Altruism does not mean mere kindness or generosity, but the sacrifice of the best among men to the worst, the sacrifice of virtues to flaws, of ability to incompetence, of progress to stagnation–and the subordinating of all life and of all values to the claims of anyone’s suffering. Ayn Rand
(1905-1982)
Category Archives: Quotations Freedom
When you make a mistake, don’t look back at it long. …
When you make a mistake, don’t look back at it long. Take the reasonof the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessonsof wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power. Phyllis Bottome
1884-1963, Novelist and Lecturer
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget …
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. Patrick Henry
…
[Y]ou will see the rise of the double standard–the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money- the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law- men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims- then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter. Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged,(1905-1982)
We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise …
We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert. J. Robert Oppenheimer
1904-1967, Physicist, director of the Los Alamos laboratory during development of the atomic bomb
If it’s true that we are here to help others, then …
If it’s true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for? George Carlin
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be …
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations. Benjamin Disraeli
British Prime Minister (1874-1880), author, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1804-1881
The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of …
The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power–to make available the common sense judgement of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over conditioned or biased response of a judge. Byron White
1975, Supreme Court Justice
The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn’t suck is the …
The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn’t suck is the day they start making vacuum cleaners. Unknown
I am not a Virginian, but an American. Patrick Henry Patrick Henry, …
I am not a Virginian, but an American.
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry, September 1774