“ The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. Ayn Rand
“ Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to? Ayn Rand
“ Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no in… Ayn Rand
“ While a creator does and must worship Man (which means his own highest potentiality; which is his natural self-reverence), he must not make the mistake of thinking that this means the necessity to wor… Ayn Rand
“ Do you know what she did today?" He leaned confidentially across the table, pointing at the dishes in the sink. "She went to the market and left all the breakfast dishes there and said she'd do them l… Ayn Rand
“ The man who despises himself tries to gain self-esteem from sexual adventures —which can’t be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man’s sense of his own value. Ayn Rand
“ No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment—just try to… Ayn Rand
“ 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. Ayn Rand
“ The man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises—because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a f… Ayn Rand
“ Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the… Ayn Rand
“ You always play it open, don’t you?” he asked.“I’ve never noticed you doing otherwise.”“I thought I was the only one who could afford to. Ayn Rand
“ He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. Ayn Rand
“ ...he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. Ayn Rand
“ There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another—if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned c… Ayn Rand
“ A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. ‘Value’ is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue’ is the action by whic… Ayn Rand
“ To think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call ‘human nature,’ the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reas… Ayn Rand
“ Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, s… Ayn Rand
“ Logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. Ayn Rand
“ The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does not belong to irresponsible fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the achievement of a drifter; to be able to laugh like that is the end re… Ayn Rand
