Whether itโs a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through oneโs own eyes-which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification- which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before.
Ayn RandOne can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or โproveโ) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to โproveโ them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to โproveโ existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
Ayn RandCompromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.
Ayn RandIt meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness--and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark.
Ayn RandShe watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer. - Dagny Taggart
Ayn Rand