An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man's value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man's reason and his emotions

That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice,' but integrity.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.

But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don’t ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul.

When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.