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 happiness is his highest moral purpose.

— JOHN GALT, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Every man is free to rise as far as he’s able or willing, but it’s only the degree
to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he’ll rise.

— JOHN GALT, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. . . .
everything she became, everything ‘noble and just,’ and heroic, and great, and
unprecedented in human history — was the logical consequence of fidelity to that
one principle.

— A PREVIEW, The Ayn Rand Letter by Ayn Rand

The motive and purpose of my writing isthe projection of an ideal man.
The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself — to
which any didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel are only
the means.

— THE GOAL OF MY WRITING, The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand