Who Said IT: 'atlas Shrugged' Villain Or Real-life Public Figure?

  • Grade 11th,
  • Grade 12th
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY
Reviewed by Editorial Team
The ProProfs editorial team is comprised of experienced subject matter experts. They've collectively created over 10,000 quizzes and lessons, serving over 100 million users. Our team includes in-house content moderators and subject matter experts, as well as a global network of rigorously trained contributors. All adhere to our comprehensive editorial guidelines, ensuring the delivery of high-quality content.
Learn about Our Editorial Process
| By Stuhayashi
S
Stuhayashi
Community Contributor
Quizzes Created: 1 | Total Attempts: 2,032
| Attempts: 2,034 | Questions: 142 | Updated: Mar 21, 2025
Quiz
Mind Map
See connections
Study Guide
Read & understand
Please wait...
Question 1 / 143
🏆 Rank #-- ▾
0 %
0/100
Score 0/100

1. "Whereas in the West the self is understood primarily as an autonomous ego whose existence is distinct from that of others, in the East, it is often argued there is no meaning of self that is independent of our relations to others. The self is irreducibly social. ... All of this is no doubt true..."

Explanation

This is said by philosopher Julian Baggini in the New York Times Opinionator blog, "What Is the Self? It Depends," February 8, 2016, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/the-self-in-east-and-west/ .

Submit
Please wait...
About This Quiz
Who Said IT: atlas Shrugged Villain Or Real-life Public Figure? - Quiz

I often hear the criticism, "Atlas Shrugged is so far-fetched. The villains are straw men. No one in real life talks like that." I find that criticism funny, because I think many public figures, throughout history and on into the present, have issued statements that... see moresound very much like villains from Atlas Shrugged. For each question on this quiz, I will provide you a quotation. I will ask you to determine whether the statement was issued by an Atlas Shrugged villain or a real-life public figure. After you had entered your answer, I will provide the correct answer. If it is an Atlas Shrugged villain, I will name the character who said it and provide the page number for the quotation from the 1992 hardcover edition. (Numbering is different between hardcover and paperback editions. Moreover, the page numbering often changes any time a new edition -- either hardcover or paperback -- is released. ) If the statement was issued by a real-life public figure, I will name the public figure and provide bibliographic information on the source of the quotation. Bear in mind that I am not saying someone is a bad person just because he or she sounds like an Atlas Shrugged villain. I suppose someone might think that real quotations see less

2.

What first name or nickname would you like us to use?

You may optionally provide this to label your report, leaderboard, or certificate.

2. "To me, what democratic socialism is about is to maintain the strong entrepreneurial spirit that we have in this country."

Explanation

Bernie Sanders said this in a November 5, 2015 interview with the Wall Street Journal. A video of this can be seen and heard at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/11/05/bernie_sanders_interview_with_wsj_democratic_socialism_is_about_continuing_to_produce_wealth.html .

Submit

3. [On governmental seizures of private land for The Public Interest™:] "You're not taking property, you're paying a fortune for that property. Those people can move two blocks away into a much nicer house."

Explanation

Donald Trump said this to the titular host of Special Report with Bret Baer on October 7, 2015. This was the same interview where Trump told him overall that eminent domain "is a wonderful thing." This is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5deLxTaYVOU .

Submit

4. [In response to someone saying that he should be able to keep the money he earns rather than for it to be taxed away:] "You don't deserve to keep all of it. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together."

Explanation

On the morning of September 14, 2011, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky went on the Don Wade & Roma radio show. When the host asked her about whether he has a right to keep his money rather than for it be taxed away, she gave this reply. See Brandon Stewart, "Rep. Jan Schakowsky: 'You Don't Deserve To Keep All Your Money,'" The Daily Signal, September 14, 2011, http://dailysignal.com/2011/09/14/congresswoman-jan-schakowsky-you-dont-deserve-to-keep-all-your-money/ .

Submit

5. [Discussing with colleague how to sell their political plan to the public:] " Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the only thing that will make them do their duty."

Explanation

This is from an e-mail that Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon sent to his reporter Matthew Boyle, on December 16, 2014, qtd. by Betsy Woodruff, "Donald Trump's New Chief Steve Bannon Called Republican Leaders 'C**ts," The Daily Beast, August 18, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/19/donald-trump-s-new-chief-steve-bannon-called-republican-leaders-c-ts.html .

Submit

6. "There is a growing global anti-establishment revolt against the permanent political class at home, and the global elites that influence them..."

Explanation

Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon, qtd. by Leslie Kaufman, "Breitbart News Network Plans Global Expansion," New York Times, February 16, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/business/media/breitbart-news-network-plans-global-expansion.html .

Submit

7. [Explaining that life necessarily contradicts itself:] "The belief that all good things move together and there need be no conflicts between them is, ultimately, a religious one. And -- by definition -- a totalitarian one."

Explanation

This is from National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

Submit

8. "The chief reason for this is that we all understand and accept the permanence of contradiction and conflict in life."

Explanation

This is from National Review magazine editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

Submit

9. "...[economic] growth isn't an option any more -- we've already grown too much. Scientists are now telling us that we're blowing past planetary boundaries at breakneck speed. And the hard truth is that this global crisis is due almost entirely to overconsumption in rich countries."

Explanation

This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

Submit

10. "...instead of pushing poorer countries to 'catch up' with rich ones, we should be thinking of ways to get rich countries to 'catch down' to more appropriate levels of development. We should look at societies where people live long and happy lives at relatively low levels of income and consumption not as basket cases that need to be developed towards Western models, but as exemplars of efficient living."

Explanation

This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

Submit

11. "A similar majority also believe we should strive to buy and own less, and that doing so would not compromise our happiness. People sense there is something wrong with the dominant model of economic progress and they are hungry for an alternative narrative."

Explanation

This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

Submit

12. "This is because the greatest possible misery is also the greatest possible pain, and the urge to escape pain is entirely pre-moral. It is found in creatures that have no social life and thus no possibility of morality."

Explanation

This is the view of Andrew Brown, "The Mythical Sam Harris," The Guardian, Tuesday, April 12, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/apr/12/atheism-myth-sam-harris .

Submit

13. [Two characters discuss what they claim is the need for the government to intrude in private affairs for the purpose of saving jobs:]
  • Character 1: "The free market has been sorting it out and America's been losing."
  • Character 2 (agrees):  "Every time, every time."

Explanation

Character 1 is Vice President Mike Pence. Character 2 is Donald Trump. This conversation involves their rationalizing Donald Trump trying to use government power to discourage the Carrier corporation from closing its Indiana plant. This is quoted by Nelson D. Schwartz, "Trump Sealed Carrier Deal With Mix of Threat and Incentive," New York Times, December 1, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/business/economy/trump-carrier-pence-jobs.html .

Submit

14. "And the fact is, when standards like these have been proposed in the past, opponents have often warned that they would be an assault on business and free enterprise.  We can look at the history in this country.  . . .  Auto executives predicted that having to install seatbelts would bring the downfall of their industry.  It didn't happen."

Explanation

This is from a speech that Barack Obama gave to the U.S. National Chamber of Commerce in 2011. They went online at http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/full-text-of-president-obama-s-speech-before-the-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-20110207 on February 7, 2011.

Submit

15. [Explaining how government officials should address economic crises:] "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you did not think you could do before."

Explanation

While President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel said this at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council on November 19, 2008 as an explanation of his attitude to how the federal government is to deal with the economy. This is documented at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk .

Submit

16. "Who are we kidding? The business model of Wall Street is fraud. That's what it is."

Explanation

Bernie Sanders said this in the second Democratic presidential primary debate on November 14, 2015. You can see the debate transcript at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-debate-transcript-clinton-sanders-omalley-in-iowa/ .

