Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that โeverybody is whiteโ or โeverybody is blackโ or โeverybody is neither white nor black, but gray,โ is not a moral judgment, but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.
Ayn RandFor centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.
Ayn RandAsk yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.
Ayn RandIndependence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasnโt done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.
Ayn RandAre you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute - and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? The nature of your actions - and of your ambition - will be different, according to which set of answers you come to accept.
Ayn Rand