The Romanticists predominantly, were enemies of capitalism, which they regarded as a prosaic, materialistic, โpetty bourgeoisโ system โ never realizing that it was the only system that could make freedom, individuality and the pursuit of values possible in practice.
Ayn RandWhen personal judgment is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to justify their choice
Ayn RandAnd that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms in neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the race of men.
Ayn RandThe good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive โ a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society โ a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself.... The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question.
Ayn RandDoctors are not servants of their patients, they are traders like everyone else in a free society and they should bear that title proudly considering the crucial importance of the services they offer.
Ayn RandObserve how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with- their "loved ones" or friends or business associates or political rulers- are not merely mistaken, but evil. Observe that this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge.
Ayn Rand