Our age is the climax of centuries of evil.

We must put an end to it, once and for all, or perish-we, the men of the mind.

It was our own guilt.

We produced the wealth of the world-but we let our enemies write its moral code."

"But we never accepted their code. We lived by our own standards."

"Yes-and paid ransoms for it! Ransoms in matter and in spirit-in money, which our enemies received, but did not deserve, and in honor, which we deserved, but did not receive.

That was our guilt-that we were willing to pay. We kept mankind alive, yet we allowed men to despise us and to worship our destroyers. We allowed them to worship incompetence and brutality, the recipients and the dispensers of the unearned.

By accepting punishment, not for any sins, but for our virtues, we betrayed our code and made theirs possible.

Dagny, theirs is the morality of kidnappers. They use your love of virtue as a hostage. They know that you'll bear anything in order to work and produce, because you know that achievement is man's highest moral purpose, that he can't exist without it, and your love of virtue is your love of life.

They count on you to assume any burden. They count on you to feel that no effort is too great in the service of your love.

Dagny, your enemies are destroying you by means of your own power. Your generosity and your endurance are their only tools. Your unrequited rectitude is the only hold they have upon you.

They know it. You don't.

The day when you'll discover it is the only thing they dread.

You must learn to understand them. You won't be free of them, until you do. But when you do, you'll reach such a stage of rightful anger that you'll blast every rail of Taggart Transcontinental, rather than let it serve them!"