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.

... 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!'

I have to respect other's opinions even if I don't agree with them.

Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.

Self-esteem is not a luxury; it is a profound spiritual need.

The ultimate test of our integrity is not how we deal with those whom we agree but how we deal with those who we do not agree.

The feeling that "I am enough" does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to grow to. It means that I accept myself, that I am not on trial in my own eyes, that I value and respect myself. This is not an act of indulgence but of courage.