Through all the years that I spent formulating my philosophical system, I was looking desperately for โintelligent agreementโ or at least for โintelligent disagreement.โ I found neither. Today, I am not looking for โintelligent disagreementโ any longer ... What I am looking for is intelligent agreement.
Ayn RandThere is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
Ayn RandThe uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.
Ayn RandA society that robs an individual of the product of his effort ... is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence.
Ayn Rand