Submit

17. "I love the fact that America is a contradiction between our ideal of a democracy and our reality of a constitutional republic, and the reason I love that contradiction -- the contradiction that your questions don't quite allow -- is that it is in that gray area where free citizens get active and do things and push the bar and pull the bar.  To me, that is the magic of what we have."

Explanation

These are the words of the political journalist Thomas Oliphant, formerly of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and later a columnist with the Boston Globe.  Oliphant said this to Jan Helfeld in an interview that Helfeld uploaded onto YouTube on December 8, 2008.  That is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1bdP1hnSc&feature=youtu.be&t=2m9s .

Submit

18. "You wouldn't want to give support to the widespread impression that you are a man devoid of social conscience, who feels no concern for the welfare of his fellows and works for nothing but his own profit."

Explanation

This is said by one of the three judges at the trial of Hank Rearden.  it is on page 480 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

19. "It's everything related to jobs. ... I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up."

Explanation

Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this to Michael Wolff, "Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower As the President-Elect's Strategist Plots 'an Entirely New Political Movement' (Exclusive)," The Hollywood Reporter, November 18, 2016, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747 .

Submit

20. " I can see this on Wall Street today — I can see this with the securitization of everything is that, everything is looked at as a securitization opportunity. People are looked at as commodities. I don't believe that our forefathers had that same belief."

Explanation

Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this to moderator Benjamin Harnwell for a 2014 panel discussion of the Human Dignity Institute. The transcript appears online as "This Is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World," Buzzfeed, November 15, 2016, https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.in2paDrkr#.pbkqZMO8O .

Submit

21. "As you all know, thirty-three people lost their lives today, this morning. . . .  There's also another kind of violence though that we're going to have to think about. It's not necessarily physical violence but that the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways. . . .There's the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job has moved to another country."

Explanation

This was from a speech Barack Obama gave at an April 18, 2007 rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The violent deaths he spoke of was the Virginia Tech shooting by Seung-Hui Cho.  He compared that to "another kind of violence":  namely, nonviolent actions of which he disapproves.  He said that U.S. companies hiring foreign employees was "violence" against native-born Americans not hired instead.  He also said bigoted speech counts as "verbal violence."

A good counterargument arrived years earlier, from John Stossel in 2001.  Stossel observed the problem with equivocating bigoted speech with violence:  "If words are like bullets, then we will answer words with bullets. Well, I think words are words, and bullets are bullets, and it's best we keep them apart."  Obama's speech is available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/barack_obama_on_virginia_tech.html .

Submit

22. "Figure out who is in your tribe, and fight to the death for your tribe, but give nothing to the enemy. No succor to the enemy. Not a cup of water, not a bowl of gruel, no, not shelter, not kind words, not conciliation, not forgiveness."

Explanation

The anarchist podcaster Stefan Molyneux tells this to a caller, Nick, on his FreeDomain Radio internet show, uploaded onto YouTube as "The Death of Terrorism | San Bernardino Shooting and Terrorist Attack," on December 6, 2015, 0:43:20 mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGVcDgmH2ts&feature=youtu.be&t=43m20s .

Submit

23. "I don't like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see."

Explanation

Donald Trump admitted this in a 2014 interview with biographer Michael D'Antonio, quoted by Michael Barbaro, "What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes Show," New York Times, October 25, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/donald-trump-interviews.html .

Submit

24. "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

Explanation

Then-President George W. Bush told Candy Crowley this on the December 16, 2008 edition of CNN's State of the Union.

Submit

25. "...there's always been...a belief that we're all connected, and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.  We believe...that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. "

Explanation

Barack Obama gave this speech on April 13, 2011, "Remarks By the President on Fiscal Policy," official White House website, http://archive.is/OkwjE , accessed November 21, 2016.

Submit

26. [On whether his interlocutor's life is real or just some simulation of reality imposed on him by some outside force:] "There's a one in billions chance we're in base [real] reality. . . . We should hope that's true because otherwise if civilization stops advancing, that could be due to some calamitous event that erases civilization, so maybe we should be hopeful this is a simulation. Otherwise, we will create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options."

Explanation

This is from billionaire Elon Musk at the ReCode conference that took place from May 31 to June 2, 2016. When Elon was first asked about this, the audience laughed, but Elon treated the idea seriously. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-virtual-reality-a7060941.html

Submit

27. "I think it is perfectly unfair that one man should get all the breaks and leave none to others."

Explanation

This is on page 135 of the 1992 hardcover edition.  It is said by Philip Rearden, the spoiled anti-capitalist brother of Hank Rearden.

Submit

28. "The end of religion in the West had more to do with 'I don't want to be told what to do, I don't want to have any rules, I don't want to have any obligations and I don't want to have any need for sacrifice.'  The reality is that to maintain a civilization requires vigilance, it requires sacrifice and it requires that you be passionately in love with something much larger than your own mere mortal existence."

Explanation

This is from Stefan Molyneux, the famous anarchist podcaster, stating his own opinion on his FreeDomain Radio podcast. It is from "On the Brink of World War III: Iben Thranholm and Stefan Molyneux," October 31, 2016, 24:10 mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV_AIN4CS9M&feature=youtu.be&t=24m10s .

Submit

29. "...I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force it to be free."

Explanation

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke those words in an interview with Andy Greenberg that went on Forbes magazine's website on November 29, 2010.  That is visible at http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/5/ .

Submit

30. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."

Explanation

These were the sentences that Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said to his interviewee, Donald Trump, right after complaining to him that too many Silicon Valley executives are of Asian descent. This is quoted by David A. Farenthold and Frances Stead Sellers, "How Bannon Flattered and Coaxed Trump on Policies Key to the Alt-Right," Washington Post, November 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bannon-flattered-and-coaxed-trump-on-policies-key-to-the-alt-right/2016/11/15/53c66362-ab69-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html . Bannon equivocates being civic-minded with ensuring that not too many businesspeople in the USA are of Asian descent.

Submit

31. " 'Government' is the word we use to describe the process by which our collective resources are mobilized, and our collective choices are made to achieve our collective goals."

Explanation

Environmental attorney Gary A. Patton, who was an elected official from 1975 to 1995, put this on his blog on May 13, 2010, http://www.gapatton.net/2010/05/132-democracy.html .

Submit

32. "That's the trouble -- that businessmen refuse to approach us in a spirit of trust and friendship.  They seem to imagine that we are their enemies."

Explanation

This is spoken by one of the three judges at the trial of Hank Rearden.  It is on page 482 of the 1992 hardbound edition.

Submit

33. "His old-fashioned brand of ruthlessness seems to be too much even for those predatory barons of profit."

Explanation

The journalist Bertram Scudder mentions that even other industrialists dislike Hank Rearden.  It is from page 485 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

34. "There are no absolutes.  Reality is an illusion."

Explanation

Dr. Simon Pritchett, chair of Patrick Henry University's philosophy department, says this to console a mother whose child has just died.

Have you noticed that although this "There are no absolutes" bromide is common, you don't hear people say it to someone who's grieving?  Someone might say that it's unrealistic that Dr. Pritchett says this to someone who's grieving.  But there is a larger point here -- when you're grieving, you're implicitly acknowledging that absolute facts are real, and your grief is the result of an absolute fact.  The quotation is from page 498 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

35. "Every time I look at my face in a magnified mirror in a hotel bathroom, I jump back in surprise. Seen closely, my skin looks like the surface of a strange planet. Ridges and canyons pock my chin and lips. Forests of tiny hairs grow from my ear lobes. Unnoticed pimples rise from my nose like volcanoes. A sheen of oil coats the landscape. I half expect to see alien creatures living in minute settlements in my dimples or roving the great plains of my cheeks -- and could I look at higher magnification, I would see exactly that.  I do not identify with my body."

