From John Galt’s Manifesto in Atlas Shrugged
“As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man’s demand for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is his property – and loathsome as such a claim might be, there’s something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it’s ever proper to help another man? No – if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty you owe him. Yes – if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle. Suffering as such is not a value; only man’s fight against suffering, is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim – is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values.”
