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Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldPersonsSelfRealityTruthLyingWhiteViewsMastersVictoryGainsDestructionVictimSlaveOneselfSurrenderI've LearnedLiarsCondemningWhite LieLies And LiarsAbdication
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”

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Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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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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“Every man builds his world in his own image; he has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice.”

IfsMenWorldChoicesExistenceVisionPowerAchieveBuildingAchievementChaosEvery ManDenialSpheresIrrationalWorldviewGrindEscapingIrrationalityPower Of ChoiceImagingAbdication
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“You still love me - even if there's one expression of it that you will always feel and want, but will not give me no longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it won't treason to either, because it comes from the same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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“But this was that view of human destiny which she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve. Her life and her values could not bring her to that, she thought; she had never found beauty in longing for the impossible and had never found the possible to be beyond her reach.”

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Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.”

PeopleMenHumansLooksLongBookStoriesLastsSpiritFreedomBehindsWonderHistoryDoorsBrotherGloryMovedI Have LearnedLast TimeStandpointFree SpiritBeing FreeLong StoryUltimate Freedom
Book:Study Guide: Anthem (Study Gudie and Book)
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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
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts – i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.”

KnowsMenNeedsMindMeanPhilosophyValuesOrderChoicesUniverseChanceEthicsIncludingChosenAlternativesCodeMetaphysicsEpistemology
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.”

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Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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