Explanation

--New York Times opinionator blog. This is an excerpt from a much longer, and horrifyingly neurotic blog post by Brian Jay Stanley,  "I Am Not This Body," May 6, 2013, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/i-am-not-this-body/?smid=tw-share . Evidently, this exercise in neurosis was deemed a worthy opinion column by the USA's newspaper of record.

Note that this column is not an attempt to educate people about Body Dysmorphic Disorder -- a mental illness involving alienation from one's own body; it's just a neurotic stream-of-consciousness.

Submit

36. "...production is not a private choice, but a public duty."

Explanation

--Eugene Lawson, "the banker with a heart" -- head of the Community National Bank of Madison -- who becomes an economic regulator at the Bureau of Economic Planning & National Resources.  This is from page 533 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

37. [Asked on what he wants to happen to the political system.] "I want to bring everything crashing down..."

Explanation

This is Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon, asked on what he thinks of the "Republican establishment," including the people he thinks are neoliberal globalists. Qtd. by Ronald Radosh, "Steve Bannon, Trump's Top Guy, Told Me He Was 'a Leninist' Who Wants to 'Destroy the State,'" The Daily Beast, August 21, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html .

Submit

38. [Denying that an invention is truly unique and takes a lot of mental effort:] "We're reluctant to believe that great discoveries are in the air. We want to believe that great discoveries are in our heads..."

Explanation

This is Malcolm Gladwell stating his own opinion in "In the Air: Who Says Big Ideas Are Rare?," The New Yorker, May 12, 2008, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/12/in-the-air .

Submit

39. "Markets are the single most destructive thing human beings have ever created."

Explanation

This was an August 18, 2011 tweet from Jonathan McIntosh, who would later become the writer and producer for the YouTube series Feminist Frequency, hosted by Anita Sarkeesian.  On account of her fame from Feminist Frequency, Ms. Sarkeesian would be a guest on The Colbert Report (in the final season) and be interviewed on CNN.  This tweet of Mr. McIntosh's is visible at https://archive.today/ohENk .

Submit

40. "My problem is that I don't believe in progress, and I am skeptical of how chemistry is contributing to my humanity."

Explanation

That is from McGill University classics professor Anne Carson in the British television program "The Nobel Legacy," qtd. by Dudley Herschbach, "Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads," The Flight from Science and Reason, ed. Paul R. Gross, et al., (New York, NY:  New York Academy of Sciences, 1996), p. 12.

Submit

41. "Darkness is good. ... That's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong, when they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

Explanation

Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this to Michael Wolff, "Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower As the President-Elect's Strategist Plots 'an Entirely New Political Movement' (Exclusive)," The Hollywood Reporter, November 18, 2016, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747 .

Submit

42. "...you businessmen have been predicting disaster for years, you've cried catastrophe at every progressive measure and told us we'll perish -- but we haven't."

Explanation

This is from Atlas Shrugged.  A group of government regulators, including Eugene Lawson of the Bureau of Economic Planning & National Resources, tells Hank Rearden its ridiculous Steel Unification Plan which will destroy Rearden Steel.  Rearden tells Lawson that he can't expect this plan to bring prosperity, as it will cause Rearden Steel to run at a loss. The quotation above is Lawson's reply.  It is from page 985 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

43. "Man?  What is man?  He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur."

Explanation

This is said by Dr. Simon Pritchett, the chair of the philosophy department at Patrick Henry University.  It is on page 131 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

44. "...we must control men in order to force them to be free."

Explanation

Dr. Simon Prichett, Patrick Henry University's philosophy department chair, says this on page 132 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

45. "The boundaries of 'me' are fluid and blurred. We are all profoundly linked in countless ways we can hardly perceive. My decisions, choices, actions are inspired and motivated by others to no small extent."

Explanation

This comes from Firmin DeBrabander, associate professor of philosophy at the Maryland College Institute of Arts, "Deluded Individualism," New York Times Opinionator blog, August 18, 2012, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/deluded-individualism/?smid=fb-share .

Submit

46. "When in doubt, it's the weak that must be considered, not the strong."

Explanation

Orren Boyle, who runs Associated Steel and supports government regulation, says this.  It is on page 499 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

47. "I want to be loved for myself -- not for anything I do or have or say or think.  For myself -- not for my body or mind or words or works or actions."

Explanation

This is said by James Taggart to his wife Cherryl.  It is on page 883 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

48. "...private capitalism -- that is, an economic system in which land, factories, mines and transportation are owned privately and operated solely for profit -- does not work.  It cannot deliver the goods.  This fact had been known to millions of people for years past, but nothing ever came of it, because there was no real urge from below to alter the system, and those at the top had trained themselves to be impenetrably stupid on just that point."

Explanation

--My Country, Right or Left -- 1940 - 1943, ed. by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus.  This is from  George Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn, excerpted in that volume, (Jaffrey, NH: David R. Godine, 2000 edition), page 79 .  George Orwell really believed that market economics was less efficient than central government planning of the economy.

Submit

49. "Now it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth, it is the state, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the establishment of the church and family."

Explanation

--Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science third series, "Recent American Socialism" by Richard T. Ely, no. 4, April 1885: 5-74. This is from page 73.  Richard T. Ely was a pioneering American sociologist and progressive who founded the American Economic Association (AEA) and who held a strong influence on Robert La Follette, John R. Commons, and Simon Patten. 

Commons influenced Theodore Roosevelt, and Patten, in turn, influenced Rexford Tugwell -- an important figure in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Thus, much of the welfare-state measures of the New Deal can, in terms of inspiration, be traced back to the Richard T. Ely who wrote the words I quoted.

Submit

50. "I think that is the effect which would be very unfortunate, but to my mind there is no such thing as an innocent purchaser of stocks -- I mean innocent in the sense in which we are considering the purchasers of stock in the organization."

Explanation

--Pujo Committee Hearings, (Washington, D.C.:  U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912), p. 1177.  The words were spoken by progressive Louis D. Brandeis, who would become a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  He is revered as a defender of civil liberties when, in fact, he ruled it constitutional for states to sterilize women forcibly.

Submit

51. "I don't want scientists messing around in the garden of my soul."

Explanation

That is from McGill University classics professor Anne Carson in the British television program "The Nobel Legacy," qtd. by Dudley Herschbach, "Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads," The Flight from Science and Reason, ed. Paul R. Gross, et al., (New York, NY:  New York Academy of Sciences, 1996), p. 13.

Submit

52. "For the most part you can't respect people because most people aren't worthy of respect."

Explanation

Donald Trump giving his opinion to Michael D'Antonio in a 2014 interview, qtd. by Michael Barbaro, "What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes Show," New York Times, October 25, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/donald-trump-interviews.html .

Submit

53. [Serious, not joking:] "Two plus two equals five."

Explanation

This is from a Soviet propaganda poster that Iakov/Yakov Guminer made for Josef Stalin in 1931 in celebration of the Five Year Plan Stalin announced in 1929. After two years of it being done, Stalin said that with enthusiasm of the Russian people, it would only take another two years to complete his plan. For details on that, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_%2B_2_%3D_5#Soviet_planning .

Submit

54. [Saying it is naive for anyone to think there is something necessarily wrong with hypocrisy:] "Hypocrisy implies a contradiction between the inner and outer selves. ... But even worse, hypocrisy suggests that others are wrong for behaving the way they do. Hypocrites act one way and behave another. ... We must all listen to our inner children." 

Explanation

This is from National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

Submit

55. "The attempt to bring such utopianism to the here and now is the sin of trying to immanentize the eschaton."

Explanation

This is from National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

Submit

56. "The idea of 'de-developing' rich countries might prove to be a strong rallying cry in the global south, but it will be tricky to sell to Westerners. Tricky, but not impossible."

