Atlas Shrugged

I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. Its yours.p. 336 ; sign left by Ellis Wyatt at the foot of the burning hill of Wyatt Oil

— Atlas Shrugged ya

Let me give you a tip on a clue to mens characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the lepers bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.p. 412 ; Francisco dAnconia’ to Bertram Scudder

— Atlas Shrugged life

The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt.p. 455 ; Francisco dAnconia to Hank Rearden

— Atlas Shrugged guilt

1.1 Part One: Non-Contradiction1.1.1 Chapter One: The Theme 1.1.2 Chapter Three: The Top and the Bottom 1.1.3 Chapter Four: The Immovable Movers 1.1.4 Chapter Five: The Climax of the dAnconias 1.1.5 Chapter Six: The Non-Commercial 1.1.6 Chapter Seven: The Exploiters and the Exploited 1.1.7 Chapter Eight: The John Galt Line 1.1.8 Chapter Nine: The Sacred and the Profane 1.1.9 Chapter Ten: Wyatts Torch

— Atlas Shrugged art

1.2 Part Two: Either-Or1.2.1 Chapter One: The Man who Belonged On Earth 1.2.2 Chapter Two: The Aristocracy of Pull 1.2.3 Chapter Three: White Blackmail 1.2.4 Chapter Four: The Sanction of the Victim 1.2.5 Chapter Five: Account Overdrawn 1.2.6 Chapter Six: Miracle Metal 1.2.7 Chapter Seven: The Moratorium on Brains 1.2.8 Chapter Eight: By Our Love 1.2.9 Chapter Ten: The Sign of the Dollar

— Atlas Shrugged love

1.3 Part Three: A is A1.3.1 Chapter One: Atlantis 1.3.2 Chapter Two: The Utopia of Greed 1.3.3 Chapter Three: Anti-Greed 1.3.4 Chapter Four: Anti-Life 1.3.5 Chapter Seven: This is John Galt Speaking 1.3.6 Chapter Eight: The Egoist 1.3.7 Chapter Nine: The Generator

— Atlas Shrugged life

He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of anothers personality, marking vulnerable points.p. 20 ; description of James Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged art

She was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought—and never worried about it again.p. 51 ; description of Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged women

There is no necessity for pain—why, then, is the worst pain reserved for those who will not accept its necessity?—we who hold the love and the secret of joy, to what punishment have we been sentenced for it, and by whom?p. 67 ; thoughts of Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged love

It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.p. 99 ; Francisco dAnconia to James Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged art

Man? What is man? Hes just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur.p. 131 ; Dr. Simon Pritchett to a group of guests

— Atlas Shrugged man

I dont like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybodys confidence. If ones actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.p. 146 ; Francisco dAnconia to Hank Rearden

— Atlas Shrugged people

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.p. 199 ; Francisco dAnconia to Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged art

He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. No, he thought, not an assurance of victory—who can ever have that?—only the chance to act, which is all one needs. Now he was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of terror: being delivered to destruction with ones hands tied behind ones back.p. 214 ; thoughts of Hank Rearden

— Atlas Shrugged fear

She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth . . . To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his . . . No, not Francisco dAnconia, not Hank Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired . . . A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience.p. 220 ; thoughts of Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged love

Inasmuch as the formula of Rearden Metal is my own personal secret, and in view of the fact that the Metal costs much less to produce than you boys can imagine, I expect to skin the public to the tune of a profit of twenty-five per cent in the next few years. What do you mean, skin the public, Mr. Rearden? asked the boy. If its true, as Ive read in your ads, that your Metal will last three times longer than any other and at half the price, wouldnt the public be getting a bargain? Oh, have you noticed that?p. 235 ; Hank Rearden and nameless boy at press conference

— Atlas Shrugged time

Wasnt it evil to wish without moving—or to move without aim?p. 241 ; thoughts of Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged art

Do you know what that banquet was like? Its as if theyd heard that there are values one is supposed to honor and this is what one does to honor them—so they went through the motions, like ghosts pulled by some sort of distant echoes from a better age. I . . . I couldnt stand it.p. 276 ; Hank Rearden to Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged art

Dont ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.p. 297 ; Dagny Taggart to Hank Rearden

— Atlas Shrugged truth

All of you welfare preachers—its not unearned money that youre after. You want handouts, but of a different kind. Im a gold-digger of the spirit, you said, because I look for value. Then you, the welfare preachers . . . its the spirit that you want to loot. I never thought and nobody ever told us how it could be thought of and what it would mean—the unearned in spirit. But that is what you want. You want unearned love. You want unearned admiration. You want unearned greatness. You want to be a man like Hank Rearden without the necessity of being what he is. Without the necessity of being anything. Without . . . the necessity . . . of being.p. 884 ; Cherryl Taggart to James Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged love

If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition—which you cannot force—that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there—I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine—I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me—use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.p. 479 ; Hank Rearden to panel of judges

— Atlas Shrugged nature

It seems monstrously wrong to surrender the world to the looters, and monstrously wrong to live under their rule. I can neither give up nor go back. I can neither exist without work nor work as a serf. I had always thought that any sort of battle was proper, anything, except renunciation. Im not sure were right to quit, you and I, when we should have fought them. But there is no way to fight. Its surrender, if we leave—and surrender, if we remain. I dont know what is right any longer. Check your premises, Dagny. Contradictions dont exist.p. 618 ; Dagny Taggart and Francisco dAnconia

— Atlas Shrugged art

Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didnt know. We thought it was good. No, thats not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.pp. 660-661 ; Jeff Allen to Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged art

Whats wealth but the means of expanding ones life? Theres two ways one can do it: either by producing more or by producing it faster. And thats what Im doing: Im manufacturing time. What do you mean? Im producing everything I need, Im working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life.pp. 721-722 ; Ellis Wyatt and Dagny Taggart

— Atlas Shrugged life

You see, Dr. Stadler, people dont 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 theyll 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.p. 346 ; Dr. Floyd Ferris to Dr. Robert Stadler

— Atlas Shrugged people

Share your thoughts on Atlas Shrugged quotes with the community: