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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.”

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Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money.... Let me give you a tip on men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the...bell of an approaching looter.”

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Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is man's deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written.”

MenUseGovernmentActionIndividualForceEnemyRightsWrittenDangerousVictimBillsThreatProtectionUnlimitedMonopolyBill Of RightsIndividual RightsPhysical Force
Author:Ayn Rand
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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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange.”

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Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“The conservatives see man as a body freely roaming the earth, building sand piles or factories - with an electronic computer inside his skull, controlled from Washington. The liberals see man as a soul freewheeling to the farthest reaches of the universe - but wearing chains from nose to toes when he crosses the street to buy a loaf of bread.”

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Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
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“The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.”

MenMeanGovernmentPurposeLibertyMoralRightsViolenceProtectPropertyPursuitProperty RightsPhysical Violence
Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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“No man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man-or group or society or government-has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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“If a man speculates on what 'society' should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society and that he, as a member of society, has the right to dispose of them...that psychological confession reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and in spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved.”

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Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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.”

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Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“When it is established that government by right can take wealth from some and give it to others. When a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law, men will use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they have passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

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Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.”

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Book:The Fountainhead
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“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”

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Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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