man is the only species with the power to act as his own destroyer, and this is our blessing and our curse. We are free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness.
We are not where we are because we’re “supposed to be”, but because something brought us there; our own actions or our surrendering to the power of someone else’s actions.
Knowledge is the means of survival. For every “is” there is an ought”.
Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy — a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction — not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power.
Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.
To love is to value.
… and when one experiences the pure happiness that is an end in itself – the kind that makes one think “this is worth living for” – what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.