Explanation

This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

Submit

57. "Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don't need to know. And that's pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. ...  If I see something that I think of as a snake, I don't pick it up. If I see a train, I don't step in front of it. I've evolved these symbols to keep me alive, so I have to take them seriously. But it's a logical flaw to think that if we have to take it seriously, we also have to take it literally. ... Snakes and trains, like the particles of physics, have no objective, observer-independent features. ... My snakes and trains are my mental representations; your snakes and trains are your mental representations."

Explanation

This is from Donald Hoffman, professor of cognitive sciences at the University of California at Irvine, interviewed by Amanda Gefter, "The Case Against Reality," The Atlantic, April 25, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/ .

Submit

58. "The purpose of philosophy is not to seek knowledge, but to prove that knowledge is impossible to man."

Explanation

Dr. Simon Pritchett, Patrick Henry University's philosophy department chair, proclaims as much on page 133 of the 1992 hardcover version.

Submit

59. "What I've been thinking is, we ought to think of expanding [government control] -- the way things are, there's nobody to stop us, it's there for the taking..."

Explanation

Cuffy Meigs says this on pages 947-948 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

60. "If we think we're alone in our darkest thoughts, we experience shame. When we recognize we are not alone in our darkest thoughts, we gain solidarity, a tribe."

Explanation

This is the opinion of Stefan Molyneux, the anarchist podcaster of FreeDomain Radio, from "The Decline and Collapse of Sweden | European Migrant Crisis," May 17, 2016, 1:28:37 mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l3K872WSGI&feature=youtu.be&t=1h28m37s .

Submit

61. "One of the great American industrialists of our day -- a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of 'rightist reaction' in this nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern."

Explanation

Franklin D. Roosevelt said this in his January 11, 1944 State of the Union message to Congress, where he introduced his Economic Bill of Rights. See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16518 .

Submit

62. "It's logical illogic. . . . In my philosophy, and in what governs my behavior as a journalist in a free country, is that if you start to eliminate this 'glorious gray' -- I would call it -- then you're taking me down the road to a system that has absolutes in it, and that, to me, is anathema."

Explanation

These are the words of the political journalist Thomas Oliphant, formerly of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and later a columnist with the Boston Globe. Oliphant said this to Jan Helfeld in an interview that Helfeld uploaded onto YouTube on December 8, 2008. That is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1bdP1hnSc&feature=youtu.be&t=3m21s .

Submit

63. "And I don't like the idea about no directives and no controls.  I grant you they're running hog-wild and overdoing it.  But -- no controls at all? I don't go along with that. I think some controls are necessary.  The ones which are for the public good."

Explanation

After Hank Rearden's trial, Rearden hears this from a statist businessman.  It is from page 485 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

64. [As a command:] "But move away from philosophy and down to earth."

Explanation

This is from National Review magazine editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

Submit

65. "Markets are a destructive force and need to be abolished -- replaced with some kind of democratic participatory planning process."

Explanation

Jonathan McIntosh sent out this tweet on May 7, 2012.  He would eventually gain notoriety as the writer-producer of the YouTube series Feminist Frequency, hosted by Anita Sarkeesian.  Because of this series, Ms. Sarkeesian has been interviewed on CNN and for The Colbert Report.  This tweet is at https://archive.today/HG7jW .

Submit

66. "You do not grasp the fact that the universe is a solid contradiction."

Explanation

Dr. Simon Pritchett, Patrick Henry University's philosophy department chair, says this on page 132 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

67. "Yet we have insisted that all matter naturally segregates into two categories — life and nonlife — and have searched in vain for the dividing line. It's not there. We must accept that the concept of life sometimes has its pragmatic value for our particular human purposes, but it does not reflect the reality of the universe outside the mind."

Explanation

--New York Times Opinionator blog post by science writer Ferris Jabr, "Why Nothing Is Truly Alive," March 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/why-nothing-is-truly-alive.html?hp&rref=opinion .

Submit

68. "Every child born into the world should be looked upon by society as so much raw material to be manufactured."

Explanation

That is from the pioneering American sociologist Lester Frank Ward, often praised by the likes of Diane Ravitch and Henry Steele Commager for being so progressive and democratic.  The words are from “Education,” 1871–73, previously unpublished manuscript found in the Special Collections Div. of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, republished in Clarence J. Karier, ed. Shaping the American Educational State:  1900 to the Present, (New York, NY:  The Free Press, 1975), 150-51.

Submit

69. "I'm open-minded enough to believe that two absolutely contradictory propositions can indeed both be able to exist in this wonderful, brilliant world of ours we can only begin to fathom a small percentage of."

Explanation

The words come from David Corn, chief of the Washington, D.C., bureau of the progressive magazine Mother Jones.  They are from an interview with Jan Helfeld, which Helfeld uploaded onto YouTube on December 10, 2008.  That can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7enG9KuiE&feature=youtu.be&t=3m44s .

Submit

70. "Unlimited freedom means that a strong man is free to bully one who is weak and to rob him of his freedom.  This is why we demand that the state should limit freedom to a certain extent, so that everyone's freedom is to be protected by law."

Explanation

This is from Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume 2 -- a book that many political conservatives mistake for a defense of liberty (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971 edition), p. 124. Popper was a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics.

Submit

71. "We need a national subsidy for literature . It is disgraceful that artists are treated like peddlers..."

Explanation

On page 141 of the 1992 hardcover edition, the vaunted writer Balph Eubank proposes this.

Submit

72. "We are not the sole authors of our destiny, each of us; our destinies are entangled -- messily, unpredictably. Our cultural demands of individualism are too extreme."

Explanation

This is from Firmin DeBrabander, associate professor of philosophy at the Maryland College Institute of Arts, "Deluded Individualism," New York Times Opinionator blog, August 18, 2012, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/deluded-individualism/?smid=fb-share .

Submit

73. "Likewise, 'life' is an idea. We find it useful to think of some things as alive and others as inanimate, but this division exists only in our heads."

Explanation

--New York Times Opinionator blog post, "Why Nothing Is Truly Alive" by science journalist Ferris Jabr, March 12, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/why-nothing-is-truly-alive.html?hp&rref=opinion .

Submit

74. "Personally, I'm proud to believe that I am working for the public good, not just for my own profit."

Explanation

This is what one statist industrialist tells Hank Rearden after his trial.  It is on page 485 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

75. "Argument and propaganda got nowhere.  The lords of property simply sat on their bottoms and proclaimed that all was for the best."

Explanation

--My Country, Right or Left -- 1940 - 1943, ed. by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus.  This is from  George Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn, excerpted in that volume, (Jaffrey, NH: David R. Godine, 2000 edition), page 79 . 

Submit

76. "If we consider whether the convinced egoist can achieve his philosophical goal, his subjective well-being, the gratification of his egoism, the pitiful fiasco is at once evident.  It needs no sharp-sighted speculations...to know that everything can be satisfied in this world, except egoistic strivings."

Explanation

This is from Nazi Party member Kurt Gauger in "Psychotherapy and Political World View," in George L. Mosse, ed., Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich, trans. Salvator Attanasio, (New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1966), pp. 218.

Submit

77. "Man's metaphysical pretensions are preposterous."

Explanation

Dr. Simon Pritchett, chair of the philosophy department at Patrick Henry University, says this on page 131 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

78. "So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed."

Explanation

Literary expert Balph Eubank proclaims this on page 133 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

79. "There is no such thing as 'a tree' in the world outside the mind."

Explanation

--New York Times Opinionator blog post by science journalist Ferris Jabr, "Why Nothing Is Truly Alive," March 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/why-nothing-is-truly-alive.html?hp&rref=opinion .

