Ayn Rand Quotes20-Jun-2008
"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine". *This is my favorite quote of all.
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love".
~Ayn Rand.
"To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the "I".
~Ayn Rand, The Fountain Head.
"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values".
~Ayn Rand.
"Man-every man-is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life."
~Ayn Rand.
"The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live".
~Ayn Rand.
"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death".
~Ayn Rand.
"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see".
~Ayn Rand.
"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters".
~Ayn Rand.
"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone".
~Ayn Rand.
"Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over the act of perceiving it, which is thinking".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think".
~Ayn Rand.
"Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others".
~Ayn Rand.
"An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone."
~Ayn Rand.
"Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are function of the self".
~Ayn Rand.
"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement".
~Ayn Rand.
"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject".
~Ayn Rand.
"Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one's own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value - and so long as that beneficiary is anybody than oneself, anything goes".
~Ayn Rand.
"The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt".
~Ayn Rand.
"Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power, lust nor stupidity are good motives".
~Ayn Rand.
"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who
know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master".
~Ayn Rand.
"A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
"In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours".
~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
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