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Ayn Rand Quotes - Page 25

All Quotes Acceptance Achievement Acting Addiction Age Ambition Architecture Art Atheism Atheist Authority Being Happy Bill Of Rights Business Challenges Change Character Charity Children Choices Church Competition Compromise Conflict Consciousness Corruption Country Courage Creation Crime Culture Death Dedication Desire Dignity Duty Earth Economics Economy Effort Ego Egoism Emptiness Energy Eternity Ethics Evil Failing Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Free Market Freedom Frustration Funny Future Genius Giving Giving Up Gold Greatness Greed Guilt Hallmark Happiness Hate Hatred Heart History Home Honesty Honor House Humanity Hurt Identity Independence Individualism Individuality Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Joy Judgement Judgment Justice Justification Kindness Knowledge Leadership Leaving Liberty Life Literature Live Life Logic Loneliness Love Lust Lying Mankind Mediocrity Money Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Obedience Objectivism Pain Passion Past Peace Perception Persuasion Philosophy Politics Power Pride Progress Property Property Rights Purpose Racism Reading Reality Recognition Recovery Religion Responsibility Running Sacrifice School Self Confidence Self Esteem Self Respect Selfishness Shame Sin Sleep Socialism Society Soul Struggle Stupidity Style Success Suffering Surrender Survival Talent Time Today Tolerance Trust Truth Tyranny Understanding Values Virtue Vision Waiting War Weakness Wealth Winning Wisdom Work Worship Writing

Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I have.

Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I have.

Passion, Sensual, Desire

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.651, Hamilton Books

We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.

Science, Thinking, Entrepreneur

Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth

Fighting, Pride, Men

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.817, Hamilton Books

Through all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice-it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction-only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human.

Men, Love Is, Two

Consider the reasons which make us certain that we are right, but not the fact that we are certain. If you are not convinced, ignore our certainty. Don't be tempted to substitute our judgment for your own.

Temptation, Facts, Judgment

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.613, Hamilton Books

Whether it’s a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one’s own eyes-which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification- which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before.

Mean, Eye, Symphony

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.92, Penguin

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.

Inspirational, Happiness, Loyalty

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.146, Penguin

From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.

Religious, Men, Mind

She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known.

Color, White, Serenity

Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.636, Penguin

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

Rights, Recognition, Individual

Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.17, Penguin

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.

Money, Mean, Men

Ayn Rand (1957). “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. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

Running, Mean, Gun

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.73, Penguin

Those who tell you that man is unable to perceive a reality undistorted by his senses, mean that they are unwilling to perceive a reality undistorted by their feelings. "Things as they are" are things as perceived by your mind; divorce them from reason and they become "things as perceived by your wishes.

Mean, Divorce, Reality

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.791, Hamilton Books

These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

Brother, Freedom, Book

Ayn Rand (2012). “Study Guide: Anthem (Study Gudie and Book)”, p.108, BookCaps Study Guides

I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.

Life, Death, Bad Ass

Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.783, Penguin

Psychologically, the choice "to think or not" is the choice "to focus or not." Existentially, the choice "to focus or not" is the choice "to be conscious or not." Metaphysically, the choice "to be conscious or not" is the choice of life or death.

Thinking, Choices, Focus

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.193, Penguin

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others." - Howard Roark

Men, Numbers, Energy

Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.78, Penguin

What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We.

Knees, Worship, Shame

Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.50, Xist Publishing

I think that when in doubt about the truth of an issue, it's safer and in better taste to select the least numerous of the adversaries.

Thinking, Issues, Doubt

Ayn Rand (2009). “We the Living”, p.41, Penguin

By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.

Writing, Creative, Fundamentals

Ayn Rand (2000). “The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers”, p.21, Penguin

The fact that a man has no claim on others ... does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.

Men, Doe, Facts

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.89, Penguin

The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

Moral, Reason, Accepting

Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.961, Penguin

[T]he only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim.

Real, Men, Thinking

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.374, Hamilton Books

The moral absolute should be: if and when, in any dispute, one side initiates the use of physical force, that side is wrong - and no consideration or discussion of the issues is necessary or appropriate.

Ifs And, Issues, Use

My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

Fighting, Helping Others, Simple

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.89, Penguin

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