To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'
Ayn RandRead
Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.
Interpretation
Powerful regimes often use minority groups as scapegoats to justify their authoritarian actions.
In this quote, Ayn Rand highlights the dangerous tendency of totalitarian regimes to create and exploit scapegoats from minority groups to legitimize their oppressive actions. By illustrating historical examples, she warns of the ease with which a society can be misled into blaming certain groups for its problems, thus paving the way for dictatorship and the erosion of freedom.
In practice
During a political rally, someone might quote this to discuss the importance of protecting minority rights.
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.
On this thin, scarcely real and yet so perceptible sensation the whole world hung as on a faintly trembling axis, and this in turn rested on the two people in the room.
Take death for example. A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it, and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we'd find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.
Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.
The priest is an immense being because he makes the crowd believe astonishing things.
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
The inability to correctly perceive reality is often responsible for humans' insane behavior. And every time they substitute an all-purpose, sloppy slang word for the words that would accurately describe an emotion or a situation, it lowers their reality orientations, pushes them farther from shore, out onto the foggy waters of alienation and confusion.
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