The Flash of Human Intelligence

"Project the look on a child's face when he grasps the answer to some problem he has been striving to understand. It is a radiant look of joy, of liberation, almost of triumph, which is unself-conscious, yet self-assertive, and its radiance seems to spread in two directions: outward... inward.... This look is the sacred.... It is the steady, confident reflection of that light that you look for in the faces of adults-particularly of those to whom you entrust your most precious values. You look for it in the eyes of a surgeon performing an operation on the body of a loved one... you look for it in the person of the man or woman you marry."

"That light-bulb look is the flash of a human intelligence in action; it is the outward manifestaion of man's rational faculty; it is the signal and symbol of mans' mind. And to the extent of your humanity, it is involved in everything you seek, enjoy, value, or love.... The desire to vanquish that look is the desire to break man's spirit."

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. p.304, by Ayn Rand