dagny taggart of atlas shrugged, who "never found beauty in longing for the impossible, and never found the possible to be beyond her reach."



this spirit, which regarded the ideal as a possible dream, is so at odds with the zeitgeist of the past two thousand years that it is hard for people to comprehend, let alone internalize. at least since plato, the concept of the "ideal" has been defined as the antithesis to the "real." as a result, millions of people experience life as tragically sundered, torn between the loud demands of body and the quiet yearnings of soul -- between the meaningless clamor of mundane existence, and the faint, mocking call of a state of perfection ever beyond reach.