitute Emotion For Proof.

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

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.

The Creed Of Sacrifice Is A Morality For The Immoral.

That Which Is Not Worth Contemplating In Life, Is Not Worth Recreating In Art.

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

Emotions Are Not Tools Of Cognition. They Tell You Nothing About The Nature Of Reality.

What You Think Is An Illusion Created By Your Glands, Your Emotions And, In The Last Analysis, By The Content Of Your Stomach. That Gray Matter You're So Proud Of Is Like A Mirror In An Amusement Park Which Transmits To You Nothing But Distorted Signals From Reality Forever Beyond Your Grasp.

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

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

Francisco Could Do Anything He Undertook, He Could Do It Better Than Anyone Else, And He Did It Without Effort. There Was No Boasting In His Manner And Consciousness, No Thought Of Comparison. His Attitude Was Not: 'i Can Do It Better Than You,' But Simply: 'i Can Do It.' What He Meant By Doing Was Doing Superlatively.

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

But I Still Wonder How It Was Possible, In Those Graceless Years Of Transition, Long Ago, That Men Did Not See Whither They Were Going, And Went On, In Blindness And Cowardice, To Their Fate. I Wonder, For It Is Hard For Me To Conceive How Men Who Knew The Word "i," Could Give It Up And Not Know What They Lost. But Such Has Been The Story, For I Have Lived In The City Of The Damned, And I Know What Horror Men Permitted To Be Brought Upon Them.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

You Are Damned, And We Wish To Share Your Damnation.

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

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

Individual Rights Are The Means Of Subordinating Society To Moral Law.

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

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.

To Discuss Evil In A Manner Implying Neutrality, Is To Sanction It.

Do It First And Feel About It Afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If An Uncompromising Stand Is To Be Smeared As 'extremism,' Then That Smear Is Directed At Any Devotion To Values, Any Loyalty To Principles, Any Profound Conviction, Any Consistency, Any Steadfastness, Any Passion, Any Dedication To An Unbreached, Inviolate Truth -- Any Man Of Integrity.

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.

And What Is The State But A Servant And A Convenience For A Large Number Of People, Just Like The Electric Light And The Plumbing System? And Wouldnt It Be Preposterous To Claim That Men Must Exist For Their Plumbing, Not The Plumbing For The Men.

The World Is Perishing From An Orgy Of Self-sacrificing.

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

The Only Power Any Government Has Is The Power To Crack Down On Criminals. Well, When There Aren

Your Eyes Are As A Flame, But Our Brothers Have Neither Hope Nor Fire. Your Mouth Is Cut Of Granite, But Our Brothers Are Soft And Humble. Your Head Is High, But Our Brothers Cringe. You Walk, But Our Brothers Crawl. We Wish To Be Damned With You, Rather Than Blessed With All Our Brothers. Do As You Please With Us, But Do Not Send Us Away From You.

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.

I Do Not Think That Tragedy Is Our Natural Fate And I Do Not Live In Chronic Dread Of Disaster. It Is No Happiness, But Suffering That I Consider Unnatural. It Is Not Success, But Calamity That I Regard As The Abnormal Exception In Human Life.

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

Morality Is A Code Of Black And White. When And If Men Attempt A Compromise, It Is Obvious Which Side Will Necessarily Lose And Which Will Necessarily Profit.

Black And White

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.

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

Don't Rely On Our Knowledge Of What's Best For Your Future. We Do Know, But It Can't Be Best Until You Know It.

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.

Needless To Say, Under Either System [socialism Or Fascism], The Inequalities Of Income And Standard Of Living Are Greater Than Anything Possible Under A Free Economy -- And A Man's Position Is Determined, Not By His Productive Ability And Achievement, But By Political Pull And Force. Under Both Systems, Sacrifice Is Invoked As A Magic, Omnipotent Solution In Any Crisis -- And "the Public Good" Is The Altar On Which Victims Are Immolated.

When You Have Made Evil The Means Of Survival, Do Not Expect Men To Remain Good. Do Not Expect Them To Stay Moral And Lose Their Lives For The Purpose Of Becoming The Fodder Of The Immoral. Do Not Expect Them To Produce, When Production Is Punished And Looting Rewarded. Do Not Ask, "who Is Destroying The World?" You Are.

