Quote

When you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil.

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
Evil
Mixtures
Part
Justification
Ever
Choosing
Good
Alternative
Established
Alternatives
Choice
Choices
Mixture

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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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
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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.
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Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality.
Ayn Rand
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Capitalism and altruism are incompatible they are philosophical opposites they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.
Ayn Rand
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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
Ayn Rand
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Emotions are not tools of cognition. They tell you nothing about the nature of reality.
Ayn Rand
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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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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
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In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.
Ayn Rand
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There are two side to every issue.
Ayn Rand
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Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand
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Don't rely on our knowledge of what's best for your future. We do know, but it can't be best until you know it.
Ayn Rand
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Reality confronts man with a great many musts, but all of them are conditional the formula of realistic necessity is You must, if and the if stands for man's choice
Ayn Rand
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Namely, if I am challenging the base of all these institutions, I'm challenging the moral code of altruism. The precept that man's moral duty is to live for others. That man must sacrifice himself to others. Which is the present day morality.
Ayn Rand
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If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose . . . the fact that they were the people who created the phrase to make money. No other language or nation had ever used these words before. . . . Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.
Ayn Rand
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Romantic art is always stylized: the better the art, the cleaner and more attractive and intelligent the stylization.
Ayn Rand
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The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst through.
Ayn Rand
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Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my brothers — show me yours — show me that it is possible — show me your achievement — and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
Ayn Rand
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I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.
Ayn Rand
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A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its own form, and serve its own purpose!
Ayn Rand