Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
All your life, you have heard yourself denounced, not for your faults, but for your greatest virtues. You have been hated, not for your mistakes, but for your achievements. You have been scorned for all those qualities of character which are your greatest pride. You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgment and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity.
You have been called anti-social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads. You have been called ruthless for the strength and self-discipline of your drive to your purpose. You have been called greedy for the magnificence of your power to create wealth. You, who’ve expended an inconceivable flow of energy, have been called a parasite. You, who’ve created abundance where there had been nothing but wastelands and helpless starving men before you, have been called a robber. You, who’ve kept them all alive, have been called an exploiter. You, the purest and most moral man among them, have been sneered as a “vulgar materialist.” Have you stopped to ask them: by what right? — by what code? — by what standard?
- Francisco d’Anconia, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
If you want my advice, Peter, you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?
- Howard Roark, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
You have been willing to carry the load of an unearned punishment — and to let it grow the heavier the greater the virtues you practiced. But your virtues were those which keep men alive. Your own moral code — the one you lived by, but never stated, acknowledged, or defended — was the code that preserves man’s existence. If you were punished for it, what was the nature of those who punished you?
Yours was the code of life. What, then, is theirs?
- Francisco d’Anconia, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
That’s your cruelty, that’s what’s mean and selfish about you. If you loved your brother, you’d give him a job he didn’t deserve, precisely because he didn’t deserve it - that would be true love and kindness and brotherhood. Else what’s love for? If a man deserves a job, there’s no virtue in giving it to him. Virtue is the giving of the undeserved.
- Rearden’s mother, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
Consider the reasons which make us certain that we are right, but not the fact that we are certain. If you are not convinced, ignore our certainty. Don’t be tempted to substitute our judgment for your own.
- Hugh Akston, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
She was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought — and never worried about it again.
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Published by Dehumanizer 1 year, 9 months ago
in Books, Novelists and Philosophers.
To say “I love you” one must know first how to say the “I.”
- Howard Roark, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
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