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The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

Book by Ayn Rand · 50 quotes · Men, Rights, Values

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The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z Quotes

“Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible under a free economy -- and a man's position is determined, not by his productive ability and achievement, but by political pull and force. Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis -- and "the public good" is the altar on which victims are immolated.”

MenPoliticalForceAbilityEconomyGreaterMagicSacrificePositionAchievementSolutionsStandardsCrisisVictimDeterminedIncomeSocialismInequalityProductiveFascismAltarsStandards Of LivingOmnipotentPublic GoodFree Economy
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“The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power. The men who are not interested in philosophy absorb its principles from the cultural atmosphere around them-from schools, colleges, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, television, etc. Who sets the tone of a culture? A small handful of men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by conviction or by default.”

MenNeedsBookPhilosophySchoolCulturePrinciplesTelevisionCollegeHe ManPhilosopherConvictionNewspapersMagazinesAtmosphereToneEtcNot InterestedHandfulDefault
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“The concept of individual rights is so prodigious a feat of political thinking that few men grasp it fully - and two hundred years have not been enough for other countries to understand it. But this is the concept to which we owe our lives - the concept which made it possible for us to bring into reality everything of value that any of us did or will achieve or experience.”

ThinkingMenYearsMadeTwoCountryEnoughRealityPoliticalValuesIndividualOur LivesRightsAchieveHundredConceptsMade ItOther CountriesFeatsIndividual RightsProdigiousPolitical Thinking
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“Censorship' is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists.”

MenGovernmentActionIndividualTermCan DoSilenceSpeechAgreeFinanceAgencyCensorshipFreedom Of SpeechPublicationAntagonist
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“The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser's intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture's dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers. When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.”

PeopleMenCharacterTurnsCultureEvilWinningLeaderFailingWorstMankindIntellectualAverageMinoritiesCowardTrendsInvitesDominantBrutesThugAverage ManIrrationalityEvil ManAbdication
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“Just as man's physical existence was liberated when he grasped that 'nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed', so his consciousness will be liberated when grasps that nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed - that the rules of cognition must be derived from the nature of existence and the nature, the identity, of his cognitive faculty.”

MenPhilosophyExistenceConsciousnessIdentityFacultyLiberatedCognitionCognitive
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“Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state ' and nothing else”

MenMeanDoeStatesGovernmentLawPoliticalProsperityEmployersLaws Of NatureCoercionLandlord
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“The right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men by others). There is no such thing as "the right to enslave." A nation can do it, just as a man can become a criminal- but neither can do it by right.”

MenDoeGovernmentFormNationsCan DoSlaveDetermineCriminalsForms Of GovernmentEnslavement
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“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

MenMotivationalDesireMotivationCreativityCreativeAchieveAchievementBeatsCompetitionDanceInvestmentPositivitySavingNovelistsTeamworkMotivatedPositive ThoughtsBe CreativeCompetingSavingsCreative PeopleCreative PersonObjectivismCreativenessArt And CreativityCreative EnergyInspire CreativityStrong DesireDesire To AchieveDesire To LearnCreative VisionDesire For SuccessStudent MotivationalDeep DesireDesire For KnowledgeTeam SuccessTeamwork SuccessBest Students
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“If a drought strikes them, animals perish--man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish--man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish--man writes the Constitution of the United States.”

IfsMenWritingStatesAnimalUnitedUnited StatesConstitutionStrikesFloodPacksDroughtDamsCanalsConstitution Of The United StatesIrrigation
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“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.”

MenMeanPoliticalValuesLibertyEconomicCapitalismNegativeEconomicsToolsDestructionThreatRewardsPunishmentInjuryOfferingBusinessmanIncentivesPaymentPolitical PowerBureaucratsImprisonmentEconomic Power
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“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.”

ThinkingKnowsMenLooksSelfHandsEyeLyingHonestFrontsAchievementCreditAbsenceSelfishnessPreservesSelf RespectDeceitCheatMediocreRespectableSecond Hand
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“Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.”

ThinkingMenIndividualMistakeRightsPleaseRespectHuman RightsIgnorantExpensesIndividualismMistakenRecognizingRespecting OthersEgoismIndividual RightsIgnorant People
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“There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

MenMeanEndsForceDifferencesLibertyEconomicAchieveAchievementVoteUltimateMurderSuicideLibertarianSocialismCommunismVotingLibertarianismProposeEnslavementCommunism And Socialism
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“Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.”

MenWayMayPoliticsExistenceLibertyEconomicPleaseSakeSocialismDoctrineCollectivesJustificationCollective Good
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“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.”

MenHas BeensTogetherLibertyVirtueSocietyEconomicTaughtHe ManEconomicsAgreeCurrentsCreatorInsaneInsanitySwimDisagreeStand AloneFountainhead
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“But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”

MenLifePurposeSufferingDiesEnjoyTeachMoralitySurvivalPursuitTortureFrustrationFraudIrrationalWhimMindlessEnjoy Yourself
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“You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.”

ThinkingMenLifeNeedsTryingEnoughShowsRealityTodayLife IsValuesHouseSocialCausesEffortPayRocksTomorrowMoralityMouthsDeserveClaimsVictimSeedsNobleDesertIslandsSandClothingsHarvestCoinsNobilityWipeDevouring
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“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”

IfsMenWayDoeFactsLyingJusticeCommonMoralPrinciplesAchieveProtectSurvivalCapitalismConsequenceClaimsBest WayRationalPhrasesJustificationRulingCommon GoodConsonantsLaissez Faire Capitalism
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“Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it-that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life-that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.”

ThinkingMenMindSelfFactsHelpingFormCan DoExistenceBrainConsciousnessResponsibilityMiddleAcceptanceAuthorityJudgmentDestructionIndependenceRecognitionOver YouSubstitutesLive Your LifeAssertionSelf DestructionSubordinationAbasement
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“The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose.”

MenLifeFeelingsPurposeOrderEvilHe ManCapableMercyNovelistsProductiveUrgesPurpose Driven LifeDriftingControl Of Your LifePurposelessness
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“The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.”

MenSelfStatesSocialAnimalSacrificeGroupsMoralityBenefitsTreatsSocialismCommunismCodeFascismTribesSelf SacrificeNazismSocial SystemsConsonants
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“If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged “good” can justify it-there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations.”

IfsMenWantLongWarIndividualForceNationsNotionCollectivesJustifyIndividualismCollectivismTribalismPeace WithinIndividuationFodderCollectivity
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“Individualism regards man - every man - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights - and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.”

MenFormIndividualExistenceRightsGroupsSocietyMembersBasesRegardIndependentEvery ManRationalPeacefulRecognitionCivilizedCooperationAssociationIndividualismEntitySovereignIndividual RightsCivilized Society
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“Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value.”

MenGivingAbleValuesWishDealsPrinciplesProduceMaterialsShapesToolsTradeGoodsObjectivismAtlasValue Of MoneyMoney Is The Root Of All EvilMoney Is EvilMoochers
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