Reason, 2013
from "Atlas Shrugged" series 2013, water color on paper, 56 x 42 cm.

"Reason
The most depraved sentence you can now utter is to ask: Whose reason? The answer is: Yours. No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider.
Your mind is your only judge of truth – and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man’s mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.
You who speak of a ‘moral instinct’ as if it were some separate endowment opposed to reason – man’s reason is his moral faculty.
A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False? – Right or Wrong? Is a seed to be planted in soil in order to grow – right or wrong? Is a man’s wound to be disinfected in order to save his life – right or wrong? Does the nature of atmospheric electricity permit it to be converted into kinetic power – right or wrong? It is the answers to such questions that gave you everything you have – and the answers came from a man’s mind, a mind of intransigent devotion to that which is right."

Excerpt from the book, "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957