As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they’re enjoying themselves? That’s when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they’ve slaved for – at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who’re rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That’s your mankind in general. I don’t want to touch it.
It was strange to be conscious of another person’s existence, to feel it as a close, urgent necessity; a necessity without qualifications, neither pleasant nor painful, merely final like an ultimatum. It was important to know that she existed in the world; it was important to think of her, of how she had awakened this morning, of how she moved, with her body still his, now his forever, of what she thought.
If you believe that you have the right to force me – use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.
Paradoxically, it is the so-called pleasure-chasers – the men who seemingly live for nothing but the sensation of the moment, who are concerned only with having “a good time” – who are psychologically incapable of enjoying pleasure as an end in itself. The neurotic pleasure-chaser imagines that, by going through the motions of celebration, he will be able to make himself feel that he has something to celebrate.
The faces of the others looked like aggregates of interchangeable features, every face oozing to blend into the anonymity of resembling all, and all looking as if they were melting. Rearden’s face, with the sharp planes, the pale blue eyes, the ash-blond hair, had the firmness of ice; the uncompromising clarity of its lines made it look, among the others, as if he were moving through a fog, hit by a ray of light.
He sat looking at her. She waited to see the derisive smile, but it did not come. The smile seemed implicit in the room itself, in her standing there, halfway across that room.
The men I was fighting were impotent. The shiftless, the purposeless, the irresponsible, the irrational – it was not I who needed them, it was not theirs to dictate terms to me, it was not mine to obey demands.
The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so.
There might be some sort of justification for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best as he could. But there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to manufacture the weapons for his own murderers.
Reason, according to Objectivism, is not merely a distinguishing attribute of man; it is his fundamental attribute-his basic means of survival. Therefore, whatever reason requires in order to function is a necessity of human life.
Don’t say that I’m beautiful and exquisite and like no one you’ve ever met before and that you’re very much afraid that you’re going to fall in love with me. You’ll say it eventually, but let’s postpone it. Apart from that, I think we’ll get along very nicely.” -Dominique Francon.
A stream cut across the grass, and tree branches flowed low to the ground, like a curtain of green fluid. The sound of the water stressed the silence. The distant cut of open sky made the place seem more hidden. Far above, on the crest of a hill, one tree caught the first rays of sunlight.
Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death.
He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved. He wondered what response they could hope to obtain from him in such manner – if his response was what they wanted.
We are those who do not disconnect the values of their minds from the actions of their bodies.
It is not proper for man’s life to be a circle, she thought, or a string of circles dropping off like zeros behind him – man’s life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum.
When nothing seems worth the effort – said some stern voice in her mind – it’s a screen to hide a wish that’s worth too much; what do you want?
People meant very little to Mike, but their performance a great deal. He worshiped 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 field and he felt no sympathy except for mastery. His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent;.
Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness.
It is only in the realm of pure science that truth is an absolute criterion. When we deal with applied science, with technology – we deal with people. And when we deal with people, considerations other than truth enter the question.