Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it.

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

Discard 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.

Government power is always abused by seizing and perverting the law. And with few exceptions, government always determines what is law.

Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it.

I 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.

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.”