I’m not asking you to do your best. I’m asking you to do your job.” -Dagny Taggart.
Questions give us no rest – Equality 7-2521, Anthem.
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. “Reason,” Dr. Pritchett had told them, “is the most naive of all superstitions.
He said it without greeting, as if they had parted the day before. Because it took her a moment to regain the art of breathing, she realized for the first time how much that voice meant to her.
If any man stopped and asked himself whether he’s ever held a truly personal desire, he’d find the answer. He’d see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He’s not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander’s delusion – prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own.
We must know that we may know.
The novelist must discover the potential, the gold mine, of man’s soul, must extract the gold and then fashion as magnificent a crown as his ability and vision permit.
She seemed to find him suitable as an inconsequential companion for an occasional, inconsequential evening. He thought that she liked him.
Just prove that a thing makes men happy – and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied happiness to guilt.
She tried to demonstrate her power over him. She stayed away from his house; she waited for him to come to her. He spoiled it by coming too soon; by refusing her the satisfaction of knowing that he waited and struggled against his desire; by surrendering at once.
She was looking at his face; it was the face she had known... There was no sign of tragedy, no bitterness, no tension – only the radiant mockery, matured and stressed, the look of dangerously unpredictable amusement, and the great, guiltless serenity of spirit.
It is true that laws protecting rights are a precondition for the production of wealth, but a precondition of production is not production. In enforcing proper laws, the government does not produce anything – it merely protects the productive activities performed by private individuals. Guns cannot create wealth. When a policeman prevents a mugger from stealing your wallet, no value is created; you are left intact, but no better off.
Let’s stop and think for a moment. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feeling? The independence of his thought?
They would return to unwanted jobs, unloved families, unchosen friends, to drawing rooms, evening clothes, cocktail glasses and movies, to unadmitted pain, murdered hope, desire left unreached, left hanging silently over a path on which no step was taken, to days of effort not to think, not to say, to forget and give in and give up.
You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running.
The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers.
I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value.
His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter.
He felt nothing for them now, nothing but the merciless zero of indifference, not even the regret of a loss.
Men differ in their virtues, if any,” said Gail Wynand, explaining his policy, “but they are alike in their vices.
If a man wants love, he should correct his flaws and his weaknesses and he may deserve it. He must not expect the unearned.