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Philosophy COPY > Galt's Speech — The Morality Of Life — The Content Of A Rational Moral Code > Flashcards

Galt's Speech — The Morality Of Life — The Content Of A Rational Moral Code Flashcards

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1
Q

My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom and in a single choice:

A

Existence exists.

To live.

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2
Q

To live, must must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life:

A

Reason — Purpose — Self-esteem.

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3
Q

Reason as …

A

His ONLY tool of knowledge.

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4
Q

Purpose as …

A

His choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve.

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5
Q

Self-esteem as …

A

His inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living.

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6
Q

These three values imply and REQUIRE all of man’s virtues, and ALL his virtues pertain to the relation of EXISTENCE and CONSCIOUSNESS:

A
  1. Rationality.
  2. Independence.
  3. Integrity.
  4. Honesty.
  5. Justice.
  6. Productiveness.
  7. Pride.
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7
Q

Rationality is …

A

The recognition of the FACT that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is THINKING.

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8
Q

Rationality means that …

A

The mind is one’s ONLY judge of VALUES and one’s ONLY guide of ACTION.

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9
Q

Rationality means that …

A

Reason is an ABSOLUTE that permits no compromise.

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10
Q

Rationality means that …

A

A concession to the irrational invalidates one’s consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving reality to the task OF FAKING REALITY.

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11
Q

Rationality means that …

A

The alleged shortcut to knowledge, which is FAITH, is only a short circuit destroying the mind.

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12
Q

Rationality means that …

A

The acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one’s CONSCIOUSNESS.

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13
Q

Independence is the …

A

RECOGNITION OF THE FACT that yours is the responsibility of JUDGEMENT and nothing can help you escape it.

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14
Q

Independence means that …

A

No substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

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15
Q

Independence means that …

A

The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the SUBORDINATION of your mind to the mind of another — the acceptance of his authority over your brain — of his assertions as facts — his say-so as truth — his edicts as MIDDLE-MAN between your consciousness and your existence.

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16
Q

Integrity is the …

A

RECOGNITION OF THE FACT that you cannot fake your consciousness.

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17
Q

Integrity means that …

A

Man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of 2 attributes: of matter and consciousness.

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18
Q

Integrity means that …

A

Man may permit no breach between MIND AND BODY — between THOUGHT AND ACTION — between his LIFE AND HIS CONVICTIONS.

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19
Q

Integrity means that …

A

Like a judge impervious to public opinion, he may NOT sacrifice his convictions to the wishes of others — be it the whole of mankind shouting pleas or threats against him.

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20
Q

Integrity means that …

A

COURAGE and CONFIDENCE are practical necessities.

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21
Q

That courage is …

A

The practical form of being TRUE TO EXISTENCE — of being true to truth.

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22
Q

And confidence is …

A

The practical form of being TRUE TO ONE’S OWN CONSCIOUSNESS.

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23
Q

Honesty is the …

A

RECOGNITION OF THE FACT that the unreal is UNREAL and can have no value.

That neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud.

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24
Q

Honesty means that …

A

An attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee.

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25
Honesty means that ...
You do not care to live as a dependent, least of all A DEPENDENT ON THE STUPIDITY OF OTHERS, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling.
26
That honesty is NOT ...
A social DUTY, not a sacrifice for the sake of others — But the MOST PROFOUNDLY SELFISH VIRTUE man can practice: HIS REFUSAL TO SACRIFICE THE REALITY OF HIS OWN EXISTENCE TO THE DELUDED CONSCIOUSNESS OF OTHERS.
27
Justice is the ...
RECOGNITION OF THE FACT that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature.
28
Justice means that ...
You must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects—with the same respect for truth—with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification.
29
Justice means that ...
Every man must be judged for WHAT HE IS and treated accordingly. That as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, SO YOU DO NOT VALUE A ROTTER ABOVE A HERO.
30
Justice means that ...
Your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to your financial transactions.
31
Justice means that ...
To withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement.
32
Justice means that ...
To place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit.
33
Justice means that ...
The bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that THAT is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death — the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.
34
Productiveness is ...
Your acceptance of morality — your recognition of the fact that you choose to live.
35
Productiveness means that ...
Productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence. A constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values.
36
Productiveness means that ...
ALL work is creative work if done by a thinking mind. And no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others.
37
Productiveness means that ...
Your work is YOURS to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human.
38
That to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to ...
Become a fear corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time.
39
That to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to ...
Cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: DECAY.
40
That your work is the process of achieving your values, and to ...
Lose your ambition for values is to LOSE YOUR AMBITION TO LIVE.
41
That your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you ...
Must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road.
42
That the man who has no purpose ...
Is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch.
43
That the man who stifles his mind is a ...
Stalled machine slowly going to rust.
44
That the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a ...
Wreck being towed to the scrap heap.
45
That the man who makes another man his goal is ...
A hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up.
46
That your work is ...
The PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you.
47
That any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only ...
Travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their OWN POWER in the SAME direction.
48
Pride is the ...
RECOGNITION OF THE FACT that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be EARNED.
49
That of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is ...
THE CREATION OF YOUR OWN CHARACTER.
50
That your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the ...
PRODUCTS of the premises held by your mind.
51
That as man must produce the PHYSICAL VALUES he needs to sustain his life, so he must ...
Acquire the values of character that make his life WORTH SUSTAINING.
52
That as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is ...
A being of self-made soul.
53
That to live requires a sense of ...
SELF-VALUE, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must EARN IT by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man — the rational being he is born able to create, but must create BY CHOICE.
54
That the first precondition of self-esteem is that ...
Radiant selfishness of soul which desires the BEST IN ALL THINGS, in values of matter and spirit — a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself.
55
And that the proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul’s shudder of contempt and rebellion against ...
The role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence to the blind evasions and the stagnant decay of others.
56
Are you beginning to see who is John Galt?
I am the man who has earned the thing you did not fight for, the thing you have renounced, betrayed, corrupted, yet were unable fully to destroy and are now hiding as your guilty secret.
57
Spending your time in apologies to every professional cannibal, lest it be discovered that somewhere within you, you still long to say what I am now saying to the hearing of the whole of mankind:
I AM PROUD OF MY OWN VALUE AND OF MY WISH TO LIVE.
58
This wish—which you share, yet submerge as an evil—is the ...
ONLY remnant of the good within you, but it is a wish one must learn to deserve.
59
His OWN happiness is man’s ONLY moral purpose, but ...
Only his own virtue can achieve it.
60
Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil.
LIFE IS THE REWARD OF VIRTUE. And HAPPINESS IS THE GOAL AND THE REWARD OF LIFE.
61
Just as your body has two fundamental sensations, pleasure and pain, as signs of its welfare or injury, as a barometer of its basic alternative, life and death, so your consciousness has 2 fundamental emotions:
Joy and Suffering, in answer to the same alternative.
62
Your emotions are ESTIMATES of that which furthers your life or threatens it, ...
Lightning calculators giving you a sum of your profit or loss.
63
You have no choice about your CAPACITY to feel that something is good for you or evil, but ...
WHAT you will consider good or evil, WHAT will give you joy or pain, WHAT you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on YOUR STANDARD OF VALUE.
64
Emotions are inherent in your nature, ...
But their CONTENT IS DICTATED BY YOUR MIND.
65
Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your ...
VALUES ARE THE FUEL with which your MIND fills it.
66
If you choose a mix of contradictions, ...
It will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted.

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