Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess.
John GaltAn attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality.
John GaltWhatever he was-that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love-he was not man.
John GaltIf there are degrees of evil, it is hard to say who is more contemptible: the brute who assumes the right to force the mind of others or the moral degenerate who grants to others the right to force his mind.
John GaltThe choice--the dedication to one's highest potential--is made by accepting the fact that the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four.
John GaltGovernment power is always abused by seizing and perverting the law. And with few exceptions, government always determines what is law.
John GaltMan has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.
John GaltAs there can be no causeless wealth, so there can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion.
John GaltDiscard the protective rags of that vice which you called a virtue: humility. Learn to value yourself, which means: to FIGHT for your happiness, and when you learn that pride is the sum of all virtues, you will learn to live like a man.
John GaltI do not enter discussions with neighbors who think they can forbid me to think. I do not place my moral sanction upon a murderer's wish to kill me. When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him-by force.
John GaltEvery form of causeless self-doubt, every feeling of inferiority and secret unworthiness is, in fact, man's hidden dread of his inability to deal with existence.
John GaltThere can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion. An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards.
John GaltThe self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think. The ego you seek, that essential “you” which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you’ve impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your “feeling.”
John GaltMan's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action...To remain alive, he must think.
John Galt