ATLAS SHRUGGED

there's nothing of any importance in life except how well u do your work.Nothing.The code of Competence is the only system of morality thats on a gold standard.

whatever we are its we who move the world,and its we who will pull it through

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

indiscriminate desire and unselective inulgence were possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil

The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, does not belong to irresponsible fools

With his profound respect for money and for its meaning, he despised the squanderer who did not know how to deserve the great gift of inherited wealth

What is morality?
Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.But where does one find it?

'he wants to be independent of you!'
'By means of getting from me a salary he cant earn for work he cant do'

We have enough power to carry them along-haven't we?

wasn;t it evil to wish without moving-or to move without aim?

Give me an unobstructed right of way, and i'll show them how to move the earth!

Whatever i am she thought, whatever pride of person I may hold, the pride of my courage, of my work, of my mind, and my freedom-that is what i offer you for the pleasure of your body, that is what i want you to use in your service-and that you want it to serve you is the greatest reward i can have

She could not function to the rule of: Pipe down-keep down-slow down-dont do your best, it is ot wanted!

'Miss Tagart, I can proudly say that in all my life I have never made a profit!'
'..of all the statements a man can make, that is the one I consider most despicable'

"Are you sayin"he asked slowly, "that i rose in your estimation when you found that I wanted you?"
"Of course"
"Most people feel that they rise in their own eyes, if others want them"
"I feel that others live up to me, if they want me"

The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt-and that is what you have been doing all your life

'if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood blood runing down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders-what would you tell him to do?'
'To shrug.'

The man who despises himself tries to gain self esteem from sexual adventures-which can't be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man's sense of his own value
The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer-because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut.

Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

'I believed that love is some static gift which, once granted, need no longer be deserved..'

When one acts on pity against injustice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer'

it's a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it

'To me-the foulest man on earth, more contemptible than a criminal, is the employer who rejects men for being too good.'

That special pleasure she had felt in watching him eat the food she had prepared..the pleasure of knowing ..one form of his body's satisfaction had come from her.. There is reason she thought, why a woman would cook for a man.. oh,not as a duty, not as a chronic career... the castrated performance of a sickening drudgery was held to be a woman's proper virtue.. the work of dealing with grease, steam and slimy peelings..was held to be a spiritual matter, an act of compliance with her moral duty-while the meeting of two bodies in a bedroom was held to be a physical indulgence, an act of surrender to an animal instinct, with no glory, meaning or pride of spirit to be claimed by the animals involved

'i mean your understanding..not the fact that you admire my work, but that you admire it for the things I wished to be admired.'

if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't

No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim.What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self abdiction, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one is lies, making that person one's master... The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from then on.

To place nothin- Nothing;above the verdict of my own mind.
The knowledge that my life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight.

You have sacrificed independence to unity.You have sacrificed reason to faith.You have sacrificed self esteem to self denial.You have sacrificed happiness to duty.

Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process, the connections of logic are not made by instinct.

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man- every man- is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happines is his highest moral purpose.

Self esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness

that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats is uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others

Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he recieves from the virtues of another.

Power-lust is a weed tht grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.

The desire not to be anythin, is the desire not to be.

i finally finished my all time favourite book.i just had to share my thoughts in the form of excerpts from the book