Atlas Shrugged... Hank Reardon "All right, let's get it straight: you're an object of charity who's exhausted his credit long ago."and it was concerning his brother. Yes, it seems to be the norm, now...sadly.

My father owned a service station... Sinclair ( long since gone).  People came from far away because he was an honest man, and treated them well.  He genuinely liked people and was good to his customers and employees. I believe being nice to people is everyone's responsibility. 

Of course I could have just said, the person is wrong.

There are somethings I don't have to think about. Paying it forward is one of them. What's good for the goose...

It's a hard concept for people to truly understand and embrace Sinperium...

Although there is the saying "make your own luck".  People who do this are more likely to get pay rises, because of what they do, who they work for and importantly their attitude.

is this post related to the "elemental materials" case?

Money can't buy love or happiness.

True happiness comes from within. True happiness can't be given, bestowed, or otherwise precipitated from outside influence. This kind of happiness can be fleeting, temporary, and isn't true happiness.

I know of rich people who are very unhappy.

I used to work for a couple, cleaning their expensive cars, washing the windows in their expensive house.

A Dr. and an Atty. They were miserable. Marital problems, etc. All kinds of unhappiness.

They are now divorced. Money does not bring true happiness.

I am a generally happy person. My wife, is not.

I used to think I could "make" her happy. No. She will have to find happiness for herself, as I did. Took me years to learn that.

I found my happiness by spending 3 years as a homeless, low life, bottom dweller. Then coming back from that through venues I won't speak of for fear of making this a religious reply.

I came back, my wife (former) did not. You all know where I am now. The former wife? In prison for murder 2.

I truly believe that happiness is a choice we make.

As a child, I was afraid of my abusive father. A man who had raped a few of my siblings. As a child, I was sexually molested by my older brother. Until I was old enough to stop him. I could go on....

All this led me to choose to be unhappy, to drink and drug my way through life in an attempt to either find happiness, or cover the unhappiness. Happiness eluded me.

Then, I met wife 2. Had two kids by her. Had them taken from me due to her past, then caught her in bed with my "best friend". But, as stupid as it was, I stayed with her.

But I let her take me to the point where I no longer cared, about anything. My spirit was broken. I literally ceased to care.....barely existing.

3 years of that and I somehow found my way back, because from the bottom, all there is is up.

After some counseling, and a few weeks in a mental hospital, I fought my way back. Created a relationship with my two sons, remarried to a wonderful woman, who can't seem to find true happiness.

I choose to be happy. I won't go back to the "dark side".

My father in law says that one of the best things about me is that no matter what is going on around me, I find a way to enjoy my day. (Be Happy)

In my world, happiness is a choice I make. YMMV.

I wouldn't read too much into a single sentence regarding "niceness".

The phenomenon I've seen during the rise of social media is the belief that if you have power over someone, you have a duty to take criticism and abuse from them without responding in kind because of the disproportionate positions each hold with respect to the other.

The most common, visible example I see online is the way users will talk to a forum moderator. You don't have to be some sort of successful business person to witness this kind of attitude.

To quote your response which nails it:

I have had many debates with people on this topic and it has become very clear to me (and it took awhile because I just couldn't bring myself to believe that they actually felt this way) that their philosophy is that the successful owe the less successful something simply by virtue of being successful. 

There is a real divide in our society now based on this. This was really highlighted in the Phil Fish drama of this weekend where people, even journalists, felt free to personally attack him in the most vile ways but if he responded in return, well then, that was somehow crossing a line. Because, after all, Phil Fish is a famous, successful person and the people attacking him were disproportionately less so. 

It is now considered unfair, when arguing some point, to remind people that they are more accomplished than they are. It's "bad form". Or it's "punching down". 

A good example of that mindset is people who will use social media to try to harm my livelihood but will cry foul if I observe that they work for a company that we are a customer of and respond by telling him that we will be thinking twice before buying stuff from his employer.

To quote Rearden:

This quote can be applied far beyond charity. It can be applied to any scenario where the person doing the "spitting" seems to have forgotten that there is a disproportionate relationship between them. That applies whether we're talking about some foolish college student "indie developer" complaining to a co-founder of Epic online to some troll on a forum believing he can mouth off to a moderator with impunity by virtue that the moderator has the power to ban them.

So someone telling Phil Fish how he *should* behave or what he *should* do is likely rankling to someone like him because he feels like he has to keep the kid gloves on with these people. Because after all, who the hell are these people to tell him what to do? That frustration builds.

I think this idea is probably THE central divide in our society now.  It's not always in the headline, but it seems like every major political controversy or disagreement has this issue bubbling beneath the surface.  Without trying to get too political, I think the last half decade has seen a surprising upsurge of incidents where this divide is clearly evident.  I can't count the number of times my wife and I have been discussing some current event over dinner and remarked how the event seemed like it was pulled from the pages of Atlas Shrugged.  

I took me a long time after reading this book (many years ago) to really consider that Rand might have been right about some things.  I'm certainly no objectivist, but I think she understood human nature and how human nature would affect the course of industrialization better than she's given credit for.  

Telling someone they are wrong about something, even technical (non-subjective) matters gets much the same reaction.  All perspectives must be considered, regardless of their merit.  

One of the best lines in the book.  It's something that I feel like our society is losing; that appreciation towards those who are the ones being charitable.  

I don't know about "love". I don't think her philosophy "objectivism" is any more realistic than any other utopian ideology.

But I will say this - if you want to be successful (however you define it) then it probably isn't a bad idea to look at the habits and philosophies of people who are successful, particular if they started out with very little.