Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists. It is real. It is possible. It’s yours.
The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights...
We are now moving towards complete collectivism or socialism, a system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody.
If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences.
Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
If any part of your uncertainty, is a conflict between your heart and your mind – follow your mind.
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.
Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.
If a drought strikes them, animals perish – man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish – man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish – man writes the Constitution of the United States.
The conservatives want to rule man’s consciousness; the liberals, his body.
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism – by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
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.
People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.
Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.
Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.
To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate and paralyze his means of survival to force him to act against his own judgment, is like forcing him to act against his own sight.
Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.
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.
If one doesn’t respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.