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Ayn Rand Quotes about Lying

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People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.

Ayn Rand
Truth, Liars, Lying
Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.657, Hamilton Books

There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.

Ayn Rand
Lying, White, Destruction
Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.657, Hamilton Books

Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others.

Ayn Rand
Lying, Eye, Men
Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.441, Penguin

Then no rightful cause was left, and the pain of anger was turning into the shameful pain of submission. He had no right to condemn anyone - he thought - to denounce anything, to fight and die joyously, claiming the sanctity of virtue. The broken promises, the unconfessed desires, the betrayal, the deceit, the lies, the fraud - he was guilty of them all. What form of corruption could he scorn? Degrees do not matter, he thought; one does not bargain about inches of evil.

Ayn Rand
Betrayal, Pain, Lying

The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.

Ayn Rand
Lying, Men, Doctrine
Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.27, Penguin

There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level.

Ayn Rand
Lying, Men, Self
Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.81, Penguin

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

I think it's funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns - just somebody naming the exact nature of what you're doing?

Ayn Rand
Funny, Lying, Gun
Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.311, Hamilton Books

Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't.

Ayn Rand
Business, Lying, Sacrifice
"Atlas Shrugged".

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does -- if that catch-phrase has any meaning -- but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice

Ayn Rand
Lying, Men, Justice
Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.78, Penguin

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