The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, 'A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.' 'What do you think I'm doing?' asked Francisco.
Ayn RandThe smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn RandIn a fully free society, taxation-or, to be exact, payment for governmental services-would be voluntary.
Ayn RandWhen intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.
Ayn RandWhen personal judgment is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to justify their choice
Ayn RandLiving in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.
Ayn RandIf there is any one proof of a man's incompetence, it is the stagnant mentality of a worker who, doing some small routine job in a vast undertaking, does not care to look beyond the lever of a machine, does not choose to know how the machine got there or what makes his job possible, and proclaims that the management of the undertaking is parasitical and unnecessary.
Ayn Rand