{"quotes":[{"text":"And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard?John Galt.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["ayn-rand","good","goodness","john-galt","objectivism","truth"],"id":15685,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["john-galt","new-york-city"],"id":19193,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of 'Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","evil","good","john-galt","life","man","mind","morality","morals","objectivism","philosophy","pursuit-of-happiness","reason","think","thinking","values","virtue"],"id":24621,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another—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.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","john-galt","lies","reality","value"],"id":32912,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"It’s not that I don’t suffer, it’s that I know the unimportance of suffering, I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one’s soul and as a permanent scar across one’s view of existence.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","john-galt","pain","suffering"],"id":38498,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking—that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","evil","good","happiness","independence","john-galt","life","man","mind","morality","morals","objectivism","pain","philosophy","pursuit-of-happiness","rational","reason","think","thinking","truth","values","virtue","wisdom"],"id":54317,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","evil","good","happiness","john-galt","life","man","mind","morality","morals","objectivism","philosophy","pursuit-of-happiness","rational","reason","think","thinking","values","virtue"],"id":94853,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","existence","john-galt","life","logic","man","mind","morality","morals","objectivism","philosophy","pursuit-of-happiness","rational","reason","think","thinking","truth","values","virtue","wisdom"],"id":103636,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth—and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man’s mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","integrity","john-galt","judgment","knowledge","life","man","mind","morality","morals","objectivism","philosophy","pursuit-of-happiness","rational","reality","reason","think","thinking","truth","values","virtue","wisdom"],"id":117304,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say ‘It is,’ you are refusing to say ‘I am.’ By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: ‘Who am I to know?’- he is declaring: ‘Who am I to live?","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["atlas-shrugged","evil","good","john-galt","life","man","mind","morality","morals","objectivism","philosophy","pursuit-of-happiness","rational","reason","think","thinking","truth","values","virtue","wisdom"],"id":118229,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":46,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}