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8c9634d
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Today we have discovered the word that could not be said. "I"
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Ayn Rand |
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b675c66
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The leaves streamed down, trembling in the sun. They were not green, only a few, scattered through the torrent, stood out in single drops of green so bright and pure that it hurt the eyes; the rest were not a color, but a light, the substance of fire on metal, living sparks without edges. And it looked as if the forest were a spread of light boiling slowly to produce this color, the green rising in small bubbles, the condensed essence of sp..
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Ayn Rand |
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a6cfee2
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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.
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Ayn Rand |
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c8cc4a4
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She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it.
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Ayn Rand |
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3d2eb30
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No! I don't want to speak of that! But I'm going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. Th..
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objectivism
purpose
perception
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Ayn Rand |
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fb75056
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And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.
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Ayn Rand |
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49831c9
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I want to know that I've accomplished something. I want to feel that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure it wasn't all-for nothing.
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Ayn Rand |
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a36eecd
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I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.
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Ayn Rand |
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1742a47
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Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.
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mediocrity
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Ayn Rand |
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daaa532
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I don't believe it matters to me- that they're going to destroy it. Maybe it hurts so much that I don't even know I'm hurt. But I don't think so. If you want to carry it for my sake, don't carry more than I do. I'm not capable of suffering completely. I never have. It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it's not really pain. Where does it stop? Where I can think of nothing and feel ..
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Ayn Rand |
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db45884
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It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.
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individual
pride
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Ayn Rand |
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50daad9
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The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some "pacifist" society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug ..
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Ayn Rand |
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5085763
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I feel that others live up to me, if they want me.
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Ayn Rand |
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0abff02
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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."
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birthright
aristocracy
meritocracy
nobility
talent
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Ayn Rand |
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a78dc2a
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The precept: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" . . . is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a to..
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Ayn Rand |
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c7dea08
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It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious
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Ayn Rand |
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d311dc8
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The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.
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Ayn Rand |
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5391e1e
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She's a writer. The kind of writer who wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind.
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mind
writing
john-galt
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Ayn Rand |
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33ca9fa
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Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch - or build a cyclotron - without a knowledge of his aim and ..
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philosophy
foce
galt
thinking
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Ayn Rand |
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5b74c91
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I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.
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Ayn Rand |
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6464998
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It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness--and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark.
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Ayn Rand |
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32fb27a
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Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I have.
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Ayn Rand |
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51d9921
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And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO
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Ayn Rand |
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2f2c11a
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Why did you decide to be an architect?" "I didn't know it then. But it's because I've never believed in God." "Come on, talk sense." "Because I love this earth. That's all I love. I don't like the shape of things on this earth. I want to change them." "For whom?" "For myself." "How old are you?" "Twenty-two." "Where did you hear all that?" "I didn't." "Men don't talk like that at twenty-two. You're abnormal." "Probably." "I didn't mean it a..
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Ayn Rand |
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6c202f3
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You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.
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Ayn Rand |
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d97909d
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There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively in..
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injustice
morality
innocent
law
innocence
justice
guilt
morals
values
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Ayn Rand |
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cefe813
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Cuando advierta que para producir necesita obtener autorizacion de quienes no producen nada; cuando compruebe que el dinero fluye hacia quienes trafican no bienes, sino favores; cuando perciba que muchos se hacen ricos por el soborno y por influencias mas que por el trabajo, y que las leyes no lo protegen contra ellos, sino, por el contrario son ellos los que estan protegidos contra usted; cuando repare que la corrupcion es recompensada y l..
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Ayn Rand |
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8b5fa5e
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When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are."
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Ayn Rand |
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eceb359
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It is not any crime you have committed that infects your soul with permanent guilt, it is none of your failures, errors or flaws, but the blank-out by which you attempt to evade them - it is not any sort of Original Sin or unknown prenatal deficiency, but the knowledge and fact of your basic default, of suspending your mind, of refusing to think. Fear and guilt are your chronic emotions, they are real and you do deserve them, but they don't..
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Ayn Rand |
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c607427
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It's because...you see, if we had souls, which we haven't, and if our souls met--yours and mine--they'd fight to the death. But after they had torn each other to pieces, to the very bottom, they'd see that they had the same root.
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Ayn Rand |
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3e577de
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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."
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philosophy
serenity
metaphysics
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Ayn Rand |
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77ec606
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When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.
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Ayn Rand |
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b628e02
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When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer. There is no escape from justice, nothing can be unearned and unpaid for in the universe, neither in matter nor in spirit--and if the guilty do not pay, then the innocent have to pay it.
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morality
religious
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Ayn Rand |
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881df8c
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Roark smiled, "Gail, if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you."
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Ayn Rand |
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6add84e
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I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke a cigarette thinking. I wonder what great things have come from those hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind - and it is only proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.
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Ayn Rand |
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645d7b4
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He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.
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new-york-city
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Ayn Rand |
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03a74be
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How do you always manage to decide?" "How can you let others decide for you?"
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Ayn Rand |
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0cd8dce
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Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do -- then, I know they don't believe in life. Because, you see, God -- whatever anyone chooses to call God -- is one's highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare ..
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Ayn Rand |
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e72bd80
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Here's another. Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognise greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't deny conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept - and you stop the impetus to effort in men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improve..
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Ayn Rand |
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77fb783
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Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted.
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emotions
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Ayn Rand |
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8d7e79c
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There's something I want you to know,' said Cherryl, her voice taut and harsh, 'so that there won't be any pretending about it. I'm not going to put on the sweet relative act. I know what you've done to Jim and how you've made him miserable all his life. I'm going to protect him against you. I'll put you in your place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm the woman in this family now.' 'That's quite all right,' said Dagny. 'I'm the man.
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Ayn Rand |
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4f87778
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We have followed you," they said, "and we shall follow you wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it also. If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we wish to share your damnation." They looked upon us, and their voice was low, but there was bitterness and triumph in their voice: "Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft..
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Ayn Rand |
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7ebf61c
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I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved.
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Ayn Rand |
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3ca28e3
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Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit. He saw man as strong, proud, clean, wise and fearless. He saw man as a heroic being. And he built a temple to that. A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation. He thought that exaltation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth and achieving it, of living up to one's highest possibility, of knowing no shame and having no cause for shame, of being abl..
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Ayn Rand |