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

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

The Attack On "selfishness" Is An Attack On Man's Self-esteem; To Surrender One, Is To Surrender The Other.

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

Do Not Keep Silent When Your Own Ideas And Values Are Being Attacked. If A Dictatorship Ever Comes To This Country, It Will Be By The Fault Of Those Who Keep Silent. We Are Still Free Enough To Speak. Do We Have Time? No One Can Tell.

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

Observe, In Politics, That The Term Extremism Has Become A Synonym Of "evil," Regardless Of The Content Of The Issue (the Evil Is Not What You Are Extreme About, But That You Are "extreme" - I.e., Consistent).

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

It's True That There's No Such Thing As Free Will. We Can't Help What We Are Or What We Do. It's Not Our Fault. Nobody's To Blame For Anything. It's All In Your Background ... And Your Glands. If You're Good, That's No Achievement Of Yours - You Were Lucky In Your Glands. If You're Rotten, Nobody Should Punish You - You Were Unlucky, That's All.

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.

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

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

Ferris: Are You Going To Be As Impractical As That? Rearden: The Evaluation Of An Action As Practical, Dr. Ferris, Depends On What It Is That One Wishes To Practice. Ferris: Haven't You Always Placed Your Self-interest Above All Else? Rearden: That Is What I Am Doing Right Now.

Love Is The Expression Of One's Values, The Greatest Reward You Can Earn For The Moral Qualities You Have Achieved In Your Character And Person, The Emotional Price Paid By One Man For The Joy He Receives From The Virtues Of Another.

I Am Opposed To All Forms Of Control; I Am For An Absolute Laissez Faire, Free, Unregulated Economy. I Am For The Separation Of The State And Economics, Just As We Had Separation Of State And Church, Which Led To Peaceful Coexistence Among Different Religions...so The Same Applies To Economics. If You Separate The Government From Economics, If You Do Not Regulate Production And Trade, You Will Have Peaceful Cooperation, And Harmony And Justice Among Men.

I Know Not If This Earth On Which I Stand Is The Core Of The Universe Or If It Is But A Speck Of Dust Lost In Eternity. I Know Not And I Care Not. For I Know What Happiness Is Possible To Me On Earth. And My Happiness Needs No Higher Aim To Vindicate It. My Happiness Is Not The Means To Any End. It Is The End. It Is Its Own Goal. It Is Its Own Purpose.

You Don't Have To See Through The Eyes Of Others, Hold Onto Yours, Stand On Your Own Judgment, You Know That What Is, Is–say It Aloud, Like The Holiest Of Prayers, And Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise.

The Sky Is Like A Black Sieve Pierced By Silver Drops That Tremble, Ready To Burst Through.

There Can Be No Compromise Between Freedom And Government Controls; To Accept 'just A Few Controls' Is To Surrender The Principle Of Inalienable Individual Rights And To Substitute For It The Principle Of The Government’s Unlimited, Arbitrary Power, Thus Delivering Oneself Into Gradual Enslavement. As An Example Of This Process, Observe The Present Domestic Policy Of The United States.

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

The Difference Between [socialism And Fascism] Is Superficial And Purely Formal, But It Is Significant Psychologically: It Brings The Authoritarian Nature Of A Planned Economy Crudely Into The Open. The Main Characteristic Of Socialism (and Of Communism) Is Public Ownership Of The Means Of Production, And, Therefore, The Abolition Of Private Property. The Right To Property Is The Right Of Use And Disposal. Under Fascism, Men Retain The Semblance Or Pretense Of Private Property, But The Government Holds Total Power Over Its Use And Disposal.

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

I Am. I Think. I Will.

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.

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.

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

No Man Can Use His Brain To Think For Another.

I Shall Choose Friends Among Men, But Neither Slaves Nor Masters. And I Shall Choose Only Such As Please Me, And Them I Shall Love And Respect, But Neither Command Nor Obey. And We Shall Join Our Hands When We Wish, Or Walk Alone When We So Desire.

Every Loneliness Is A Pinnacle

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

One Method Of Destroying A Concept Is By Diluting Its Meaning. Observe That By Ascribing Rights To The Unborn, I.e., The Nonliving, The Anti-abortionists Obliterate The Rights Of The Living.

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

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.

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