Inspiring Quotes by Ayn Rand
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The evasion of responsibility is the major cause of most peoples frustrations and defeats.

The ' pleasure' of being drunk is obviously the pleasure of escaping from the responsibility of Consciousness.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

Man needs knowledge in order to survive, and only reason can achieve it; men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason, can exist only as parasites on the thinking of others.

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.

It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.

A man's spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true.

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.

Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.

If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.

The first society in history whose leaders were neither Attilas nor Witch Doctors, a society led, dominated and created by the Producers, was the United States of America.

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade.

Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.

Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.

A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack.

In the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.

When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed.

Government help to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

To say I love you one must first be able to say the I.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.

God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Rights are not a matter of numbers -- and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it -- walk.

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.