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*Nobody stays here by
faking reality in any manner whatever.
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-Motto of the inhabitants of Ayn Rand's
utopia, "Galt's Gulch", in
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
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*He never felt loneliness
except when he was happy.
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-Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part One : Non-Contradiction, Ch. II, "The Chain"
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*People who are afraid to
sacrifice somebody have no business talking about a common purpose.
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-James Taggart, a villain in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part One : Non-Contradiction, Ch. III, "The Top and the Bottom"
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*'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're 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 that 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?'
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-The newsstand owner, a character in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part One : Non-Contradiction, Ch. III, "The Top and the Bottom"
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*Of what account are praise
and adulation from men whom you don't respect?
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-Robert Stadler, a character in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. I, "The Man Who Belonged On Earth"
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*The hours ahead, like all
her nights with him, would be added, she thought, to the savings account of
one's life where moments of time are stored in the pride of having been
lived.
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-Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. 1, "The Man Who Belonged On Earth"
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*Any refusal to recognize
reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are
no evil thoughts except one; the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own
desires. . .Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. II, "The Aristocracy of Pull"
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*[Y]ou'll learn that man's
mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has
ever existed on earth.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. II, "The Aristocracy of Pull"
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~If you ask me to name the
proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose- because it contains all
the others- the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to
make money." No other language or nation had ever used these words before;
men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged,
inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first
to understand that wealth has to be created.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Pt. Two : Either-Or, Ch. II, "The Aristocracy of Pull"
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*[A]ll that was left, as at
the awakening from a narcotic, was the feeling that he had known some
immense kind of freedom, never to be matched in reality.
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-Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. II, "The Aristocracy of Pull"
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*If you want to defeat any
kind of vicious fraud-comply with it literally, adding nothing of your own
to disguise its nature.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Pt. Two : Either-Or, Ch. IV, "The Sanction of the Victim"
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*An idea unexpressed in
physical action is a contemptible hypocrisy.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. IV, "The Sanction of the Victim"
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*[W]e can never lose the
things we live for. We may have to change their form at times, if we've
made an error, but the purpose remains the same and the forms are ours to
make.
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-Francisco D'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Two : Either-Or, Ch. VIII, "By Our Love"
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*Those who cry the loudest
about their disillusionment, about the failure of virtue, the futility or
reason, the impotence of logic--are those who have achieved the full, exact,
logical result of the ideas they preached.
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-Dr. Hugh Akston, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. II, "The Utopia of Greed"
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*[T]he measure of the
hell you're able to endure is the measure of your love.
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-Franciso C'Anconia, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. II, "The Utopia of Greed"
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*People think that a
liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is
an act of self-abdication, because one surrender's one's reality to the
person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning
oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view
requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie--
the price one pays is the destruction of that which the gain was intended
to serve. The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from then
on.
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-Dagny Taggart, a heroine in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. III, "Anti-Greed"
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*I love you, my dearest,
with that blindest passion of my body which comes from the clearest
perception of my mind.
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-Hank Rearden, a hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. III, "Anti-Greed"
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*Make no mistake about the
character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their
purpose throughout the ages--and power, the power to rule you by force, has
always been their only lust.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*All their identifications
consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say---and
proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge---God is non-man, heaven is
non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is
non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Love is the expression
of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities
you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid
by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*When I disagree with a
rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will
learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Ch. VII, "This Is John Galt Speaking"
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*The name of this monstrous
absurdity is Original Sin.
A sin without volition is a slap at morality and
insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of
choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has
no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor
evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice
is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of
nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a
mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists
is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by
means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet
that is the root of your code.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Do you ask what moral
obligation I owe to my fellow men? None---except the obligation I owe to
myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal
with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Man's mind is the basic
tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is
given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content
is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know
the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a
knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch--or
build a cyclotron--without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to
achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Man cannot survive except
by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is
the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided
by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of
existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason; his
senses tell him only that something is; but what it is must
be learned by his mind.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*To arrive at a
contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain
a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the
realm of reality.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*I am, therefore I'll
think.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Happiness is that state
of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*He [man] 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.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Make no mistake about the
character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their
purpose throughout the ages--and power, the power to rule you by force, has
always been their only lust.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*If I were to speak your
kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou
shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The
moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The
moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Truth is the recognition
of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of
truth.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*No concept man forms is
valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of
his knowledge.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*A code of values accepted
by choice is a code of morality.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "This is John Galt Speaking"
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*All that which is proper to
the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the
evil.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "This is John Galt Speaking"
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*The only man who desires to
be moral is the man who desires to live.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "This is John Galt Speaking"
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*A rational process is a
moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing
to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the
evidence and fake the effort of the quest--but if devotion to truth is the
hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of
devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of
thinking.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "This is John Galt Speaking"
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*You have heard no concepts
of morality but the mystical or the social. You have been taught that
morality is a code of behavior imposed on you by whim, the whim of a
supernatural power or the whim of society, to serve God's purpose or your
neighbor's welfare, to please an authority beyond the grave or else next
door---but not to serve your life or pleasure. Your pleasure, you
have been taught, is to be found in immorality, your interest would best be
served by evil, and any moral code must be designed not for you, but
against you, not to further your life, but to drain it.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*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.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*A morality that holds
need as a claim, holds emptiness--non-existence--as its standard of
value; it rewards an absence, a defeat: weakness, inability,
incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the
flaw--the zero.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*There is only one
fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence--and it
pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence
of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends
on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its
forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces
a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of
self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that
action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of
existence.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Existence is Identity.
Consciousness is Identification.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*By the grace of reality
and the nature of life, man---every man---is an end in himself, he exists
for his own safe, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest
moral purpose.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Ch. VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Honesty is the recognition
of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love
nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A Is A, Ch. VII, "This is John Galt Speaking"
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*To interpose the threat of
physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate
and paralyze his means of survival; to force him to act against his own
judgement, is like forcing him to act against his own sight.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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*Do not say that you're
afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in
surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and
act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of
your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the
fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you
omniscience--that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make
you infallible--that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths
accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but
the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.
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-John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Part Three : A is A, Chapter VII, "'This is John Galt Speaking'"
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