Quote

That an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.

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
Made
Capacity
Destroys
Second
Error
Faith
Truths
Means
Correct
Truth
Leaves
Firsts
Errors
First
Accepted
Safer
Mean
Ten
Distinguish

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
Ayn Rand
Image
You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
Ayn Rand
Image
If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.
Ayn Rand
Image
Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
Ayn Rand
Image
When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.
Ayn Rand
Image
It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.
Ayn Rand
Image
I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.
Ayn Rand
Image
I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.
Ayn Rand
Image
The fact that a man has no claim on others ... does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.
Ayn Rand
Image
Morally, the promise of an impossible “right” to economic security is an infamous attempt to abrogate the concept of rights. It can and does mean only one thing: a promise to enslave the men who produce, for the benefit of those who don’t.
Ayn Rand
Image
One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
Ayn Rand
Image
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn Rand
Image
A BUSINESSMAN cannot force you to buy his product if he makes a mistake, He suffers the consequences if he fails, he takes the loss. A bureaucrat, forces you to obey his decisions, whether you agree with him or not... If he makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences If he fails, He passes the loss on to you, in the form of heavier taxes.
Ayn Rand
Image
A story is an end in itself. It is not written to teach, sell, explain or destroy anything. It is not written even to entertain. It is written as a man is born - an organic whole, dictated only by its own laws and its own necessity - an end in itself, not a means to an end.
Ayn Rand
Image
If a man wants love he should correct his weaknesses, or his flaws, and he may deserve it. But he cannot expect the unearned, either in love or in money either in matter or in spirit.
Ayn Rand
Image
Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably the man who respects it has earned it.
Ayn Rand
Image
[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.
Ayn Rand
Image
People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.
Ayn Rand
Image
Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.
Ayn Rand
Image
Capitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him.
Ayn Rand