Quote

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

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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
Goal
Labor
Hospital
Success
Poverty
Hospitals
Others
Cause
Check
Men
Huge
Checks
Sacrificial
Life
Animal
Relief
Altar
Causes
Claim
Lure
Existence
Claims
Altars
Anyone
Achievement
Mortgage

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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The only thing that matters my goal my reward my beginning my end is the work itself. My work done my way. A private personal selfish egotistical motivation. That’s the only way I function. That’s all I am.
Ayn Rand
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One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
Ayn Rand
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Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, 'greed' has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it.
Ayn Rand
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Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes” to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No” to the wrong choices made by others.
Ayn Rand
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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
Ayn Rand
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Humor is not an unconditional virtue its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice.
Ayn Rand
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Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth the irrational.
Ayn Rand
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Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.
Ayn Rand
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...if men are to be ruled, then the enemy is reason.
Ayn Rand
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Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious
Ayn Rand
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He, too, stood looking at her for a moment - and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning.
Ayn Rand
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Words are a lens to focus one's mind.
Ayn Rand
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Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires - if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical?
Ayn Rand
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Ordinary human concern for human distress does not manifest itself ordinarily in the form of a gun aimed at the wallets and earnings of one's neighbors.
Ayn Rand
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Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values the bureaucrat's tool is fear.
Ayn Rand
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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
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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
Ayn Rand
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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.
Ayn Rand
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Place nothing above the verdict of your own mind.
Ayn Rand
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She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.
Ayn Rand