October 17, 2010
Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged
Basic Philosophy: 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.
Happiness is a state of non-Contradictory joy- a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.
What have you got to offer me that I can't get without you?
I swear by my life... and my love of it... that I will never live for the sake of another man... nor ask another man... to live... for mine... John Galt.
The removal of a threat is not payment. The negation of a negative is not a reward.
A train has two great attributes of life: motion and purpose.
The hallmark of a second-rater: resentment of another man's achievement.
Any man who's afraid of hiring the best ability he can find, is a cheat who's in a business where he doesn't belong.
What I would want the great, departed to say to me if I saw them... "Well done!"
Wealth of selection, not accumulation
I do not care to be admired causelessly, emotionally, intuitively, instinctively, or blindly. I do not care to be admired by anyone's heart, only by someone's head!
One rule: place nothing - nothing - above the verdict of my own mind.
My life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight.
A man who surrenders his value is at the mercy of anyone's will
Produce more than you consume
Ask "why" and "how"
Man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason is your means of survival.
To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict one's self from the realm of reality.
Moral 'commandment' is a contradiction in terms. Moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The morality of reason, my morality, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.
Faith is a shortcut to knowledge. (And hope is not a strategy...)
Life is the reward of virtue- and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
I am, therefore I'll think.
Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it within the limit of your life. Accept that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallable- that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguise truth from error.
Man has a single basic choice: to think or not...
There is either the Rational or the Irrational.
Happiness is a state of non-Contradictory joy- a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.
What have you got to offer me that I can't get without you?
I swear by my life... and my love of it... that I will never live for the sake of another man... nor ask another man... to live... for mine... John Galt.
The removal of a threat is not payment. The negation of a negative is not a reward.
A train has two great attributes of life: motion and purpose.
The hallmark of a second-rater: resentment of another man's achievement.
Any man who's afraid of hiring the best ability he can find, is a cheat who's in a business where he doesn't belong.
What I would want the great, departed to say to me if I saw them... "Well done!"
Wealth of selection, not accumulation
I do not care to be admired causelessly, emotionally, intuitively, instinctively, or blindly. I do not care to be admired by anyone's heart, only by someone's head!
One rule: place nothing - nothing - above the verdict of my own mind.
My life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight.
A man who surrenders his value is at the mercy of anyone's will
Produce more than you consume
Ask "why" and "how"
Man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason is your means of survival.
To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict one's self from the realm of reality.
Moral 'commandment' is a contradiction in terms. Moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The morality of reason, my morality, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.
Faith is a shortcut to knowledge. (And hope is not a strategy...)
Life is the reward of virtue- and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
I am, therefore I'll think.
Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it within the limit of your life. Accept that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallable- that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguise truth from error.
Man has a single basic choice: to think or not...
There is either the Rational or the Irrational.