To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'
Ayn RandRead
Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.
Interpretation
This quote raises concerns about the potential tyranny of majority rule in a collectivist society.
Ayn Rand's quote critiques the concept of collectivism, highlighting the idea that if society wields unlimited power, it can impose any laws or rules on individuals, potentially leading to oppression and the loss of personal freedoms. Rand warns against the dangers of allowing society's whims to dictate individual rights, advocating instead for the protection of personal liberty against the whims of the collective.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of individual rights in the face of governmental power.
To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'
The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves.
It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.
What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.
One method of destroying a concept is by diluting its meaning. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living.
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.
His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cercei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted.
A culture fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in womenβs history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.
Our little solos are a note in an immense chorus vibrating grandly through the universe, a chorus which accepts and harmonizes the whir of the cricket and the long drum-roll of the stars.
I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn't, then why would you say I am.
"Do you know," Ivan Bunin recalls Anton Chekhov saying to him in 1899, near the end of his too-short life, "for how many years I shall be read? Seven." "Why seven?" Bunin asked. "Well," Chekhov answered, "seven and a half then."
How can you possibly reconcile the justice of God with the idea that only through Christ can you be saved? Most of the world lives and dies and never even hears of Christ. There has to be some mechanism set up for all those who have ever lived to have an opportunity to hear of Christ.
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