Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 Chapter 5: The Climax of the d’Anconias

Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago to Books
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Summary: Willers tells Dagny that the San Sebastián Mines were worthless. Dagny came to the Wayne-Falkland Hotel to meet d’Anconia, and first had a flashback to their childhood, focusing on his excellence in education, their romance, his inheritance (age 23), his going on strike (age 26), and transition into a playboy. Real time: Dagny and Francisco converse about old times, about the mines, and about his motives.

Start by reading the first-tier comments, which are all quotes of Ayn Rand (some of my favorites, some just important for other reasons). Comment on your favorite ones, or others' comments. Don't see your favorite quote? Post it in a new comment. Please reserve new comments for Ayn Rand, and your non-Rand quotes for "replies" to the quotes or discussion. (Otherwise Rand's quotes will get crowded out and pushed down into oblivion. You can help avoid this by "voting up" the Rand quotes, or at least the ones you think people should see, and voting down first-tier comments that are not quotes of the featured book.)

Atlas Shrugged was written by Ayn Rand in 1957.

My idea for this post is discussed here:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...


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  • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
    Dagny and d’Anconia: “I came here because I wanted to know the reason for what you’ve done with your life,” she said tonelessly, without anger…. “You were not the kind of man who gets broken by any kind of world.”

    “True.”

    “Then – why?”

    He shrugged. “Who is John Galt?”

    “Oh, don’t use gutter language!”

    … He answered, as he had answered in the night, in this hotel, ten years ago, “You’re not ready to hear it.”
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  • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
    Dagny and d’Anconia: Against all her decisions and control, she cried, “Francisco! If you see what’s happening in the world, if you understand all the things you said, you can’t laugh about it! You, of all men, you should fight them!”

    “Whom?”

    “The looters, and those who make world-looting possible. The Mexican planners and their kind.”

    His smile had a dangerous edge. “No, my dear. It’s you that I have to fight.”
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  • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
    “His [d’Anconia’s] face was hard and tight; it had the look of an emotion she [Dagny] had never believed possible to him: of bitter, helpless anger. He said, ‘There’s something wrong in the world. There’s always been. Something no one has ever named or explained.’ He would not tell her what it was.”
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  • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
    d'Anconia: “Well, I’ve always been unpopular in school and it didn’t bother me, but now I’ve discovered the reason. It’s an impossible kind of reason. They dislike me, not because I do things badly, but because I do them well.”
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    • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
      I sympathize with this. I am convinced that I "lost" more than one job because my bosses were intimidated by my abilities, and ambition. They preferred the status quo.
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  • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
    Jim Taggart and d’Anconia: “Don’t you ever think of anything but d’Anconia Copper?” Jim asked him once.

    “No.”

    “It seems to me that there are other things in the world.”

    “Let others think about them.”

    “Isn’t that a very selfish attitude?”

    “It is.”

    “What are you after?”

    “Money.”

    “Don’t you have enough?”

    … “When I die, I hope to go to heaven – whatever the hell that is – and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.”

    “Virtue is the price of admission,” Jim said haughtily.

    “That’s what I mean, James. So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all – that I was a man who made money.”

    “Any grafter can make money.”

    “James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning.”
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  • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
    d'Anconia to Dagny: "It [the San Sebastián Mines] was to raise everybody's standard of living and provide a roast of pork every Sunday for every man, woman, child and abortion in the People's State of Mexico."
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    • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
      d'Anconia is ridiculing the thinking of the Mexican looter government. Implicitly, it is a critique of the notion that the State is responsible to provide for people's sustenance (whether job, or food, or abortion).

      This forum has seen its share of abortion debates, and there will be more. This doesn't need to be another one. But one thing everyone here should agree on is that the State ought not to be spending tax money to provide medical services, even if it's for women health issues, even if it's to subsidize an organization that provides abortions. To an Objectivist, this should be a point of common ground regardless of what you believe about the morality of abortion.
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  • Posted by 9 years, 3 months ago
    He [d’Anconia] was not smiling when he said, as she opened the door to leave, “You have a great deal of courage, Dagny. Some day, you’ll have enough of it.”
    “Of what? Courage?”
    But he did not answer.
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  • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
    “She heard him chuckling, and after a while he [d’Anconia] said, ‘Dagny, there’s nothing of any importance in life – except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It’s the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they’ll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that’s on a gold standard. When you grow up, you’ll know what I mean.”
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    • Posted by 9 years, 4 months ago
      I find this highly motivating when I work. Sometimes my work starts to get old, pedantic, and a chore. But when I think of this quote, this concept of creating value to the best of my ability, so that I can take pride in it, I am inspired to do better. And I feel alive. I feel joy.
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