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Ayn Rand
Quotes by Ayn Rand
Quotes by Ayn Rand
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
Ayn Rand
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”
Ayn Rand
“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
Ayn Rand
“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”
Ayn Rand
“Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.”
Ayn Rand
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
Ayn Rand
“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.”
Ayn Rand
“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.”
Ayn Rand
“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.”
Ayn Rand
“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”
Ayn Rand
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
Ayn Rand
“Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.”
Ayn Rand
“To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'”
Ayn Rand
“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
Ayn Rand
“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”
Ayn Rand
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.”
Ayn Rand
“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.”
Ayn Rand
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”
Ayn Rand
“Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”
Ayn Rand
“The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.”
Ayn Rand
“Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.”
Ayn Rand
“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
Ayn Rand
“There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.”
Ayn Rand
“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.”
Ayn Rand
“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?”
Ayn Rand
“The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.”
Ayn Rand
“Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.”
Ayn Rand
“People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it - walk.”
Ayn Rand
“Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.”
Ayn Rand
“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.”
Ayn Rand
