One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation; only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one's choices.
Ayn RandManโs rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.
Ayn RandCapitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him.
Ayn RandHonesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud.
Ayn RandAmerica's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.
Ayn RandThe good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive โ a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society โ a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself.... The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question.
Ayn Rand