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Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“Since a rational man's ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a life-long process — and the higher the values, the harder the struggle — he needs a moment, an hour or some period of time in which he can experience the sense of his completed task, the sense of living in a universe where his values have been successfully achieved.”

MenLifeNeedsHas BeensMomentsMovingValuesUniverseProcessHoursStruggleHigherPeriodsAchievementAmbitionGainsTasksHarderPursuitRationalFuelUnlimitedLifelongLife Struggle
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.”

ThinkingNeedsMindHomeRealitySchoolPastPurposeDealsEffortEducationKnowledgeTeachStudentsTaughtProveEssentialsTrainingDevelopingAcquireTheoreticalIntegratingPurpose Of Education
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“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.”

LoveFirstsKindSelfHardStatesFacesSpiritWinningPrayerBoysMorningSunPrayingCertaintySatRaysDedicationForeheadsMisguidedAffirmingEyelidsStarlight
Author:Ayn Rand
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“If there is any one proof of a man's incompetence, it is the stagnant mentality of a worker who, doing some small routine job in a vast undertaking, does not care to look beyond the lever of a machine, does not choose to know how the machine got there or what makes his job possible, and proclaims that the management of the undertaking is parasitical and unnecessary.”

IfsKnowsMenLooksDoeCareJobsKnow HowMachinesManagementWorkersProofRoutineMentalityUnnecessaryIncompetenceUndertakingsStagnantLevers
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“You're not sorry. You could've been here if you made the effort. But when did you ever make an effort for anybody but yourself? You're not interested in any of us or in anything we do. You think if you pay the bills, that's enough, don't you? Money! That's all you know. And all you give us is money. Have you even given us any time?”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingMadeEnoughTimeGivenMoneyEffortPayBillsSorryNot InterestedNot Sorry
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“She looked at the crowd and she felt simultaneously astonishment that they should stare at her when this event was so personally her own that no communication about it was possible and a sense of fitness that they should be here that they should want to see it. Because the sight of an achievement was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others.”

WantShouldHumansFeltHuman BeingsEventsCommunicationOffersAchievementSightCrowdsStaringGreatest GiftsAstonishmentNo Communication
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“Get the hell out of my way!”

WayPhilosophyCourageHellMilitaryStrengthArmyLeavingMy WayNovelistsRacingHave CourageStrength Of WillInspirational MilitaryAtlasCourage StrengthAmerican SoldierAmerican MilitaryCar RacingGreat MilitaryMilitary LeaderFunny Bumper StickerPower And StrengthKorean WarInspirational StrengthMilitary SoldierMilitary LeadershipHuman StrengthFunny Car RacingMy SoldierLife StrengthBe Strong And CourageousStrength And Life
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“Do not let your fire go out.”

FireAddictionRecoveryAddictSobrietyDrug AddictionDrugs And AlcoholDrug AddictRecoveringSwampsIrreplaceableAddiction RecoveryAlcohol AddictionDrug Addiction RecoveryOne Tree Hill VoiceoverTree HillAddicts In RecoveryOne Tree Hill OpeningShort One Tree HillOne Tree Hill LifeOne Tree Hill LoveInspirational Addiction RecoveryOvercoming AddictionInspirational RecoveryOne Tree Hill MemorableAlcohol RecoveryDrug RecoveryMotivational RecoveryOne Tree Hill DeathOne Tree Hill InspirationalInspirational Drug RecoveryOne Tree Hill FriendshipLonely Path
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“What I want you to understand, is the full evil of those who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm of malevolence where the good has no chance to win. Let them check their premises. Let them check their standards of value. Let them check - before they grant themselves the unspeakable license of evil-as-necessity - whether they know what is the good and what are the conditions it requires.”

KnowsWantEarthValuesEvilWinningChanceConditionsStandardsClaimsConvincedChecksRealmsGrantsI Want YouLicensePremisesUnspeakableMalevolence
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“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.”

MenFirstsArtistPoliticsVisionImpossibleHe ManGeniusScientistPaidCreatorFoolishInventionThinkerAirplaneMotorInventorNew ThoughtFountainheadNew Inventions
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“If the Humanists wish to be champions of reason, they should consider the following: just as they would not admit mystics into their camp, since no rational discussion is possible with men who substitute supernatural revelations for rational evidence-so they cannot admit advocates of force into their camp, because no rational discussion or agreement is possible with men who substitute guns for rational persuasion.”

IfsMenShouldReasonForceWishGunEvidenceFollowingRationalDiscussionChampionRevelationsAgreementSubstitutesCampsPersuasion
Author:Ayn Rand
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“You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service--it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue.”

MenMeanCountryEnemyVirtueRiskMoralitySlaveDefenseEnormousChosenNovelistsInsultServiceDedicatedSelflessUnwillingSelfless ServiceInsults You
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
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“If you surrender everything to the government and give it total power to plan the whole economy, this will not guarantee your economic security, but it will guarantee the descent of the entire nation to a level of miserable poverty--as the practical results of every totalitarian economy, communist or fascist, have demonstrated.”

IfsGivingWholeGovernmentNationsLevelsResultsPovertyEconomyPlansEconomicSecuritySurrenderPracticalsMiserableGuaranteesCommunistFascistsDescentEconomic Security
Author:Ayn Rand
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“We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something--and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason and a view of man as a rational being.”

MenReasonFightingViewsMoralRationalAltruismCollectivismSupremacy
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
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“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.”

MeanMadeEyeMinesSourceCreatingCapacityConnectedRationalCoalSymphonyIdentification
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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. The political goal presupposes the two others. The human characteristic required by statism is docility, which is the product of hopelessness and intellectual stagnation. Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.”

ThinkingMenHumansTwoReasonTodayPoliticalGoalProductsAmbitionIntellectualCharacteristicsTrendsAmbitiousDominantHopelessnessStagnationErosionThinking ManAmbitious Man
Book:The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought
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“America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more-and nothing less. The rest-everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything 'noble and just,' and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history-was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle.”

HumansAmericaIndividualPrinciplesRightsAchievementConsequenceIdealsNobleNovelistsUsaLogicalHeroicFoundingHuman HistoryFidelityUnprecedentedIndividual Rights
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept 'just a few controls' is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government’s unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement. As an example of this process, observe the present domestic policy of the United States.”

StatesGovernmentIndividualProcessUnitedAcceptingPrinciplesUnited StatesRightsPolicyExampleOneselfSurrenderCompromiseSubstitutesUnlimitedArbitraryDeliveringEnslavementIndividual RightsNo CompromiseDomestic Policy
Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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