I seek no values by means of evil, nor do I surrender my values to evil.

Man 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.

A trader does not squander his body as fodder or his soul as alms.

Every 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.

Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess.

Whatever he was-that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love-he was not man.

The 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.”