It is easy enough to say, Be true to your values. But what if your values are irrational? Or what if the virtues you have committed yourself to are so much against human nature that they cannot be practiced consistently? Be careful of what you accept as your code of morality. Think carefully about whether its tenets serve your life and well being. Exercise critical judgment. Realize how much is at stake-your life, your happiness, your self-esteem.

... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'

If you choose not to live self-responsibly, you count on others to make up your default. No one abjures self-responsibility on a desert island.

Stressing the practice of living purposefully as essential to fully realized self-esteem is not equivalent to measuring an individual's worth by his or her external achievements. We admire achievements-in ourselves and others-and it is natural and appropriate for us to do so. But that is not the same thing as saying that our achievements are the measure or grounds of our self-esteem. The root of our self-esteem is not our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve.

The real basic power of an individual isn't what he or she knows; it's the ability to think and learn and face new challenges.

It's not that achievements prove our worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living.

When you are frightened, you typically pull energy in to your center, seeing less, hearing less-shrinking consciousness precisely when you need to expand it.