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I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.
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
Except
Hold
Question
Liberty
Society
Never
Cannibals
Cannibal
Arise
More quotes by Ayn Rand
Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you? He answered, Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to become one.
Ayn Rand
What do I think of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: I don't think of him. And the more I see, the less I think.
Ayn Rand
What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them criticially.
Ayn Rand
In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
Ayn Rand
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion...th at in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing-you may know that your society is doomed.
Ayn Rand
She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.
Ayn Rand
Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.
Ayn Rand
Thinking men cannot be ruled ambitious men do not stagnate.
Ayn Rand
Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
Ayn Rand
There's nothing of any importance in life-except how well you do your work.
Ayn Rand
The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”-not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form-by giving presents to one's friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
Ayn Rand
Every honest man lives for himself. Every man worth calling a man lives for himself. The one who doesn't - doesn't live at all.
Ayn Rand
Money is just a tool. It will take you anywhere you want, but you have to be the driver
Ayn Rand
Never ask people about your work.
Ayn Rand
But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.
Ayn Rand
We didn't really have to take everything so seriously, did we?
Ayn Rand
I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!
Ayn Rand
To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone
Ayn Rand
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
Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.
Ayn Rand