Ayn Rand

She knew the general doctrine on sex, held by people in one form or another, the doctrine that sex was an ugly weakness of man__ lower nature, to be condoned regretfully. She experienced an emotion of chastity that made her shrink, not from the desires of her body, but from any contact with the minds who held this doctrine.

The man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises__ecause she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that damns him.

No matter what corruption he__ taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment__ust try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity?-an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value.

Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself.

There are two things we must get rid of early in life: a feeling of personal superiority and an exaggerated reverence for the sexual act.

The course led them to the moment when, in answer to the highest of one's values, one's spirit makes one's body become the tribute, recasting it--as proof, as sanction, as reward--into a single sensation of such intensity of joy that no other sanction of one's existence is necessary.

In the many months of his absence, she never wondered whether he was true to her or not; she knew he was. She knew, even though she was too young to know the reason, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence were possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil.

She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He moved one had, took her two wrists, pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades. She twisted her head back. She felt his lips on her breast. She tore herself free_She fought like an animal. But she made no sound. She did not call for help. She heard the echoes of her blows in a gasp of his breath, and she knew that it was a gasp of pleasure_She felt the hatred and his hands; his hands moving over her body, the hands that broke granite. She fought the last convulsion. Then the sudden pain shot up, through her body, to her throat, and she screamed. Then she laid still. It was an act that could be performed in tenderness, as a seal of love, or in contempt, as a symbol of humiliation and conquest. It could be an act of a lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did it as an act of scorn. Not as love, but as defilement. And this made her still and submit_the act of a master taking shameful , contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted_

Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.

It seemed natural; natural to the moment__ peculiar reality that was sharply clear, but cut off from everything, immediate, but disconnected, like a bright island in a wall of fog, the heightened, unquestioning reality one feels when one is drunk.

It was as if a volcano were cracking open, yet the people at the foot of the mountain ignored the sudden fissures, the black fumes, the boiling trickles, and went on believing that their only danger was to acknowledge the reality of these signs.

There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another__f 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__.

I think that when in doubt about the truth of an issue, it's safer and in better taste to select the least numerous of the adversaries.

... he had always wondered why the sensations one felt in dreamas were so much more intense than anything one could experience in waking reality__hy the horror was so total and the ecstacy so complete__nd what was that extra quality which could never be recaptured afterward; the quality of what he felt when he walked down a path through tangled green leaves in a dream, in an air full of expectation, of causeless, utter rapture__nd when he awakened he could not explain it, it had just been a path through some woods.

I love doing it. Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable.

Men hate passion, any great passion. Henry Cameron made a mistake : he loved his work. That was why he fought. That was why he lost.

It was the only thing I ever really wanted. And that__ the sin that can__ be forgiven--that I hadn__ done what I wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about insanity, because there__ no sense to it, no dignity, nothing but pain--and wasted pain...why do they always teach us that it__ easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It__ the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage.

I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers