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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“But 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.”

MenLifePurposeSufferingDiesEnjoyTeachMoralitySurvivalPursuitTortureFrustrationFraudIrrationalWhimMindlessEnjoy Yourself
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.”

ThinkingMenLifeNeedsTryingEnoughShowsRealityTodayLife IsValuesHouseSocialCausesEffortPayRocksTomorrowMoralityMouthsDeserveClaimsVictimSeedsNobleDesertIslandsSandClothingsHarvestCoinsNobilityWipeDevouring
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“I think it's funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns - just somebody naming the exact nature of what you're doing?”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenWholeBigsFunnyLawLyingNamesSecretGunFellowsStructureComplexesPracticalsBlast
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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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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“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 right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.”

MenMeanLife IsEffortRightsProduceHe ManProductsSourcePropertySlaveProperty RightsImplementationRight To Life
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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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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“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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“A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment-a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature—is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule.”

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Book:The virtue of selfishness: a new concept of egoism
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“Through all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice-it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction-only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human.”

MenHumansTwoMomentsFormLife IsHumanityOrderGrowsWaterLove IsPracticeGraceFourCenturyHe ManWorshipStonesDestructionEndureCaughtTortureFedsSparksBeing HumanCurvesBrutalityWheatMindlessStagnationArches
Author:Ayn Rand
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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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“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice... Man has to be a man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

MenHas BeensMatterValuesChoicesPracticeVirtueMoralityAcceptedRationalCodeRationalityBe A Man
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
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“Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy . . . Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values, and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.”

MenStatesActionJoyDesireValuesGoalHe ManRationalContradictoryJoy Happiness
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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, as no pinch-hitter can live your life-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.”

ThinkingMenMindSelfFactsHelpingFormCan DoExistenceBrainConsciousnessResponsibilityMiddleAcceptanceAuthorityJudgmentDestructionIndependenceRecognitionOver YouSubstitutesLive Your LifeAssertionSelf DestructionSubordinationAbasement
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, I'll tell you: I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by right - because I cannot believe that men refuse to see, that they can remain blind and deaf to us forever, when the truth is ours and their lives depend on accepting it.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldWantLifeBelieveLongMadeStillsReasonDesireBeliefLosesAcceptingForeverGreatnessMinesDependsTruth IsBattleDestructionBlindRefuseAbandonDeafDesire To Live
Author:Ayn Rand
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“All "public interest' legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials. The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle.”

MenWorldGovernmentUsedForceInterestLibertyPrinciplesTakenWorstIntegrityBenefitsAspectHonestlyObjectivesRationalOfficialsGrantsApplicationIrrationalLegislationUnjustDistributionArbitraryCriteriaWisestPublic InterestEquitableWisest ManGovernment OfficialsUndefined
Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
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“Since a rational man's ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a life-long process — and the higher the values, the harder the struggle — he needs a moment, an hour or some period of time in which he can experience the sense of his completed task, the sense of living in a universe where his values have been successfully achieved.”

MenLifeNeedsHas BeensMomentsMovingValuesUniverseProcessHoursStruggleHigherPeriodsAchievementAmbitionGainsTasksHarderPursuitRationalFuelUnlimitedLifelongLife Struggle
Author:Ayn Rand
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“If there is any one proof of a man's incompetence, it is the stagnant mentality of a worker who, doing some small routine job in a vast undertaking, does not care to look beyond the lever of a machine, does not choose to know how the machine got there or what makes his job possible, and proclaims that the management of the undertaking is parasitical and unnecessary.”

IfsKnowsMenLooksDoeCareJobsKnow HowMachinesManagementWorkersProofRoutineMentalityUnnecessaryIncompetenceUndertakingsStagnantLevers
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“The great creators - the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible... But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”

MenFirstsArtistPoliticsVisionImpossibleHe ManGeniusScientistPaidCreatorFoolishInventionThinkerAirplaneMotorInventorNew ThoughtFountainheadNew Inventions
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
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“If the Humanists wish to be champions of reason, they should consider the following: just as they would not admit mystics into their camp, since no rational discussion is possible with men who substitute supernatural revelations for rational evidence-so they cannot admit advocates of force into their camp, because no rational discussion or agreement is possible with men who substitute guns for rational persuasion.”

IfsMenShouldReasonForceWishGunEvidenceFollowingRationalDiscussionChampionRevelationsAgreementSubstitutesCampsPersuasion
Author:Ayn Rand
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