Jeff Ragan’s Reviews > Atlas Shrugged > Status Update

"'But all your calculations rest on the fact that Miss Taggart is a virtuous woman, not the slut you're going to call her.' 'Yes, of course,' said Dr. Ferris. 'And that this means much more to me than a casual affair.' 'Of course.' 'If she and I were the kind of scum you're going to make us appear, your blackjack wouldn't work.' 'No, it wouldn't'" (516).

"We've got to run the world for the sake of the little people. It's intelligence that's caused all the troubles of humanity. Man's mind is the root of all evil. This is the day of the heart. It's the weak, the meek, the sick and the humble that must be the only objects of our concern" (498).

"It's their lack of social spirit. They refuse to recognize that production is not a private choice, but a public duty. They have no right to fail, no matter what conditions happen to come up. They've got to go on producing...A man's work is not a personal matter, it's a social matter. There's no such thing as a personal matter - or a personal life. That's what we've got to force them to learn" (493).

"A city is the frozen shape of human courage - the courage of those men who thought for the first time of every bolt, rivet and power generator that went to make it. The courage to say, not 'It seems to me,' but 'It is' - and to stake one's life on one's judgment. You're not alone. Those men exist. They have always existed" (473-4).

"They mined it at night, they stored it in hidden culverts, they were paid in cash, with no questions asked or answered. Guilty of a fierce desire to remain alive, they and Rearden traded like savages, without rights, titles, contracts or protection, with nothing but mutual understanding and a ruthlessly absolute observance of one's given word. Rearden did not even know the name of the young leader" (463).

"He was seeing the enormity of the smallness of the enemy who was destroying the world. He felt as if, after a journey of years through a landscape of devastation, past the ruins of great factories...he had come upon the despoiler, expecting to find a giant - and had found a rat eager to scurry for cover at the first sound of a human step. If this is what has beaten us...the guilt is ours" (447).

"She wanted to force upon him the suffering of dishonor - but his own sense of honor was her only weapon of enforcement. She wanted to wrest from him an acknowledgement of his moral depravity - but only his own moral rectitude could attach significance to such a verdict. She wanted to injure him by her contempt - but he could not be injured, unless he respected her judgment" (430).

"'...if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down...what would you tell him to do?' 'I...don't know. What...could he do? What would you tell him?' 'To shrug'" (422).

"'But to walk off & abandon...an industrial enterprise, as if we were in the age of landless nomads or of savages wandering in the jungle!' 'Aren't we?...Why should I leave a deed or a will? I don't want to help the looters to pretend that private property still exists. I am complying with the system which they have established. They do not need me, they say, they only need my coal. Let them take it'" (414).

"That woman...keep[s] evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. The do it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it, because you won't permit yourself to consider anything that would spare you. They indulge their emotions at any cost. You sacrifice your emotions as the first cost of any problem" (387).