Self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think... The man of authentic self-confidence is the man who relies on the judgment of his own mind.

Man holds these rights [life, liberty and property], not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective - as a barrier which the Collective cannot cross... these rights are man's protection against all other men.

Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force - and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

There is no such dichotomy as 'human rights' versus 'property rights.' No human rights can exist without property rights.

It's not a question of who will allow me to do it, it's a question of who will stop me.

No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as " the right to enslave .

Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to become one.