Galt Quotes

If something terrible happens to me, it's not my job to spare you from my pain. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

From the time of the North Briton of the unprincipled Wilkes , a notion has been entertained that the moral spine in Scotland is more flexible than in England. The truth however is, that an elementary difference exists in the public feelings of the two nations quite as great as in the idioms of their respective dialects. The English are a justice-loving people, according to charter and statute; the Scotch are a wrong-resenting race, according to right and feeling: and the character of liberty among them takes its aspect from that peculiarity. ~ John Galt

John, the self-made man, self-made in every sense, out of nowhere, penniless, parentless, tie-less ... but I've always thought of him as if he had come into the world like Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who sprang forth from Jupiter's head, fully grown and fully armed. ~ Ayn Rand

She sat beside him in the car, feeling no desire to speak, knowing that neither of them could conceal the meaning of their silence. ~ Ayn Rand

I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. ~ Ayn Rand

I seek no values by means of evil, nor do I surrender my values to evil. ~ John Galt

If there are degrees of evil, it is hard to say who is more contemptible: the brute who assumes the right to force the mind of others or the moral degenerate who grants to others the right to force his mind. ~ John Galt

There was something horribly depressing, she felt, about watching the weather report. That life could be planned like the perfect summer picnic drained it of spontaneity. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

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. ~ Ayn Rand

Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being - not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement - not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason. ~ Ayn Rand

The anti-mind is the anti-life. ~ Ayn Rand

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice - and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man - by choice; he has to hold his life as a value - by choice; he has to learn to sustain it - by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues - by choice.
A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. ~ Ayn Rand

To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. ~ Ayn Rand

They did not speak. Once, she said suddenly, "Mr. Galt." "Yes?" "No. Nothing. I just wanted to know whether you were still there." "I will always be there. ~ Ayn Rand

The state of being lost, he seemed to imply, granted him a kind of freedom. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. (John Galt) ~ Ayn Rand

I don't think I have some special gift for knowing what's in your heart. I think we both do. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. ~ Ayn Rand

If anything was, that the world will always
it can only
disappoint. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Assigning degrees of blame to betrayal is a difficult project, much like deciding which of two murderers has the more wicked heart. With murder, there are tangible distinctions. First degree is intentional; second degree, irresponsible; third degree, accidental. But with crimes of the heart, the distinctions are more subtle. Who is it to say when a secret turns into a sin? With a daydream, a kiss, a confession? Who is to say which transgression is worse: sexual or emotional, coveting or caressing? ~ Galt Niederhoffer

It is our duty to help ane anither in this howling wilderness. ~ John Galt

Not to speak would have infused the moment with more meaning than it deserved. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

She felt an odd, light-hearted indifference, as if she suddenly wanted nothing but the comfort of surrendering to helplessness. ~ Ayn Rand

I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value. ~ Ayn Rand

If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? ... Why is it immoral for your to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? ~ John Galt

Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess. ~ Ayn Rand

Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value. Do they tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man's instinct of self-preservation? It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live. ~ Ayn Rand

The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. The ego you seek, that essential "you" which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you've impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your "feeling." ~ John Galt

When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. ~ Ragnar Galt

There is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires - if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? ~ Ayn Rand

The map was just an accessory. She knew exactly where she was. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Reason is your means of survival - so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be' is the question 'to think or not to think..'. ~ Ayn Rand

John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains - and he withdrew his fire - until the day when men withdraw their vultures. ~ Ayn Rand

It was that ruthless tone, peculiarly his, which sounded implacable by being simple, devoid of any emotional value, save the quality of respect for facts. ~ Ayn Rand

A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False? - Right or Wrong? ~ Ayn Rand

Every form of causeless self-doubt, every feeling of inferiority and secret unworthiness is, in fact, man's hidden dread of his inability to deal with existence. ~ John Galt

The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. ~ Ayn Rand

Government power is always abused by seizing and perverting the law. And with few exceptions, government always determines what is law. ~ John Galt

Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor
by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence
and every achievement is an expression of it. ~ Ayn Rand

Was it possible there was some fatal flaw in their matching, that they were ultimately, impossibly different
dissimilar enough to fall in love, but too fundamentally distinct to stay together? ~ Galt Niederhoffer

I will stop the motor of the world. ~ John Galt

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. ~ Ayn Rand

Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking. ~ Ayn Rand

In a word, man in London is not quite so good a creature as he is out of it. ~ John Galt

Do not let the hero in your soul parish, in lonely frustration, for the life you deserved but never have been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. ~ Ayn Rand

Who is John Galt? ~ Ayn Rand

I don't know. But I've watched them here for twenty years and I've seen the change. They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there. Now they're hurrying because they are afraid. It's not a purpose that drives them, it's fear. They're not going anywhere, they're escaping. And I don't think they know what it is that they want to escape. They don't look at one another. They jerk when brushed against. They smile too much, but it's an ugly kind of smiling: it's not joy, it's pleading. I don't know what it is that's happening to the world." He shrugged. "Oh, well, who is John Galt? ~ Ayn Rand

John Galt was closer to the genial side of Scott, if with a narrower focus in the material he chose to write about - but for all that giving us, in thin disguise, real places and real changes in a real nation. He dealt above all with the West of Scotland, and was indeed a patriot of the region. It irked him that Edinburgh had won the epithet of Athens of the North and tried to create a fashion for calling Glasgow the Venice of the North; somehow this never caught on. ~ Michael Fry

This country was not built... by men who sought handouts. John Galt speech, Atlas Shrugged, 1957 ~ Alex Ayres

