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 his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the
torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the
happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not
to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.


--
G.A.