Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.

Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.

When personal judgment is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to justify their choice

There is only one source of authentic self-confidence: reason.

The more neurotic and evasive a person is, the shorter the range of his interests.

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals.

It was the only thing I ever really wanted. And that’s the sin that can’t be forgiven--that I hadn’t done what I wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about insanity, because there’s no sense to it, no dignity, nothing but pain--and wasted pain...why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage.