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.

Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims.

Man needs knowledge in order to survive, and only reason can achieve it; men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason, can exist only as parasites on the thinking of others.

It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.

She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it.

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.

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