The political function of 'the right of free speech' is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forcible suppression - not to guarantee them the support, advantages, and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.

No value is higher than self-esteem, but you've invested it in counterfeit securities-and now your morality has caught you in a trap where you are forced to protect your self-esteem by fighting for the creed of self-destruction. The grim joke is on you: that need of self-esteem, which you're unable to explain or to define, belongs to my morality, not yours; it's the objective token of my code, it is my proof within your own soul.

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.

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.

I guard my treasures: my thoughts, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose.

It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.