"Why would you want it, if it's not the truth?" he asked. "What for?"
"Now you see, that's the cruelty of conscentious people. You wouldn't understand it- would you?- if I answered that real devotion consists of being willing to lie, cheat and fake in order to make another person happy- to create for him the reality he wants, if he doesn't like the one that exists."
"No," he said slowly, "I wouldn't understand it."
"It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and that has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake-and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice you conscience, your reason, your integrity and you invaluable self-esteem.
He looked at her blankly. It sounded like some sort of monstrous corruption that precluded the possibility of wondering whether anyone could mean it; he wondered only what was the point of uttering it.
"What's love, darling, if it's not self-sacrifice?" she went on lightly, in the tone of a drawing-room discussion. "What's self-sacrifice, unless one sacrifices that which is one's most precious and most important? But I don't expect you to understand it.
-Atlas Shrugged (pg.284-285)
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