Morality

"Morality is the judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price."

-Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged.

Cigarettes

"I like cigarettes. I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours.

When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Do YOU believe in GOD?

“Do you believe in God?

No? Neither do I.

But that’s a favorite question of mine. If I asked people if they believed in life, they would never understand what I meant. It’s a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do – then I know that they don’t believe in life.

Because, you see, God – whatever anyone chooses to call God- is one’s highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It’s a rare gift to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.”

From the book “We the living” by Ayn Rand

Unimportance of suffering

"I knew that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as a part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's existence"

- Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged