A rational man knows-or makes it a point to discover-the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come.
Ayn RandThis is the age othe common man, they tell us-a title which any man may claim to the extent osuch distinction as he has managed not to achieve.
Ayn RandThe action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual; everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort.
Ayn RandCreation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
Ayn RandWhen you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it's his thinking that you want him to suspend.
Ayn RandIf there is any one proof of a man's incompetence, it is the stagnant mentality of a worker who, doing some small routine job in a vast undertaking, does not care to look beyond the lever of a machine, does not choose to know how the machine got there or what makes his job possible, and proclaims that the management of the undertaking is parasitical and unnecessary.
Ayn Rand