Galt's Gulch

Atlas Shrugged, Part 3 Chapter 3: Anti-Greed

Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago to Books
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Summary: Dr. Stadler was put on the spot to endorse Project Xylophone, the Thompson Harmonizer, a lethal weapon, using his technology but developed without his knowledge. He gave in. Dagny returned from the Gulch and begins damage control. Being filled in by Eddie Willers (age 35), James Taggart, and Cuffy Meigs, she learns that the Railroad Pool Board in Washington began a socialistic method of redistribution, based on need rather than productive ability.

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 especially like, 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 nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    Rearden to Dagny: “No, they were not able to deal with matter, to produce abundance, to control this earth. They did not have to. They controlled me.
    “I, who knew that wealth is only a means to an end, created the means and let them prescribe my ends. I, who took pride in my ability to achieve the satisfaction of my desires, let them prescribe the code of values by which I judged my desires.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    Rearden to Dagny: “I, who thought that I was fighting them, I had accepted the worst of our enemies’ creed – and that is what I’ve paid for ever since, as I am paying now and as I must. I had accepted the one tenet by which they destroy a man before he’s started, the killer-tenet: the breach between his mind and body.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    Rearden in Dagny’s memory: “They need some sort of sanction from us. I don’t know the nature of that sanction – but, Dagny, I know that if we value our lives, we must not give it to them. If they put you on a torture rack, don’t give it to them. Let them destroy your railroad and my mills, but don’t give it to them.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    Dr. Ferris to Dr. Stadler: “Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. Principles have no influence on public affairs. Reason has no power over human beings. Logic is impotent. Morality is superfluous. Do not answer me now, Dr. Stadler. You will answer me over the microphone. You’re the next speaker.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    “Why do you think they think?” said Dr. Ferris softly. “Reason is the scientist’s only weapon – and reason has no power over men, has it? At a time like ours, with the country falling apart, with the mob driven by blind desperation to the edge of open riots and violence – order must be maintained by any means available. What can we do when we have to deal with people?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    Mr. Thompson was the first to mount the wooden steps to the platform of the microphone. He snapped his way through a brief speech, hailing a new era and declaring – in the belligerent tone of a challenge to unidentified enemies – that science belonged to the people and that every man on the face of the globe had a right to a share of the advantages created by technological progress.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    Dr. Ferris: “Well, gentlemen, the value – and the motive – of any achievement of the State Science Institute are not to be doubted, since it is a nonprofit venture – need I say more?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    He [Dr. Stadler] would not permit himself to know that what he felt was self-loathing; he identified the emotion, but not its object; it was loathing for the men around him, he thought; it was they who were forcing him to go through this shameful performance. What can you do – he thought – when you have to deal with people?
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 1 month ago
    He [Dr. Stadler] would never have to learn his own motive, he thought; he thought it, not by means of words, but by means of the brief, vicious spasm of an emotion that resembled irritation and felt like acid. The words that stood in his mind, as they had stood when he had agreed to come, were like a voodoo formula which one recites when it is needed and beyond which one must not look: What can you do when you have to deal with people?
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