Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Ayn Rand
Age: 77 †
Born: 1905
Born: February 2
Died: 1982
Died: March 6
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
St. Petersburg
Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum
War
Motive
Power
Libertarian
Ever
Stupidity
Good
Neither
Stupid
Peace
Motives
Force
Antiwar
Desire
Lust
More quotes by Ayn Rand
It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth.
Ayn Rand
Self-esteem is reliance on ones power to think.
Ayn Rand
Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.
Ayn Rand
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
Ayn Rand
Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
Ayn Rand
What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?
Ayn Rand
Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.
Ayn Rand
Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
Ayn Rand
Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically, the goal is the obliteration of reason psychologically, it is the erosion of ambition.
Ayn Rand
You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
Ayn Rand
A free mind and a free market are corollaries.
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
Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage on success-sufferi ng is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence-man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone’s altar nor for anyone’s cause-life is not one huge hospital.
Ayn Rand
A good quotation must be a complete entity. It must be like a headline - sharp, clear, whole.
Ayn Rand
It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature -- the connection between his survival and his use of reason -- that capitalism recognizes and protects.
Ayn Rand
If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and ... if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own I would refuse... I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist.
Ayn Rand
You don't have to see through the eyes of others, hold onto yours, stand on your own judgment, you know that what is, is–say it aloud, like the holiest of prayers, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Ayn Rand
The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.
Ayn Rand
Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal.
Ayn Rand
The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
Ayn Rand