In a fully free society, taxation-or, to be exact, payment for governmental services-would be voluntary.
Ayn RandBut neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
Ayn RandThe meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.
Ayn RandOne can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or โproveโ) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to โproveโ them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to โproveโ existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
Ayn RandDo not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.
Ayn Rand