The irrational is the impossible; it is that which contradicts the facts of reality; facts cannot be altered by a wish, but they can destroy the wisher.
If a man desires and pursues contradictions — if he wants to have his cake and eat it, too — he disintegrates his consciousness; he turns his inner life into a civil war of blind forces engaged in dark, incoherent, pointless, meaningless conflicts (which, incidentally, is the inner state of most people today).
// Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: a new concept of egoism.
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