It's strange. There's your life. You begin it, feeling that it's something so precious and rare, so beautiful that it's like a sacred treasure. Now it's over, and it doesn't make any difference to anyone, and it isn't that they are indifferent, it's just that they don't know, they don't know what it means, that treasure of mine, and there's something about it that they should understand. I don't understand it myself, but there's something that should be understood by all of us. Only what is it? What?
Ayn RandA culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.
Ayn RandI understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.
Ayn RandThere are no little people in America. There are only people, equal before the law, yearning to breathe free and wanting to achieve the best within them.
Ayn RandNo speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.
Ayn RandWhy is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it?
Ayn Rand