Ayn Rand

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. "

"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. "

"America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. "

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. "

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. "

"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. "

"Guilt is a rope that wears thin. "

"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. "

"I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. "

"If there is any one proof of a man's incompetence, it is the stagnant mentality of a worker who, doing some small routine job in a vast undertaking, does not care to look beyond the lever of a machine, does not choose to know how the machine got there or what makes his job possible, and proclaims that the management of the undertaking is parasitical and unneccessary. "

"It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener. "

"Live a life as a monument to your soul. "

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. "

"Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it. "

"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money "

"Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday...The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. "

"The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence. "

"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. "

"The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others. "

"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. "

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. "

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