You, who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body,

You, who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the
body, above the drudgery of serving mere physical needs -- who is
enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to
sunset at the shafts of a handplow for a bowl of rice, or the American
who is driving a tractor? Who is the conqueror of physical reality:
the man who sleeps on a bed of nails or the man who sleeps on an
inner-spring mattress?Which is the monument to the triumph of the
human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of
the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?
-- John Galt