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If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.
Ayn Rand
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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
Good
Destroy
Rest
Moral
Ability
Wish
Penalized
Best
Punished
Nothing
Destroying
Make
Survive
More quotes by Ayn Rand
Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims.
Ayn Rand
If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite.
Ayn Rand
I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!
Ayn Rand
Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute.
Ayn Rand
The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.
Ayn Rand
We are one...alone...and only...and we love you who are one...alone...and only. We looked into each other's eyes and we knew the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly. And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find.
Ayn Rand
All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.
Ayn Rand
If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with
Ayn Rand
Pleasure is nought but virtue's gayer name-- I wrong her still, I rate her worth too low: Virtue the root, and pleasure is the flow'r.
Ayn Rand
It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.
Ayn Rand
Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.
Ayn Rand
Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.
Ayn Rand
All work is an act of philosophy.
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. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
Ayn Rand
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
You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live
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
Courage and confidence are practical necessities . . . courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one’s own consciousness.
Ayn Rand
Psychologically, the choice to think or not is the choice to focus or not. Existentially, the choice to focus or not is the choice to be conscious or not. Metaphysically, the choice to be conscious or not is the choice of life or death.
Ayn Rand
One must differentiate between one's thoughts and one's emotions with full clarity and precision...No discussion, cooperation, agreement, or understanding is possible among men who substitute emotion for proof.
Ayn Rand