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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”

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Book:The Fountainhead
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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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“Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I’m not the Gail Wynand you’d heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you’d want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that’s the impossible, in the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. That would be the one gift, the great exception you’d want to offer the man you loved. But it wouldn’t be easy for you.”

PeopleIfsMenWantWould BeEasyLove IsImpossibleHeardLove YouBrokenMetsOffersAnd LoveRelationStaringExceptionGail
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers”

IfsMenWayWantMindBelieveSelfReasonEarthSpiritForceGoalAnimalDealsSupportArgumentDollarsAccomplishIntellectRationalEndeavorBelieve In MeDeceivingGreedyPowerlessViciousWay To LivePredatorySelf IndulgentChasers
Author:Ayn Rand
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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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“It was beautiful and rare, and you have every right to despise me." She stood pressed to the wall, not moving. "When you came in, I thought 'Send her away.' But I knew that if you went away, I'd run after you. I thought 'I won't say a word.' But I knew that you'd know it before you left. I love you. I know you'd think kindlier of me if I said that I hate you.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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“I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.”

PeopleIfsThinkingNeedsKindPersonsDoeActionSpeakTermMoralHonestPerceptionIntentionChecksRationalBlankCraveBlank Check
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it?”

IfsGivingDesireValuesAcceptingMoralProduceSelfishSelfishnessSelflessVirtuousImmoralViciousNot Selfish
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.”

IfsMenGivingMomentsJoyAbilityMoneyFoolAchievementStandardsDeserveShameGreedInvestingVicesStupidityFraudDespiseRemindersScornPenniesTributeReproachCateringPurchasers
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“It's true that there's no such thing as free will. We can't help what we are or what we do. It's not our fault. Nobody's to blame for anything. It's all in your background ... and your glands. If you're good, that's no achievement of yours - you were lucky in your glands. If you're rotten, nobody should punish you - you were unlucky, that's all.”

IfsShouldHelpingLuckyAchievementBlameFaultsBackgroundsFree WillRottenUnluckyGlands
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth - and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man's mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.”

IfsThinkingMenMindMatterRealityAsksProcessDealsMoralJudgingIntegrityJudgmentDirectClaimsCourtComplexesFinalsAppealsAcquireCrucialDelicateModestyModestDissentIdentificationVerdictMoral Integrity
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“As a cultural-intellectual power and a moral ideal, collectivism died in World War II. If we are still rolling in its direction, it is only by the inertia of a void and the momentum of disintegration. A social movement that began with the ponderous, brain-cracking, dialectical constructs of Hegel and Marx, and ends up with a horde of morally unwashed children stamping their foot and shrieking: "I want it now is through."”

IfsWorldWantChildrenStillsWarEndsSocialBrainLibertyMoralFeetMovementIntellectualIdealsEconomicsDiedWar Of The WorldsWorld War IiVoidWorld War IRollingConstructsMomentumCollectivismInertiaHordeHegelSocial MovementsDisintegration
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“I am opposed to all forms of control; I am for an absolute laissez faire, free, unregulated economy. I am for the separation of the state and economics, just as we had separation of state and church, which led to peaceful coexistence among different religions...so the same applies to economics. If you separate the government from economics, if you do not regulate production and trade, you will have peaceful cooperation, and harmony and justice among men.”

IfsMenDifferentStatesGovernmentFormChurchJusticeLibertyEconomyCapitalismEconomicsAbsolutesHarmonyTradeProductionsSeparationPeacefulCooperationCoexistenceLaissez FairePeaceful CoexistenceDifferent Religions
Author:Ayn Rand
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“A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest - but if devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.”

IfsThinkingMenTryingMayTruthFormProcessEffortResponsibilityMoralStepsGreaterMoralityTruth IsProtectEvidenceAssumingErrorsDevotionRationalFakeAssumptionCheatingHeroicQuestsCheatHallmarkProtect YouSeverity
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose . . . the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to make money." No other language or nation had ever used these words before. . . . Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.”

PeopleIfsFirstsFactsUsedAsksNamesLanguageNationsWealthMaking MoneyAsk MePhrasesDistinction
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“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.”

IfsMenPhilosophyUseFormIndividualForceSocialPeaceSupportAdvicePhilosopherProposePostureGood AdviceAdvocatingInitiateWise WomenSocial SystemsUse Of Force
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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.”

IfsMenRealityLyingDesireValuesGivenInterestViewsBusinessSacrificeConflictDestructionAbsolutesAimTradeThreatPracticalsDeceitIrrationalConflict Of InterestPersonal Desire
Author:Ayn Rand
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“If that's the price of getting together, then I'll be damned if I want to live on the same earth with any human beings! If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right to turn men into sacrificial animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we'd better start slaughtering one another, because there isn't any right at all in the world!”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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“Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values-that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.”

IfsThinkingMenInspirationalMindIdeasMatterDoneFactsEarthFormSuccessPurposeValuesProcessExistenceConsciousnessCreativeAcceptanceFitMoralityConstantRecognitionProductiveInsightfulYou ChooseTranslateCreative WorkThinking MindAcquiring KnowledgeProductive Work
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“I am speaking to those among you who have retained some sovereign shred of their soul, unsold and unstamped: '- to the order of others'. If, in the chaos of the motives that have made you listen to the radio tonight, there was an honest, rational desire to learn what is wrong with the world, you are the man whom I wished to address. By the rules and terms of my code, one owes a rational statement to those whom it does concern and who are making an effort to know. Those who are making an effort to fail to understand me, are not a concern of mine.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldDoeMadeSoulDesireOrderTermEffortFailingHonestMinesHe ManListeningConcernChaosRadioStatementsRationalCodeMotiveAddressesTonightSovereignUnderstand MeDesire To Learn
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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