Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.

A majority vote is not an epistemological validation of an idea. Voting is merely a proper political device--within a strictly, constitutionall y delimited sphere of action--for choosing the practical means of implementing a society’s basic principles. But those principles are not determined by vote.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.

That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.

Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.

Man's basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know.