Top 25 Quotes by Ayn Rand of 1049 - Page 31

Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral

Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice.

Ayn Rand

Character, Laughing, Vices

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.221, Penguin

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.

Ayn Rand

Men, Doe, Needs

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.72, Penguin

There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.

Ayn Rand

Wise, Understanding, Faces

Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.345, Penguin

Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.

Ayn Rand

Men, Imbeciles, Firsts

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.60, Penguin

I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.

Ayn Rand

Thinking, People, Perception

Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.157, Penguin

A Conformist is a man who declares, "It's true because others believe it" - but an Individualist is NOT a man who declares, "It's true because I believe it." An Individual declares, "I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.

Ayn Rand

Believe, Men, Reason

You'd let the whole world perish rather than soil that immaculate self of yours with a single spot of which you'd have to be ashamed.

Ayn Rand

Self, World, Soil

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.234, Hamilton Books

You know what you are actually in love with? Integrity. The impossible. The clean, consistent, reasonable, self-faithful, the all-of-one-style, like a work of art.

Ayn Rand

Love, Faith, Art

Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.472, Penguin

A rational man knows-or makes it a point to discover-the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come.

Ayn Rand

Men, Emotion, Source

Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.301, Penguin

So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. . . . When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him by force. It is only as retaliation that force may be used and only against the man who starts its use. No, I do not share his evil or sink to his concept of morality: I merely grant him his choice, destruction, the only destruction he had the right to choose: his own.

Ayn Rand

Men, Long, Evil

I sat there beside him till morning - and as I watched his face in the starlight, then the first ray of the sun on his untroubled forehead and closed eyelids, what I experienced was not a prayer, I do not pray, but that state of spirit at which a prayer is a misguided attempt: a full, confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of future he deserved... I did not expect it to be as great as this - or as hard.

Ayn Rand

Love, Morning, Prayer

"Atlas Shrugged".

The view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve, my life and my values could not bring me to that.

Ayn Rand

Men, Views, Shining

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.

Ayn Rand

Character, Thinking, Choices

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.192, Penguin

The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, 'A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.' 'What do you think I'm doing?' asked Francisco.

Ayn Rand

Morning, Adventure, Men

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.71, Hamilton Books

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

Ayn Rand

Brother, Men, Honor

Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.47, Xist Publishing

A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack

Ayn Rand

Self, Self Respect, Quests

Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.414, Penguin

Hank, this is great." "Yes." He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness, knowing that it is understood.

Ayn Rand

Greatness, Knowing, Voice

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.66, Hamilton Books

She fell asleep, lying there, her hand clasping his. Her last awareness, before she surrendered the responsibility of consciousness, was the sense of an enormous void, the void of a city and of a continent, where she would never be able to find the man whom she had no right to seek.

Ayn Rand

Lying, Responsibility, Men

Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.2010, Penguin

One must never allow oneself to acquire an exaggerated sense of one's own importance. There's no necessity to burden oneself with absolutes

Ayn Rand

Burden, Importance, Oneself

Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.231, Penguin

Why no. I’m too conceited. If you want to call it that. I don’t make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of anything. I’m an utter egotist.

Ayn Rand

Conceited, Thinking, Want

Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.750, Penguin

If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, I'll tell you: I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by right - because I cannot believe that men refuse to see, that they can remain blind and deaf to us forever, when the truth is ours and their lives depend on accepting it.

Ayn Rand

Life, Believe, Greatness

"Atlas Shrugged".

Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Ayn Rand

Country, Gun, Doe

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.316, Hamilton Books

Francisco could do anything he undertook, he could do it better than anyone else, and he did it without effort. There was no boasting in his manner and consciousness, no thought of comparison. His attitude was not: 'I can do it better than you,' but simply: 'I can do it.' What he meant by doing was doing superlatively.

Ayn Rand

Attitude, Effort, Consciousness

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.71, Hamilton Books

Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.

Ayn Rand

Offering, People, Goal