To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone

The ' pleasure' of being drunk is obviously the pleasure of escaping from the responsibility of Consciousness.

In a fully free society, taxation-or, to be exact, payment for governmental services-would be voluntary.

The goal of the 'liberals' - as it emerges from the record of the past decades - was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot - by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite.

He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points.