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Ayn Rand Quotes - Page 5

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

There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.

There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.

Truth, Integrity, Knowledge

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.101, Penguin

The great creators - the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible... But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

Airplane, Artist, Men

Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.72, Penguin

As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.

Men, Long, Majority

Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism.

Selfish, Names, History

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Thinking, Atlas, Literature

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.152, Hamilton Books

Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil.

Mean, Tyrants, Evil

Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.136, Penguin

Believing in fate produces fate. Believing in freedom will create infinite possibilities.

Dream, Believe, Fate

[S]tatism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power -- to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. ... Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

Country, War, Fighting

Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.

Business, Character, People

Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves.

Philosophy, Sleep, Attractive

It's the hardest thing in the world - to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kinds of courage.

World, Want, Kind

Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.571, Penguin

When it is established that government by right can take wealth from some and give it to others. When a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law, men will use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they have passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.

Believe, Winning, Men

Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.

Sacrifice, Love Is, Self

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.278, Penguin

It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.

Trust, Philosophy, Greatness

Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.180, Penguin

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

Peace, Philosophy, Men

Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.47, Penguin

Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.

Men, Envy, Hallmark

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.274, Hamilton Books

We are now moving towards complete collectivism or socialism, a system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody.

Moving, Liberty, Socialism

It was the only thing I ever really wanted. And that’s the sin that can’t be forgiven--that I hadn’t done what I wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about insanity, because there’s no sense to it, no dignity, nothing but pain--and wasted pain...why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage.

Courage, Pain, Dirty

Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.571, Penguin

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.

Life, Philosophy, Men

Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.351, Penguin

One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.

Hands, Feet, Ties

Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.139, Penguin

The conservatives want to rule man's consciousness; the liberals, his body.

Men, Body, Want

Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.176, Penguin

Capitalism is based on individual rights - not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective.

Sacrifice, Rights, Individual

Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.191, Penguin

Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically, the goal is the obliteration of reason; psychologically, it is the erosion of ambition.

Philosophy, Ambition, Erosion

Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.229, Penguin

Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right.

In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.

Freedom, Stupid People, Society

Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.53, Penguin

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