Home > Work > Sisyphus Shrugged
1 " I think we need to be beholden to each other. "
― Robert Peate , Sisyphus Shrugged
2 " We are connected to each other, Mister Galt. We are considerate. We think about others. We give to others. But in return we get it back. We do affect each other. Human beings—all life forms—are not fully free, nor are they meant to be. Complete freedom isn’t any beautiful thing, because it means you’re not getting anything back either. I think we need to be beholden to each other. "
3 " You have been lied to. You were born into a system you did not create, though it was created by human beings. You were told that if you worked hard, dreamed big, and played by the rules, you could make it as well as anybody else. That was a lie, the fact that ‘dreaming big’ and ‘playing by the rules’ don’t go together aside. "
4 " To exploit is to take undue advantage of someone else’s need, whether that be unfair wages paid or unfair prices charged. I have just summed up the current state of modern capitalism in one sentence. "
5 " The Planet Earth is a cesspool of avarice and apathy. "
6 " To be a liberal is to care about more than one’s own belly or roof. It is to care about the rights of all men and women to live and breathe freely. Freely, do you hear me? This is not oppression. Stop saying that black is white and night is day. Freedom is not slavery! So stop with the Orwellian double talk and start working to help more than yourself. Lining your own pockets is the opposite of helping this world! "
7 " I have acquired you, and now I will determine your value to me. "
8 " There’s nothing I love more than seeing liberals fight each other. "
9 " We celebrate the beauty and reason of the individual, and resist the coercion of the state and the tyranny of the majority. We laugh and cry about the bullshit ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ pigeonholes that people throw themselves into. They think we favor violence, but I’ve been taught how to fight, and you’ll probably never find anyone less likely to harm a living creature. "
10 " There is nothing more despicable than moral weakness. Physical weakness may not be preventable, but moral weakness has no such excuse. It is cowardice. Our civilization has proved quite destructive, in that it allows the weak to survive and even to thrive off the strength of others. When the weak prey upon the strength of the strong, they drain society and sap it until it will die unless defended by those with the vision, the morality, and, ultimately, the strength to defend it. "
11 " I agree with Rand that human nature is selfish, that we should help ourselves first and foremost. . . . Where I differ with her is that I think we can and should help ourselves and others at the same time as a conscious goal. "