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More Quotes to Consider from ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’
By The Apostle | August 18, 2007
While I don’t have the time at the moment to expand on these further, I expect to revisit or use these quotes in the future:
“If that’s the price of getting together, then all be damned if I want to live on the same earth with any human beings! If the rest of them can only survive by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right to turn men into sacrificial animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can’t be punished for being good. One can’t be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we’d better start slaughtering one another, because there isn’t any right at all in the world!”
“What’s the most depraved type of human being?”
“The man without a purpose.”
“You see, Dr. Stadler, people don’t want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they’ll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue – a highly intellectual virtue – out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness, and their guilt.”
“And you propose to pander to that?”
“That is the road to popularity.”
[on finding a reputable philosopher working in a diner]
“What is it? A stunt? An experiment? A secret mission? Are you studying something for some special purpose?”
“No, Miss Taggart. I’m earning a living.” The words and the voice had the genuine simplicity of truth.
“Dr. Akston, I… it’s inconceivable, it’s … You’re… you’re a philosopher … the greatest philosopher living … an immortal name… why would you do this?”
“Because I am a philosopher, Miss Taggart.”
Tags: quotes, human beings, purpose, philosopher
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