"Man's Motive Power"

“Did you ask me to name man's motive power? Man's motive power is his moral code. Ask yourself where their code is leading you and what it offers you as your final goal. A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides. By their own statement, it is they who need you and have nothing to offer you in return. By their own statement, you must support them because they cannot survive without you. Consider the obscenity of offering their impotence and their need-their need of you-as a justification for your torture. Are you willing to accept it? Do you care to purchase-at the price of your great endurance, at the price of your agony-the satisfaction of the needs of your own destroyers?"
- “Atlas Shrugged”