An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man’s nature.
Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever.
It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.
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.
Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads.
There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before.
The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him – The reasoning mind.
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.
There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.
The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves.
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.
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.
Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.
Morality pertains only to the sphere of man’s free will – only to those actions which are open to his choice.
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.
A rational man is guided by his thinking – by a process of Reason – not by his feelings and desires.
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.
Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.