Quote

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

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
Virtue
Vice
Moral
Vices
Often
Object
Used
Laugh
Camouflage
Character
Objects
Contemptible
Good
Depends
Hideous
Laughing
Unconditional
Humor
Cowardice

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.
Ayn Rand
Image
You don't build for the way people live, but for the way they should live. I don't write about people as they are, but as they could be and should be.
Ayn Rand
Image
The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
Ayn Rand
Image
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
Image
It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to 'preserve' private property-with government control of its use and disposal. But that is the fundamental characteristic of fascism.
Ayn Rand
Image
A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.
Ayn Rand
Image
Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.
Ayn Rand
Image
The causes of illusions are not pretty to discover. They're either vicious or tragic.
Ayn Rand
Image
Man's character is the product of his premises.
Ayn Rand
Image
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Ayn Rand
Image
Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge.
Ayn Rand
Image
It is a sin to write this.
Ayn Rand
Image
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
Ayn Rand
Image
Collectivism requires self-sacrifice, the subordination of one's interests to those of others.
Ayn Rand
Image
A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition.
Ayn Rand
Image
A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.
Ayn Rand
Image
If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn't you make the most of it?
Ayn Rand
Image
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
Image
The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
Ayn Rand
Image
If a life can have a 'theme-song' - and I believe every worthwhile one has - mine is [best] expressed in one word: Individualism.
Ayn Rand