Ayn Rand

"Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear."

"Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind."

"Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"

"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."

"If that which we have found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for save corruption? If this is the great evil of being alone, than what is good and what is evil?"

"Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential."

"Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man."

"A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices."

"The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity."

"The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it."

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."

"An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind."

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

"Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness."

"When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is."

"He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see."

"An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes."

"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want."

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

"Man is an end in himself."