It's because...you see, if we had souls, which we haven't, and if our souls met--yours and mine--they'd fight to the death. But after they had torn each other to pieces, to the very bottom, they'd see that they had the same root.

Self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. It cannot be replaced by one's power to deceive. The self-confidence of a scientist and the self-confidence of a con man are not interchangeable states, and do not come from the same psychological universe. The success of a man who deals with reality augments his self-confidence. The success of a con man augments his panic.

Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.

It's not a question of who will allow me to do it, it's a question of who will stop me.

There is no hope for the world unless and until we formulate, accept and state publicly a true moral code of individualism, based on man's inalienable right to live for himself. Neither to hurt nor to serve his brothers, but to be independent of them in his function and in his motive. Neither to sacrifice them for himself nor to sacrifice himself for them.

What I want you to understand, is the full evil of those who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm of malevolence where the good has no chance to win. Let them check their premises. Let them check their standards of value. Let them check - before they grant themselves the unspeakable license of evil-as-necessity - whether they know what is the good and what are the conditions it requires.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.