The 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 RandI would step in the way of a bullet if it were aimed at my husband. It is not self-sacrifice to die protecting that which you value: If the value is great enough, you do not care to exist without it.
Ayn RandBut what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.
Ayn RandPolitically, the goal of todayโs dominant trend is statism. Philosophically , the goal is the obliteration of reason; psychologically , it is the erosion of ambition. The political goal presupposes the two others. The human characteristic required by statism is docility, which is the product of hopelessness and intellectual stagnation. Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.
Ayn Rand