Our first rule here ... is that one must always see for oneself. ~ Ayn Rand

Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us. ~ John Galt

Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment's torture. ~ Ayn Rand

Logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. ~ Ayn Rand

A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible. ~ Ayn Rand

What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem. ~ Ayn Rand

If any part of your uncertainty is a conflict between your heart and your mind - follow your mind. ~ Ayn Rand

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. ~ Ayn Rand

The cloven-foot of self-interest was now and then to be seen aneath the robe of public principle. ~ John Galt

I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach. ~ Ayn Rand

To rule without being felt ... is the great mystery of policy. ~ John Galt

John Galt spent years looking for it. He crossed oceans, and he crossed deserts, and he went down into forgotten mines, miles under the earth. But he found it on the top of a mountain. It took him ten years to climb that mountain. It broke every bone in his body, it tore the skin off his hands, it made him lose his home, his name, his love. But he climbed it. He found the fountain of youth, which he wanted to bring down to men.Only he never came back. ~ Ayn Rand

It was understood that they shared the same thresholds
the same inexhaustible appetite for wasting time, for discussing lofty ideas, for dissecting trivial things, for driving to nowhere in particular, for listening to music, for talking about books, for obsessing over pop culture, but mostly for laughing, talking, and simply being together. There was nothing one could say that the other would find too cruel or too kind. And on those rare occasions when they did tire of each other, they needed only go a day without talking before they yearned to reconnect. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don't. ~ Ayn Rand

A face that bore no mark of pain or fear or guilt...The shape of his mouth was pride, and more: it was as if he took pride in being proud. The angular planes of his cheeks made her think of arrogance, of tension, of scorn - yet the face had none of these qualities, it had their final sum: a look of serene determination and of certainty, and the look of a ruthless innocence which would not seek forgiveness or grant it. It was a face that had nothing to hide or to escape, a face with no fear of being seen or of seeing, so that the first thing she grasped about him was the intense perceptiveness of his eyes - he looked as if his faculty of sight were his best-loved tool and its exercise were a limitless, joyous adventure, as if his eyes imparted a superlative value to himself and to the world - to himself for his ability to see, to the world for being a place so eagerly worth seeing. It seemed to her for a moment that she was in the presence of a being who was pure consciousness - yet she had never been so aware of a man's body. ~ Ayn Rand

Occasionally, she wondered if all couples struggled so much to understand one another, spoke so little at dinner together, spent so much time camped out in front of the TV. Did all women sometimes feel distanced from their man while they were making love? ~ Galt Niederhoffer

But as always, the distance between them gave way to a need to be closer. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Through all the ages the mind has been regarded as evil, and every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiter - every form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation - every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squad - have been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and performing the crucial act of a rational connection. Yet only to the extent to which - in chains, in dungeons, in hidden corners, in the cells of philosophers, in the shops of traders - some men continued to think, only to that extent was humanity able to survive. ~ Ayn Rand

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. ~ Ayn Rand

Time passed at an accelerated pace. They could be sitting in traffic or talking on the phone or waiting in line for a movie, and their time felt precious, important, worthwhile. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Physical attraction did its part to glue them together, but something stronger than sexual attraction sealed the bond. When men and women grow apart, it is for the same reason they are drawn together; because they are finally, inherently too different. Friendships among women, on the other hand, were burdened by similarity. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

We will not deal with men on any terms but ours - and our terms are a moral code which holds that man is an end in himself and not the means to any end of others. We do not seek to force our code upon them. They are free to believe what they please. ~ Ayn Rand

You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was "only a compromise": you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. ~ Ayn Rand

A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. ~ John Galt

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness - to value the failure of your values - is an insolent negation of morality. ~ Ayn Rand

Your mind is your only judge of truth-and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. ~ John Galt

I think, therefore I'll think. ~ Ayn Rand

This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-existence, A or non-A, entity or zero. ~ Ayn Rand

Of course I'm all right, professor. I had to be. A is A.- John Galt ~ Ayn Rand

Love and hysteria are easily mistaken. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Betrayal lived in a separate realm than sex, a realm that was far more innocent, and far more erotic. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

She stood in a swaying, sealed chamber of metal, looking at the giant generators. She had wanted to see them, because the sense of triumph within her was bound to them, to her love for them, to the reason of the life - work she had chosen. In the abnormal clarity of a violent emotion, she felt as if she were about to grasp something she had never known and had to know. She laughed aloud, but heard no sound of it; nothing could be heard through the continuous explosion. "The John Galt Line!" she shouted, for the amusement of feeling her voice swept away from her lips. ~ Ayn Rand

She was not brokenhearted because the relationship had ended suddenly; she was brokenhearted because it had never truly ended. ~ Galt Niederhoffer

And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard?
John Galt ~ Ayn Rand

Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly ... ~ John Galt

Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man - for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life. ~ Ayn Rand

The sound of his voice was an overwhelming relief, like remembering the name of a beloved song or returning to a childhood haunt to find it totally unchanged. Did he not fee the same swell of relief? Or was he just better at hiding it? ~ Galt Niederhoffer

Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth. ~ Ayn Rand

The view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve, my life and my values could not bring me to that. ~ Ayn Rand

There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.
All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil. ~ Ayn Rand

She had caught the sound of suffering in the faintest exaggeration of evenness in his voice. ~ Ayn Rand

There can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion. An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards. ~ John Galt

I do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and I do not live in chronic dread of disaster. It is no happiness, but suffering that I consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that I regard as the abnormal exception in Human Life. ~ Ayn Rand