AYN RAND:IN DEFENSE OF ETHICAL EGOTISM
...nti-life. To remain alive, he must think, but to think is an act of choice. Man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason is your means of survival. The question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to think or not to think’. Value is that which one acts to gain and keep, virtue is the action by which one gains and keeps it. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional; the existence of life is not. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by mean of volitional choice. An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is evil. Man’s life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. Happiness is the successful state of life; pain is the agent of death. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. Your standard of virtue is not and object, not and act, nor a principle, but and intention. The man below is a sou...