Quotes by
Ayn Rand |
1905-1982 , American writer & philosopher
-Russian-American novelist, philosopher,playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.She has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
| 59 quotes | 8,907 visits |
Quotations
| • | There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide. 43 |
| • | If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled. 12 |
| • | So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money? 11 |
| • | 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. 11 |
| • | The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. 9 |
| • | I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you. 9 |
| • | You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. 8 |
| • | The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. 8 |
| • | A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress. 8 |
| • | I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between. 8 |
| • | There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. 8 |
| • | If the truth shall kill them, let them die. 8 |
| • | The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it. 7 |
| • | My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. (“Objectivism”) 7 |
| • | Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. 7 |
| • | If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others. 7 |
| • | There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. 7 |
| • | 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. 6 |
| • | Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. 6 |
| • | The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power. 6 |
| • | There is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights. 6 |
| • | Remember also that the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. 6 |
| • | There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it—it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it—you don't know what right is and you're not a man. 6 |
| • | I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. 6 |
| • | When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is. 6 |
| • | Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. 6 |
| • | Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others. 6 |
| • | Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself 6 |
| • | I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. 6 |
| • | If any part of your uncertainty, is a conflict between your heart and your mind - follow your mind. 5 |
| • | Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history. 5 |
| • | I am. I think. I will. 5 |
| • | Evil requires the sanction of the victim. 5 |
| • | A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom. 5 |
| • | The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. 5 |
| • | Even if smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is wholesale death. 4 |
| • | “Free competition enforced by law” is a grotesque contradiction in terms. 4 |
| • | The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work. 4 |
| • | I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place. 4 |
| • | There are no evil thoughts except one; the refusal to think. 4 |
| • | Worry is a waste of emotional reserve. 4 |
| • | Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today. 3 |
| • | A gun is not an argument. 3 |
| • | The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face. 3 |
| • | What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem. 3 |
| • | The causes of illusions are not pretty to discover. They're either vicious or tragic. 3 |
| • | He never felt loneliness except when he was happy. 3 |
| • | The most depraved type of human being ... the man without a purpose. 3 |
| • | Never ask people about your work. 3 |
| • | Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. 3 |
| • | But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself. 3 |
| • | The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone. 3 |
| • | A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. 3 |
| • | Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. 3 |
| • | Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. 3 |
| • | Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind. 3 |
| • | The end does not justify the means. No one’s rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. 2 |
| • | Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future. 2 |
| • | You must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. 1 |
