She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known.

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.

Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.

I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!

There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it - it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it - you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

I am not morally obligated to care more for a man than he cares for himself.