Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.

People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.

There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule, executions without trial or with a mock trial for political offenses, the nationalization or expropriation of private property, and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw.

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

A rational man knows-or makes it a point to discover-the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come.