Submit

80. "And yet this human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. The great masses of a nation are not composed of philosophers. For the masses of the people, especially faith is absolutely the only basis of a moral outlook on life. The various substitutes that have been offered have not shown any result that might warrant us in thinking that they might usefully replace the existing denominations."

Explanation

This is Adolf Hitler stating his opinion in Mein Kampf, as translated into English in 1939 by James Murphy. It is from Chapter 10, "Why the Second Reich Collapsed."

Submit

81. "In light of this, perhaps we should regard such countries not as underdeveloped, but rather as appropriately developed. And maybe we need to start calling on rich countries to justify their excesses."

Explanation

This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

Submit

82.
  • Person 1: "We're going to have to impose a major tax on companies that leave, build their products and think they're going to sell it right through our border like we're a bunch of jerks."
  • Person 2: "What about the free market, sir?"
  • Person 1: "That's not free market when they go out and they move and they sell back into our country."
  • Person 2: "But that's the free market. They made a decision--"
  • Person 1: "No, that's the dumb market.  That's the dumb market. I'm a big free trader, but it has to be fair."

Explanation

Person 1 is Donald Trump. Person 2 is interviewer Chris Wallace. This interview was from Fox News Sunday, aired December 11, 2016 on the Fox News Channel.

Submit

83. "Everybody uses the work of everybody else.  Nobody ever invents anything."

Explanation

James Taggart says this of Hank Rearden upon first meeting Cherryl Brooks. It is on page 262 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

84. "A man's brain is a social product.  A sum of influences he's picked up from those around him."

Explanation

--Dr. Floyd Ferris, physicist at the State Science Institute, on page 540 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

85. "...free economy is now on trial.  Unless it proves its social value, and assumes its social responsibilities, the people won't stand for it.  If it doesn't develop a public spirit, it's done for."

Explanation

These words are from Orren Boyle, the government-regulation-supporting owner of Associated Steel.  This is from page 45 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

86. "Here the state must act as the guardian of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit."

Explanation

That is from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim, (Boston, MA:  Mariner Books, 2001 trade paperback edition), p. 404.

Submit

87. "We will release our spiritual aims from dependence on the owners of material means."

Explanation

This is from page 404 of the 1992 hardcover edition of Atlas Shrugged.  The government-regulation-advocating company president James Taggart says it at his wedding.

Submit

88. "...we live in a society that affirms the dependence and interdependence of all. To that extent, it affirms a basic truth of our nature. We forsake it at our own peril."

Explanation

This is from Firmin DeBrabander, associate professor of philosophy at the Maryland College Institute of Arts, "Deluded Individualism," New York Times Opinionator blog, August 18, 2012, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/deluded-individualism/?smid=fb-share .

Submit

89. "I want everyone to keep the property that he has acquired for himself according to the principle:  benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual."

Explanation

It is claimed that these words were spoken by Adolf Hitler in an interview conducted Monday, May 4, 1931, by Richard Breiting, published in Unmasked:  Two Confidential Interviews With Hitler in 1931, (London, United Kingdom:  Chatto & Windus,   1971), pp. 32-33.   The authenticity of the interviews are disputed, though the ideas expressed in them are consistent with what is written in Mein Kampf.

Submit

90. "Here is my conclusion: Life is a concept, not a reality."

Explanation

This bit of verbal insanity is from Ferris Jabr, who serves as associate editor at the acclaimed magazine Scientific American.  It is from "Why Nothing Is Truly Alive," New York Times Opinionator blog, March 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/why-nothing-is-truly-alive.html?hp&rref=opinion .

Jabr's argument is as follows: when you get down to looking at viruses and other simple organisms, it's difficult to find -- at the noumenal level -- the exact line of demarcation separating living matter from nonliving matter. Therefore, Jabr concludes, "life" is meaningless. The name of Jabr's fallacy is "How many long hairs does it take to make a beard?" If I shave all the hair on my face, but leave one facial hair above my lip long, that is not enough to make a beard. But what if I leave two hairs long? Or three? Or one hundred? We do not know -- at some noumenal level -- the exact line of demarcation that separates "having a beard" from "not having a beard." But it does not follow from that there is no meaning to the concept "beard"; you can still identify a beard when you see it. Likewise, it is not necessary to identify, at some noumenal level, the line of demarcation separating "nonliving" from "living"; when you see a living animal, you are still justified in ascertaining that it is alive.

Submit

91. "We have free will but we do not own ourselves, and we certainly cannot take ownership of ourselves by obliterating ourselves."

Explanation

--The Blaze.  This is from the Religious Right blogger Matt Walsh, "There Is Nothing Brave About Suicide," October 9, 2014, http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/there-is-nothing-brave-about-suicide/ .  He sounds like Immanuel Kant.

Submit

92. "And that's the problem: . . .  the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it, and they have an antipathy toward the means of redistributing wealth."

Explanation

Those are words of Jim Moran, former U.S. Representative from Virginia, in a 2008 interview available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJyS1WJNisM .

Submit

93. "...selfish individualism led us into the wasteland of official indifference to the suffering of many."

Explanation

The famous singer and political activist Barbra Streisand spoke those words at a fundraiser where she introduced President Bill Clinton.  She is quoted by David J. Fox, "A Record $5 Million for AIDS," Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1994, http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-29/entertainment/ca-16523_1_life-vii .

Submit

94. "...I am in favor of a free economy.  A free economy cannot exist without competition.  Therefore, men must be forced to compete."

Explanation

Dr. Simon Pritchett, chair of Patrick Henry University's philosophy department, says this on page 132 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

95. "If everybody else is poor, they won't have any market for their goods.  But if they stop being selfish and share the goods they've hoarded -- they'll have a chance to work hard and produce some more."

Explanation

Socialite Betty Pope says this at Lillian Rearden's soiree on page 135 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

96. [In response to the claim that there is an objective reality independent of human opinion:]"The only right point of view is the social, and from this point of view expropriation is so far from appearing as an abnormity, a contradiction to the idea of property, that we must regard it as something absolutely required by the idea of property. "

Explanation

--Poverty and Contract in Their Relation to the Distribution of Wealth vol. 2, (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1914 vol. 2), p. 496, by Richard T. Ely.

Ely founded the American Economic Association (AEA) and strongly influenced Robert LaFollette and the Progressive movement in general.

Submit

97. "We are given life, we take part in life, we participate in life, but we do not own our lives. We can't take possession of our lives like a two-year-old grabbing a toy from his friend and shouting 'Mine!' "

Explanation

--The Blaze.  This is from the Religious Right blogger Matt Walsh, "There Is Nothing Brave About Suicide," October 9, 2014, http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/there-is-nothing-brave-about-suicide/ .

Submit

98. [Discussing with colleague on how to sell their political plan to the public:] " Let's play the game with brains here, we can't just kill them all."

Explanation

On December 16, 2014, Breitbart News reporter Matthew Boyle sent this e-mail to Breitbart News chair Stephen K. Bannon, qtd. by Betsy Woodruff, "Donald Trump's New Chief Steve Bannon Called Republican Leaders 'C**ts,"", The Daily Beast, August 19, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/19/donald-trump-s-new-chief-steve-bannon-called-republican-leaders-c-ts.html .

Submit

99. "The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected."

Explanation

This is from the late biologist Garrett Hardin, who coined the expression "The Tragedy of the Commons," in the Science article of the very same name.  It is vol. 162 (no. 3859, December 13, 1968): 1243-48, and can be viewed online at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ full/162/3859/1243 .
 

Submit

100. "In practice the natural sciences are not, and have never been as 'objective' or 'empirical' as you like to think."

Explanation

This is a December 22, 2014 tweet from Jonathan McIntosh, the writer-producer of the acclaimed Web series Feminist Frequency, hosted by Anita Sarkeesian.  As a result of her fame from this program, Ms. Sarkeesian has been a guest on The Colbert Report and has been interviewed on CNN. The tweet is available at https://archive.today/FOgLQ#selection-4649.1-4649.114 .

