Quote

In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.

Ayn Rand

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Lady
Either
Enjoy
World
Virtuous

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
If you tell an amateur that his story is not good, he always declares indignantly: 'Oh, but it really happened just like this!' The writer who doesn't understand that this is beside the point is not a writer at all.
Ayn Rand
Image
The moral is the chosen, not the forced the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
Ayn Rand
Image
If you want to save capitalism there is only one type of argument that you should adopt, the only one that has ever won in any moral issue: the argument from self-esteem. Check your premises, convince yourself of the rightness of your cause, then fight for capitalism with full, moral certainty.
Ayn Rand
Image
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.
Ayn Rand
Image
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
Image
It's not about who's going to let me it's about who's going to stop me.
Ayn Rand
Image
Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
Ayn Rand
Image
An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.'
Ayn Rand
Image
One can study what exists and how consciousness functions but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
Ayn Rand
Image
I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.
Ayn Rand
Image
The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
Ayn Rand
Image
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.
Ayn Rand
Image
Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it.
Ayn Rand
Image
Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
Ayn Rand
Image
The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.
Ayn Rand
Image
I think, therefore I'll think.
Ayn Rand
Image
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
Ayn Rand
Image
It is not as late as you think. It is merely early - in the age of the rebirth of individualism.
Ayn Rand
Image
An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
Ayn Rand
Image
You love people, not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for their values their virtues.
Ayn Rand