Quote

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

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
Work
Creative
Primaries
Things
Family
Primary
Others
Ties
Men
Place
Productive
Life
Firsts
Relationships
People
Human
Friendship
Parasite
Humans
Places
Parasites
First
Emotional
Immoral

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
The view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve, my life and my values could not bring me to that.
Ayn Rand
Image
Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.
Ayn Rand
Image
This god, this one word: I.
Ayn Rand
Image
It's true that there's no such thing as free will. We can't help what we are or what we do. It's not our fault. Nobody's to blame for anything. It's all in your background ... and your glands. If you're good, that's no achievement of yours - you were lucky in your glands. If you're rotten, nobody should punish you - you were unlucky, that's all.
Ayn Rand
Image
the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.
Ayn Rand
Image
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.
Ayn Rand
Image
Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
Ayn Rand
Image
A 'whim' is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.
Ayn Rand
Image
I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'
Ayn Rand
Image
Emotions are not tools of cognition. They tell you nothing about the nature of reality.
Ayn Rand
Image
It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money.
Ayn Rand
Image
The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.
Ayn Rand
Image
Dominique as Gail looks at her ... there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence.
Ayn Rand
Image
Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.
Ayn Rand
Image
In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary.
Ayn Rand
Image
Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one aims and/or keeps it.
Ayn Rand
Image
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
Ayn Rand
Image
Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of which you dont
Ayn Rand
Image
Men prosper or fail, survive or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality.
Ayn Rand
Image
Man is a being with free will therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.
Ayn Rand