Submit

101. "In fact, nothing is truly alive. What is life? Science cannot tell us."

Explanation

These words arrive from the science journalist Ferris Jabr, associate editor at the esteemed magazine Scientific American.  The words themselves are from "Why Nothing Is Truly Alive," New York Times Opinionator blog, March 12, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/why-nothing-is-truly-alive.html?hp&rref=opinion .

Submit

102. "Nobody invents anything, he merely reflects what's floating in the social atmosphere."

Explanation

--Dr. Floyd Ferris, physicist at the State Science Institute, on page 540 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

103. "I can't judge any individuals: I'm a philosopher -- I don't care about individuals."

Explanation

Anarchist podcaster Stefan Molyneux says this in his video "The Death of Germany | European Migrant Crisis," September 16, 2015, 0:27:46 mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-30gF6WB-GY&feature=youtu.be&t=27m46s .

Submit

104. "Accordingly the action was done neither from duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view. . . .  They preserve their life as duty requires, no doubt, but not because duty requires. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one [a man suffering from extreme misfortune, such as terminal illness], strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it -- not from inclination or fear, but from duty --  then his maxim has a moral worth. "

Explanation

This is an English translation of the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, from the First Section in his Groundwork on the Metaphysic of Morals.  The section in question is online at http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Books/Kant/MM/Part1.html .

Submit

105. "The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exhaustively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness."

Explanation

This arrives via education reformer John Dewey, The School and Society, 1915, in The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum ,   (Mineola, NY:  Dover Publications, 2001 edition), p. 11.

Submit

106. "...you may not share some of our ideas, but when all is said and done, we're all working for the same cause.  For the good of the people."

Explanation

This is from one of the three judges at Hank Rearden's trial.  It is on page 482 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

107. "It is recognized that in time of peace that the public may take what it may need of private property for the general welfare, paying a fair compensation and that the right to own property carries with it the duty of using it for the welfare of our fellow man."

Explanation

This one is surprising.  It comes from someone who is normally taken as an advocate of free markets, and is admired even by me.  It comes from Calvin Coolidge.  You can read these remarks in Have Faith in Massachusetts, (Boston, MA:  Houghton Mifflin, 1919), p. 133.

Submit

108. "The 'control of nature' is a phrase  conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man."

Explanation

Rachel Carson wrote this in her book Silent Spring. It is at the conclusion of her chapter "The Other Road."

Submit

109. "The only justification of private property is public service."

Explanation

This is said by government-regulation-supporting businessman Orren Boyle, who runs Associated Steel.  This is from page 45 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

110. [This is a preemptive rebuttal to any claim that individual rights trump social collectivism:]"Right is whatever's good for society."

Explanation

These are the words of Claude Slagenhop, who runs the progressive NGO (non-government organization) called Friends of Global Progress.  This is on page 136 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

111. "Thus, we can entertain nostalgia for a time when everyone pulled his own weight, bore his own risk, and was the master of his destiny. That time was a myth. But the notion of self-reliance is also a fallacy."

Explanation

This was written by Firmin Debrabander,  associate professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art.  It was in "Deluded Individualism," New York Times Opinionator blog, August 18, 2012, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/deluded-individualism/?smid=fb-share .

Submit

112. "Not only is defining life futile, but it is also unnecessary to understanding how living things work. All observable matter is, at its most fundamental level, an arrangement of atoms and their constituent particles."

Explanation

This is from a New York Times Opinionator blog post by the science journalist Ferris Jabr, "Why Nothing Is Truly Alive," March 12, 2014, at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/why-nothing-is-truly-alive.html?hp&rref=opinion .

Submit

113. "We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives."

Explanation

--Buck v. Bell. This was a U.S. Supreme Court case about state governments imposing compulsory sterilization.  On the Supreme Court, both Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Louis D. Brandeis ruled that forcible sterilization was constitutional.  The words quoted are from Holmes's opinion on the topic -- he says this to rationalize his violation of individual rights in this matter. It is from May 2, 1927, and can be read in full at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=274&invol=200 .

Submit

114. "I don't think there is such a thing as reality."

Explanation

These words were of John S. Reed, former CEO of Citicorp (now Citigroup), owner of Citibank, one of the major banks that collapsed in 2008 and received a federal bailout, although Reed was no longer CEO at that time.

A fuller quotation is: ""I don’t think there is such a thing as reality. There are widely varying descriptions of reality, and you’ve got to be alert to when they change and what’s really going on. No one is going to truly grasp it, but you have to stay truly active on that end. That implies you have to have a multifaceted perspective."

Those words are from an interview in Business Week magazine. They were quoted in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1996), pp. 64-65.

Submit

115. "I don't believe that people should be empowered to do what pleases them the most.  We have a responsibility beyond ourselves."

Explanation

Those words were spoken by Republican former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. It was during an interview for the July 28, 2005 episode of CN8's Nitebeat with Barry Nolan.  A YouTube clip of that interview can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zFTTqHScI

Submit

116. "...we never know what we are talking about. . . .  We can never know or understand all the implications of a theory, or its full significance."

Explanation

These words were written by the late Karl Popper, a professor of philosophy with the London School of Economics.  They are from the 2002 edition of his book Unended Quest:  An Intellectual Autobiography (New York, NY:  Routledge), page 26.

In response to Popper asserting, "...we never know what we are talking about," I reply:  "Speak for yourself, buddy!"

Submit

117. "I should expect that even they [businessmen] would regard with approbation the man who, having achieved colossal wealth by his own energy and ability, has not turned his back on the class from which he sprang,...but by acts of signal liberality has shown that he looks upon wealth not as a sort of booty to be enjoyed in selfish isolation, but as a public trust..."

Explanation

That is from a transcript of a speech given by nineteenth-century steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie, found in Home Rule in America Volume 2, (Glasgow, United Kingdom:  Glasgow Junior Liberal Association, 1887), p. 10.  Progressives have derided Carnegie as a robber baron, but he actually agreed with them that a millionaire's peaceably acquired fortune does not truly belong to him, but to the public. 

One could ask Carnegie, If you admit that the public owns your estate, and not you, why not let the masses forcibly seize your assets at once?  Carnegie's reply is that although his money does not truly belong to him, the fact that he accumulated so much money shows he is better at managing than most people, and therefore he is tasked with the duty of deciding how best to disperse his money for the social collective.  Carnegie was in a contradiction -- trying to defend his control over his private property while simultaneously denying that he ought to have ultimate control over it.

Submit

118. "Individual actions are no such thing at all; they are expressions of another entity altogether, which acts through us unwittingly."

Explanation

This was written by Firmin Debrabrander, associate professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Arts, in "Deluded Individualism," New York Times Opinionator blog, August 18, 2012, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/deluded-individualism/?smid=fb-share .

Submit

119. "This happy delusion that there are such things as facts, and they do not deceive us, underlies the whole progress of science and chemistry down to the present day."

Explanation

That is from McGill University classics professor Anne Carson in the British television program "The Nobel Legacy," qtd. by Dudley Herschbach, "Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads," The Flight from Science and Reason, ed. Paul R. Gross, et al., (New York, NY:  New York Academy of Sciences, 1996), p. 12.

Submit

120. "When the masses are destitute and yet there are goods available, it's idiotic to expect people to be stopped by some scrap of paper called a property deed."

Explanation

On page 135 of the 1992 hardcover edition, this is said by Bertram Scudder, the progressive muckraking journalist.  He writes for a collectivist propaganda magazine called The Future, which has many real-life counterparts: Mother Jones, The Nation, In These Times, The Verge, Jezebel, Salon, or Slate.

