When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.

Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.

Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I’m not the Gail Wynand you’d heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you’d want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that’s the impossible, in the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. That would be the one gift, the great exception you’d want to offer the man you loved. But it wouldn’t be easy for you.

Love is our response to our highest values.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.

the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.

Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and reward of life.