From Atlas Shrugged
I am reading "Atlas Shrugged" for the Nth time and here is an extract from the book: Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happinessâ??to value the failure of your valuesâ??is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, manâ??every manâ??is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose."But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek...