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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“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.”

MenWantDoeSelfFactsLyingValuesEvilInterestDifferencesLevelsMoralRegardFundamentalsProductionsPursueSelf InterestRobbersRobbery
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.”

IfsMenNeedsMeanLongRunningEarthTogetherEvilDealsGunSentencesAbandonSubstitutesBellsLeperMuzzleMoney Is Evil
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“So you think that money is the root of all evil? [...] Have you ever asked what is the root of money? 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. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?”

ThinkingMenGivingMadeAbleValuesEvilForceWishMoneyDealsPrinciplesProduceTearsMaterialsProductsShapesToolsRootsClaimsTradeMaking MoneyGoodsValue Of MoneyMoney Is The Root Of All EvilMoney Is EvilMoochers
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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.”

WorldWantNeedsFeelsKindDoneWantedPainEvilEasySinTeachCourageDisciplineDignityHardestDirtyInsanityForgivenHardest ThingPointlessMonstrous
Book:The Fountainhead
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“Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with- their "loved ones" or friends or business associates or political rulers- are not merely mistaken, but evil. Observe that this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge.”

PeopleMindStatesHelpingPoliticalEvilDealsExistenceBlindSpreadAcknowledgeLoved OnesDiscoveringDreadRulersMistakenAssociatesSanctionsRationalize
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some "pacifist" society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it.”

IfsMenFirstsMaySelfReasonUseWould BeLife IsUsedEvilLeftForceMoralAchieveConsequenceDecidedMercyOppositesIntentionRewardsDefenseCivilizedImmoralImperativesSelf DefenseThugPacifistInitiateInitiationCivilized SocietyRight To LifeRetaliationUse Of ForcePhysical Force
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, unknown world, but our own.”

WorldNeedsGivingLooksHandsTogetherJoyEvilForgetDangerStrangeBrotherSolitudeAll ThingsForestsGoldenFear NothingUnknown Worlds
Book:Study Guide: Anthem (Study Gudie and Book)
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“When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer. There is no escape from justice, nothing can be unearned and unpaid for in the universe, neither in matter nor in spirit—and if the guilty do not pay, then the innocent have to pay it.”

IfsMatterSpiritSufferingUniverseEvilForceJusticePayInjusticeSakeGoodInnocentPityGuiltyNovelistsGood And EvilFamous WomenGood Vs EvilJustice And Mercy
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those year in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked at us.”

YearsDifferentHardHomeEvilEasyBornSinTeacherStudentsBrotherSuperiorsNot Happy
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are.”

MenWorldMeanMadePurposeEvilAsksLosesMoralVirtueProduceBecomingSurvivalProductionsDestroyingImmoralPietyLootingFodder
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“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.”

MenMayLongUseTogetherUsedDesireChoicesEvilForceAnswersDealsShareHe ManMoralityConceptsDestructionGrantsInitiateRetaliationDesire To LivePhysical Force
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know its nature. To love money is to known and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money - and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.”

KnowsMenLovePersonsSoulReasonFactsAbleHateEvilWorkMoneyEffortKnownPowerKnowingCreationWillingLoversDeserveRootsHatredAnd LoveTradeSellsSellingWithin YouDeservingLove Of MoneyProclaimingNickelsMoney Is The Root Of All Evil
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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.”

HumansMeanPurposeEvilAsksRealizingAnswersEffortBlindSlaveDefenseNobleTyrannyNakedOppressionPropagandaNovelistsProtestRebellionTyrantsDictatorshipSavagesHelplessLowestTotalitarianismPeasantsFamous WomenChained
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.”

MenMayLongUseTogetherDesireEvilForceForgivingCommitDisagreementSanctionsInitiateDesire To LivePhysical ForceActs Of Evil
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil... Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.”

MenMeanActionFacesChoicesEvilAnimalParticularSurvivalSpeciesSensesAlternativesCodeDistinctionSustainingEvil Man
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
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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 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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“You'll come back, because yours is an error of knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you and when you come back, you will have discovered that there need never be any conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one you've borne so well.”

NeedsWellsLastsDesireValuesEvilWaitingMoralKnowledgeVirtueConflictVictimErrorsSurrenderTragicClashMoral Failure
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.”

WayHas BeensMatterStatesReasonGovernmentFormEvilChurchEconomySourceSolutionsCapitalismEconomicsTradeProductionsSeparationBehalfInterventionChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateAbolitionLaissez FaireLaissez Faire Capitalism
Author:Ayn Rand
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“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.”

DoeMatterPainFormLyingDesireDiesFightingEvilLeftCausesVirtueBrokenPromiseDegreesCorruptionBetrayalGuiltyDeceitFraudInchesSubmissionScornBargainsShamefulSanctityBroken Promises
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated, persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the bureaucrats.”

CultureEvilBusinessClassEconomicMankindPositionGeniusAchievementRewardsHatedProductiveMinoritiesBusinessmanSpectacularBureaucratsPersecutedScapegoatEconomic History
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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