Submit

121. "They break the regulations which protect which protect the common welfare of all -- for the sake of their own personal gain."

Explanation

This is from the 1992 hardcover edition, page 467.  This is Philip Rearden denouncing his own brother Hank.

Submit

122. [Stern and intimidating:] "You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against -- then you'll know this is not the age for beautiful gestures."

Explanation

Dr. Floyd Ferris says this in his threat to Hank Rearden on page 436 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

123. "...private property is a trusteeship held for the benefit of society as a whole."

Explanation

In Atlas Shrugged, the government-regulation-supporting industrialist Orren Boyle, who operates Associated Steel, says this. In the 1992 hardcover edition, it is on page 46.

Submit

124. "There must be reasonable restrictions upon competition, else we shall see competition destroyed."

Explanation

These words come from Louis D. Brandeis, who was a progressive lawyer who became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.  Because he popularized the terms "right to privacy" and "right to be let alone," he is often taken as a supporter of civil liberties.  However, he also ruled it constitutional for the state government of New Jersey to sterilize Carrie and Doris Buck forcibly, against their will -- a terrible invasion of their privacy, insofar as your reproductive organs are private.  The words above are from a letter that Brandeis wrote to Robert La Follette on May 27, 1913. The letter is quoted by Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 102..

Submit

125. "Fear is a good thing. Fear is going to lead you to take action."

Explanation

Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this in a 2010 interview, qtd. by Michael Barbaro and Michael N. Grynbaum, "Stephen Bannon, a Rookie Campaign Chief Who 'Loves to Fight,'" New York Times, August 17, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/us/politics/stephen-bannon.html .

Submit

126. "Christianity, as I understand it, holds that the perfect world is the next one, not this one. We can do what we can where we can here, but we're never going to change the fact that we're fallen, imperfect creatures."

Explanation

This is from National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

Submit

127. " 'Collect it all' doesn't mean 'Collect it all.'"

Explanation

This is from Gen. Michael Hayden when still NSA director, referring to whether the National Security Agency collects all electronic data on Americans. Qtd. by "Everyone Is Under Surveillance Now, Says Whistleblower Edward Snowden," The Guardian, Saturday, May 3, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/03/everyone-is-under-surveillance-now-says-whistleblower-edward-snowden .

Submit

128. "Experiment after experiment has shown -- defying common sense -- that if we assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers. The central lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out there in some preexisting space."

Explanation

Writing very seriously, this is from MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow Amanda Gefter in "The Case Against Reality," The Atlantic, April 25, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/ .

Submit

129. "...people that say facts are facts. They're not really facts. . . . Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth, or not truth. There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.

Explanation

CNN commentator and Donald Trump supporter Scottie Nell Hughes said this on November 30, 2016, on The Diane Rehm Show, qtd. by Lindsey Ellfeson, "Scottie Nell Hughes Straight-Up Said 'There's No Such Thing' As Facts," Mediate, December 1, 2016, http://www.mediaite.com/online/scottie-nell-hughes-straight-up-said-theres-no-such-things-as-facts/ .

Submit

130. "Unlimited freedom is chaos. It would destroy mankind.  Any order, by whatever means, is preferable."

Explanation

This is the opinion of classics scholar Edith Hamilton in The Echo of Greece, (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1957), 18.

Submit

131. "Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property."

Explanation

This is from Dr. Benjamin Rush in 1786.  Dr. Rush signed the Declaration of Independence, but he was not a consistent defender of individual liberty.  He said that he wanted a system of tax-funded government-controlled schools exactly because they were a perfect vehicle for indoctrinating students to believe in the greatness of the State.   I got this from  "A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania; To Which Are Added, Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education, Proper in a Republic,"  in Charles S., and Donald S. Lutz, eds. American Political Writings During the Founding Era:  1760–1805, (Indianapolis, IN:  Liberty Press, 1983 volume 1), pp. 684-86.  You can also read these words at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/DKitchen/new_655/rush.htm .     

1983 vol. 1:  675-692.

Submit

132. "These discoveries have led scientists to contradictions which are impossible, according to the human mind, but which exist in reality nonetheless."

Explanation

This is on page 341 of the 1992 hardcover edition.  It is from the book "Why Do You Think You Think?", written by physicist Floyd Ferris of the State Science Institute. 

Submit

133. [This is intended as an explanation of why he is right to push a law that violates individual rights for the ostensible benefit of society as a whole.]"What is social is right, and there is no definition of right beyond that."

Explanation

This is qtd. by Matt Ridley, Genome, (New York, NY:  Harper, 2000), p. 297. It is quoting Karl Pearson, the pioneering statistician who wanted the British government to engage in coercive sterilization of families in which mental illness ran.  He said this violation of individual rights was good for society as a whole.

Submit

134. "[...this directive...] does not interfere with the ownership but merely regulates the occupancy of property."

Explanation

This was from the legal brief the state of Kentucky filed in 1916 in the U.S. Supreme Court case Buchanan v. Warley in defense of racially discriminatory zoning.  The authors of the brief were Stuart Chevalier and Pendleton Beckley.  See "Argument for Defendant in Error" in “Buchanan v. Warley:  Error to the Court of Appeals of the State of Kentucky.  245 U.S. 60,” in Ernest Knaebel, ed., United States Reports vol. 245:  Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1917, From October 1, 1917, to March 4, 1918, (New York, NY:  The Banks Law Publishing Co., 1918 volume 245), 64-68.

It should be mentioned that the brief that Moorfield Storey (the NAACP's first president) and Clayton Blakey filed against racial zoning in this case, actually cited a pro-capitalist U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Lochner v. New York.  Storey and Blakey argued that racial zoning violated freedom of association and the right to private property, as racial zoning prevented a white person from selling property freely to a person of color.  The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Storey and Blakey, pointing out that racial zoning, as with any violation of private property rights, conflicts against the Fourteenth Amendment.  Barack Obama and various anti-capitalists denounce the Lochner decision, and yet they should note that the Lochner decision served as the judicial precedent that Storey and Blakey used to have racial zoning ruled unconstitutional.

Submit

135. "Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. ... We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Explanation

This is from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address on March 3, 1933. See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14473 .

Submit

136. "In the long run, we'll all be dead."

Explanation

This line is spoken twice by the government regulator Cuffy Meigs in Atlas Shrugged.  Any time someone speaks of the long run, Meigs retorts, "In the long run, we'll all be dead!"  For the 1992 hardcover edition, he says this on page 843 and again on page 947.

Perhaps you thought this was a quotation of the economist John Maynard Keynes?  He said, "In the long run, we're all dead" (emphasis added). The wording is slightly different.  I would not be surprised, though, if Ayn Rand were deliberately alluding to Keynes with Meigs's dialogue.

Submit

137. "The basic attitude from which such activity arises, we call -- to distinguish it from egoism and selfishness -- idealism.  By this we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man."

Explanation

That is from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim, (Boston, MA:  Mariner Books, 2001 trade paperback edition), p. 298.

Submit

138. "...every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it." 

Explanation

That is from Theodore Roosevelt's speech "The New Nationalism,"  delivered in Osawatomie, Kansas on August 31, 1910.  You can see a transcript of the speech at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/new-nationalism-speech/ .

Submit

139. "The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare..."

Explanation

That is from Theodore Roosevelt's speech "The New Nationalism,"  delivered in Osawatomie, Kansas on August 31, 1910.  You can see a transcript of the speech at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/new-nationalism-speech/ .

Submit

140. "Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism."

Explanation

The literary critic Balph Eubank says this on page 133 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

141. [On parties that are tired of the taxation and regulation in the USA and no longer investing economic activity in the United States:] "It's treason to shield a deserter! It's economic treason!"

