The lust that drives others to enslave an empire, had become, in her limits, a passion for power over him. She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who had made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were greater than the mother who had given it birth.
Ayn RandMy happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.
Ayn RandOf all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates manโs fundamental right-the right to life-and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a manโs life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.
Ayn RandI never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.
Ayn RandAnd here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO
Ayn Rand