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Irrationality

  • The Virtue of Selfishness
    Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Irrationality is the rejection of man’s means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.
    “The Objectivist Ethics”
    The Virtue of Selfishness, 25
  • For the New Intellectual
    To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.
    “Galt’s Speech”
    For the New Intellectual, 127
  • The Virtue of Selfishness
    The irrational is the impossible; it is that which contradicts the facts of reality; facts cannot be altered by a wish, but they can destroy the wisher.
    “The Objectivist Ethics”
    The Virtue of Selfishness, 28
  • For the New Intellectual
    Irrationality is a state of default, the state of an unachieved human stature. When men do not choose to reach the conceptual level, their consciousness has no recourse but to its automatic, perceptual, semi-animal functions.
    “For the New Intellectual”
    For the New Intellectual, 21

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