For the first time since her return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her feel alive, because it was worth feeling.
Ayn RandThrough all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice-it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction-only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human.
Ayn Rand[What for] was the first question he asked about any activity proposed to him - and nothing would make him act, if he found no valid answer. He flew through the days of his summer month like a rocket, but if one stopped him in mid-flight, he could always name the purpose of his every random moment. Two things were impossible to him: to stand still or to move aimlessly.
Ayn RandThe three values which men had held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism — as a cultural power — died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism — as a political ideal — died in World War II. As to altruism — it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it.
Ayn Rand