Explanation

Taggart Transcontinental president James Taggart says this to Eddie Willers when Willers won't tell Taggart the whereabouts of his sister Dagny Taggart, the railroad's operating vice president. James is calling his sister a deserter. This is from page 625 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Submit

142. "Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences."

Explanation

Donald Trump said this at a press conference on December 1, 2016. This concerned the Carrier air conditioning company closing plants in the USA and opening plants in other countries where costs are lower. Trump said he would have the State provide special "incentives" to companies that maintain their plants in the USA while having the State penalize companies that made foreign direct investments elsewhere after closing U.S. plants. The information was available on NBC News at https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/804419132682665984 .

Submit
×
Saved
Thank you for your feedback!
View My Results
Cancel
  • All
    All (142)
  • Unanswered
    Unanswered ()
  • Answered
    Answered ()
"Whereas in the West the self is understood primarily as an...
"To me, what democratic socialism is about is to maintain the...
[On governmental seizures of private land for The Public...
[In response to someone saying that he should be able to keep the...
[Discussing with colleague how to sell their political plan to the...
"There is a growing global anti-establishment revolt against the...
[Explaining that life necessarily contradicts itself:] "The...
"The chief reason for this is that we all understand and accept...
"...[economic] growth isn't an option any more -- we've...
"...instead of pushing poorer countries to 'catch up'...
"A similar majority also believe we should strive to buy and own...
"This is because the greatest possible misery is also the...
[Two characters discuss what they claim is the need for the government...
"And the fact is, when standards like these have been proposed in...
[Explaining how government officials should address economic crises:]...
"Who are we kidding? The business model of Wall Street is fraud....
"I love the fact that America is a contradiction between our...
"You wouldn't want to give support to the widespread...
"It's everything related to jobs. ... I'm the guy pushing...
" I can see this on Wall Street today — I can see this with...
"As you all know, thirty-three people lost their lives today,...
"Figure out who is in your tribe, and fight to the death for your...
"I don't like to analyze myself because I might not like what I...
"I've abandoned free market principles to save the free...
"...there's always been...a belief that we're all...
[On whether his interlocutor's life is real or just some...
"I think it is perfectly unfair that one man should get all the...
"The end of religion in the West had more to do with 'I...
"...I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand...
"A country is more than an economy. We're a civic...
" 'Government' is the word we use to describe the process...
"That's the trouble -- that businessmen refuse to approach us...
"His old-fashioned brand of ruthlessness seems to be too much...
"There are no absolutes.  Reality is an illusion."
"Every time I look at my face in a magnified mirror in a hotel...
"...production is not a private choice, but a public duty."
[Asked on what he wants to happen to the political system.] "I...
[Denying that an invention is truly unique and takes a lot of mental...
"Markets are the single most destructive thing human beings have...
"My problem is that I don't believe in progress, and I am...
"Darkness is good. ... That's power. It only helps us when...
"...you businessmen have been predicting disaster for years,...
"Man?  What is man?  He's just a collection of...
"...we must control men in order to force them to be free."
"The boundaries of 'me' are fluid and blurred. We are all...
"When in doubt, it's the weak that must be considered, not...
"I want to be loved for myself -- not for anything I do or have...
"...private capitalism -- that is, an economic system in which...
"Now it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything...
"I think that is the effect which would be very unfortunate, but...
"I don't want scientists messing around in the garden of my...
"For the most part you can't respect people because most...
[Serious, not joking:] "Two plus two equals five."
[Saying it is naive for anyone to think there is something necessarily...
"The attempt to bring such utopianism to the here and now is the...
"The idea of 'de-developing' rich countries might prove...
"Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to...
"The purpose of philosophy is not to seek knowledge, but to prove...
"What I've been thinking is, we ought to think of expanding...
"If we think we're alone in our darkest thoughts, we experience...
"One of the great American industrialists of our day -- a man who...
"It's logical illogic. . . . In my philosophy, and in what...
"And I don't like the idea about no directives and no...
[As a command:] "But move away from philosophy and down to...
"Markets are a destructive force and need to be abolished --...
"You do not grasp the fact that the universe is a solid...
"Yet we have insisted that all matter naturally segregates into...
"Every child born into the world should be looked upon by society...
"I'm open-minded enough to believe that two absolutely...
"Unlimited freedom means that a strong man is free to bully one...
"We need a national subsidy for literature . It is disgraceful...
"We are not the sole authors of our destiny, each of us; our...
"Likewise, 'life' is an idea. We find it useful to think...
"Personally, I'm proud to believe that I am working for the...
"Argument and propaganda got nowhere.  The lords of property...
"If we consider whether the convinced egoist can achieve his...
"Man's metaphysical pretensions are preposterous."
"So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed."
"There is no such thing as 'a tree' in the world outside...
"And yet this human world of ours would be inconceivable without...
"In light of this, perhaps we should regard such countries not as...
Person 1: "We're going to have to impose a major tax on...
"Everybody uses the work of everybody else.  Nobody ever...
"A man's brain is a social product.  A sum of influences...
"...free economy is now on trial.  Unless it proves its...
"Here the state must act as the guardian of a millennial future...
"We will release our spiritual aims from dependence on the owners...
"...we live in a society that affirms the dependence and...
"I want everyone to keep the property that he has acquired for...
"Here is my conclusion: Life is a concept, not a reality."
"We have free will but we do not own ourselves, and we certainly...
"And that's the problem: . . .  the simplistic notion that...
"...selfish individualism led us into the wasteland of official...
"...I am in favor of a free economy.  A free economy cannot...
"If everybody else is poor, they won't have any market for...
[In response to the claim that there is an objective reality...
"We are given life, we take part in life, we participate in life,...
[Discussing with colleague on how to sell their political plan to the...
"The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion,...
"In practice the natural sciences are not, and have never been as...
"In fact, nothing is truly alive. What is life? Science cannot...
"Nobody invents anything, he merely reflects what's floating...
"I can't judge any individuals: I'm a philosopher -- I...
"Accordingly the action was done neither from duty nor from...
"The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exhaustively...
"...you may not share some of our ideas, but when all is said and...
"It is recognized that in time of peace that the public may take...
"The 'control of nature' is a phrase  conceived in...
"The only justification of private property is public...
[This is a preemptive rebuttal to any claim that individual rights...
"Thus, we can entertain nostalgia for a time when everyone pulled...
"Not only is defining life futile, but it is also unnecessary to...
"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call...
"I don't think there is such a thing as reality."
"I don't believe that people should be empowered to do what...
"...we never know what we are talking about. . . .  We can...
"I should expect that even they [businessmen] would regard with...
"Individual actions are no such thing at all; they are...
"This happy delusion that there are such things as facts, and...
"When the masses are destitute and yet there are goods available,...
"They break the regulations which protect which protect the...
[Stern and intimidating:] "You'd better get it straight that...
"...private property is a trusteeship held for the benefit of...
"There must be reasonable restrictions upon competition, else we...
"Fear is a good thing. Fear is going to lead you to take...
"Christianity, as I understand it, holds that the perfect world...
" 'Collect it all' doesn't mean 'Collect it...
"Experiment after experiment has shown -- defying common sense --...
"...people that say facts are facts. They're not really facts. ....
"Unlimited freedom is chaos. It would destroy mankind.  Any...
"Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but...
"These discoveries have led scientists to contradictions which...
[This is intended as an explanation of why he is right to push a law...
"[...this directive...] does not interfere with the ownership but...
"Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in...
"In the long run, we'll all be dead."
"The basic attitude from which such activity arises, we call --...
"...every man holds his property subject to the general right of...
"The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to...
"Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism."
[On parties that are tired of the taxation and regulation in the USA...
"Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore...
play-Mute sad happy unanswered_answer up-hover down-hover success oval cancel Check box square blue
Alert!