"There are two ways of getting on top. One way is to outrun all the others. The second way is to hold others back to a pace slower than one's own. The first way requires ability; the second way is possible only by the use of coercion. The first way is the ingredient of all progress; the second is an ingredient of regress. The function of government is to defend the former against the latter. The function of revolution is to destroy any government when it joins forces with the latter."

“At one end of the intellectual spectrum are the wise, those who know they don't know much; and on the other end are the egotists, those who have little, if any, awareness of how little they know.”

“The distinction between individuals is not to be found in self-interest. It is to be found in the degree of intelligence they apply in interpreting their self-interest. The "selfless" one, in the name of doing good, charity, and sacrifice, is not intelligent enough to see that his greatest contribution to others would be his own evolution, presenting society with a more perfect person. The intelligent one knows that his value to others is identical with value to self, and that this value rests on the extent of his perfection, the extent that he excels, the extent that he has something over and above which can be drawn on by others.”

“It should be noted that people in the free market rarely bear false witness; integrity is the rule. The morning mile, phone calls, planes the airlines buy, autos by the millions - no one could list the instances - are as represented. We have daily, eloquent, enormous testimony that the Ten Commandments can be and are observed by fallible human beings. Contemporary politics is the most glaring of all exceptions.”

“Assuming the market is free from fraud, violence, misrepresen­tation, and predation, the economic failure or success of any individ­ual is measured by what he can obtain in willing exchange—fair­ness being a state of affairs that is presupposed in the assumption. Everyone, according to any moral code I would respect, is entitled to fairness in the sense of no special privilege to anyone and open op­portunity for all; no one is entit­led to what is implied by a fair price, a fair wage, a fair salary, a fair rent, or a fair profit. In mar­ket terms, one is entitled to what others will offer in willing ex­change. That is all!”

“Communism, socialism, the welfare state, et cetera, are essentially one and the same thing.”

“Statism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others - on the grand scale. There is no moral — only a legal — distinction between petty thievery and political Robin Hoodism, which is to say, there is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other piece of socialization.”