Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenValuesIfsThinkingReasonMindEvilPhilosophyKnowsObjectivismMeanLibertyLifeMoralityFountainheadVirtueAtlas ShruggedMoralRationalPeople

Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“Since a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and the amount of possible action is limited by the duration of one’s lifespan, it is a part of one’s life that one invests in everything one values. The years, months, days or hours of thought, of interest, of action devoted to a value are the currency with which one pays for the enjoyment one receives from it.”

LifeActionTimePleasureInvestmentValue
Book:Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
Create image

“Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment - on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict ‘It is.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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—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.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthPainHappinessValuesEvilVirtueMoralityIndependenceGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomRealityTruthValuesVirtueMoralityLogicRationalManContradictionMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders’ attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking—that the mind is one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide of action—that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise—that a concession to the irrational invalidates one’s consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality—that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind—that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one’s consciousness.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthPainHappinessValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say ‘It is,’ you are refusing to say ‘I am.’ By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: ‘Who am I to know?’- he is declaring: ‘Who am I to live?”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value. Do they tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man’s instinct of self-preservation? It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessSelf PreservationObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“No, you do not have to live as a man; it is an act of moral choice. But you cannot live as anything else—and the alternative is that state of living death which you now see within you and around you, the state of a thing unfit for existence, no longer human and less than animal, a thing that knows nothing but pain and drags itself through its span of years in the agony of unthinking self-destruction.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthPainHappinessValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness—are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthHappinessValuesEvilExistenceConsciousnessVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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 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.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness—to value the failure of your values—is an insolent negation of morality.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyHappinessValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“To think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call ‘human nature,’ the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct.”

LifeMindReasonPhilosophyValuesEvilMoralityGoodManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires...Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodManChoiceMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. ‘Value’ is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue’ is the action by which one gains and keeps it. ‘Value’ presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value’ presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyHappinessValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Man’s life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being—not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement—not survival at any price, since there’s only one price that pays for man’s survival: reason.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Man’s life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man—for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyValuesEvilVirtueMoralityGoodRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay - that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live - that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road - that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up - that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.”

LifePurposeWork
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An 'instinct' in as unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer--and that is the way he has acted through most of history.”

LifeHuman NatureThoughtManChoiceInstincts
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others--that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay--that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live--that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.”

LoveLifeWorkCreativityMoralityIntellectProductivityLoyalty
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomRealityTruthValuesVirtueMoralityRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that’s through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality—you who have never known any—but to discover it.”

LifePhilosophyValuesManMoralsObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason, his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind.”

ThinkingLifeMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomTruthValuesExistenceKnowledgeVirtueMoralityRationalManMoralsThinkPursuit Of HappinessObjectivismAtlas ShruggedJohn Galt
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.”

WorldLifeInspirationalRealSoulMotivationalAbleDesireCourageFireHeroLonelyAddictionRecoveryYour SoulFrustrationHopelessGood LifeSparksHappy LifeAddictDeservingInsperationalSobrietyDrug 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
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image