Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing one's emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious explanations and justifications - in order to hide one's motives, not just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion, and, ultimately, the destruction of one's cognitive faculty. Rationalization is a process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one's emotions.

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment-a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature—is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule.

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality

Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a disease.

When men abandon reason, physical force becomes their only means of dealing with one another and of settling disagreements.

My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.

What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.