Thread – Excerpts from the Novel “Anthem” by Ann Rand

1. With all the chaos and violence perpetrated by the Left (and underwritten by who knows whom), reflection on wise words written in other times can be a very valuable exercise, to wit:

2. From the forward by Leonard Peikoff – Annotated Centennial Edition:

2A. “You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes…. They change, they deny, they contradict – and they call it growth.”

2B. “At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out of an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment?”

3. From the Author’s forward by Ann Rand (Written at the end of WWII.):

3A. “…Some may think - though I don’t – that nine years ago there was some excuse for men not to see the direction in which the world was going.”

3B. “Today the evidence is so blatant that no excuse can be claimed by anyone any longer. Those that refuse to see it now are neither blind or innocent.”

3C. “The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default; the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting; ….”

3D. “… the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word; the people who believe that the content of ideas need not be examined, ….”

3E. “… that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one’s eyes shut. They expect, when they find themselves in a world of bloody ruins and concentration camps, to escape moral responsibility by wailing: ‘But I didn’t mean this!’”

3F. “Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name....”

4. From the last Chapter:

4A. “Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They pt but in one direction. They pt to me. I know not if this Earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity.”

4B. “I know not and care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on Earth. And my happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.”

4C. “Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their alters.”

4D. “I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!”

4E. “I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thoughts, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.”

4F. “I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for others. I covet no man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet. I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me.”

4G. “And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.”

4H. “I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them in return I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.”

4I. “For in the temple of his spirit, man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.”

4J. “For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and then as a second thought.”

4K. “This word must never be placed first within man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on Earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.”

4L. “The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the gray of it.

4M. “It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.”

4N. “What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?”

4O. “But I am done with this creed of corruption. I am done with the monster of ‘We’, the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame…”

4P. “… And the day will come when I shall break all the chains of the Earth, and raze the cities of the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake.”

4Q. “For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor…”

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5. I say again: the Left and the #Dementiacrats have no idea of the whirlwind they are going to reap by enabling, condoning, and perpetuating the violence in America. Law-abiding Americans are patient, but their patience is not unlimited. Buy (more) guns and ammo.

///The end.