The Time for the End of the 'Strike'

"We started with no time limit in view," said Galt. "We did not know whether we'd live to see the liberation of the world or whether we'd have to leave our battle and our secret to the next generations. We knew only that this was the only way we cared to live. But now we think that we will see, and soon, the day of our victory and of our return."

"When?" she [Dagny] whispered.

He saw her looking at him, her glance half-question, half-hope, and he added, "When the creed of self-immolation has run, for once, its undisguised course -- when men find no victims ready to obstruct the path of justice and to deflect the fall of retribution on themselves -- when the preachers of self-sacrifice discover that those who are willing to practice it, have nothing to sacrifice, and those who have, are not willing any longer -- when men see that neither their hearts nor their muscles can save them, but the mind they damned is not there to answer their screams for help -- when they collapse as they must, as men without mind -- when they have no pretense of authority left, no remnant of law, no trace of morality, no hope, no food and no way to obtain it -- when they collapse and the road is clear -- then we'll come back to rebuild the world."