“Eventually, the question you ask stops being ‘Who is John Galt?’ and becomes ‘When will John Galt shut up?’”
– Anonymous, not so subtly critiquing Galt’s 56-page long speech in Atlas Shrugged
Who is John Galt? And why should you care about Atlas Shrugged quotes?
Atlas Shrugged tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive living in a United States that is on the verge of economic collapse. The government is increasingly expanding its control over private enterprise, choking it out of existence; Dagny’s friend and childhood love Francisco d’Anconia may soon lose his family’s copper company as the Mexican government nationalizes it; and Hank Rearden, who refuses to sell his revolutionary Rearden Metal to the government, subsequently learns his invention has been condemned by the same for no real reason.
To summarize the magnum opus of Ayn Rand – or spoil its ending by revealing Galt’s identity – in so few words would be a sin. The lengthy book is worth a cover-to-cover read for its extensive exploration of Objectivism, Rand’s own philosophy which conceives of man as a heroic being whose greatest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness: to make one’s life one’s own life. If you have ever bristled when bureaucrats demanded greater control over the private sector for the good of society, Atlas Shrugged will explain exactly why you felt that way.
Oddly enough, many people bristle at the mere mention of Ayn Rand. They may describe her as a reactionary, an extremist who categorically rejects any government interference in private life as the result of her having been exposed to the worst excesses of communism while growing up in Russia. One might argue in turn that Rand already saw the ending of the story and didn’t wish to see it again.
Again, please read the book – or, barring that, please read our own collection of Atlas Shrugged quotes.
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