Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality Ayn Rand More Quotes by Ayn Rand More Quotes From Ayn Rand Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth. Ayn Rand western-culturecode-of-ethicsneeds Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason. Ayn Rand moneystupidmen From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind. Ayn Rand religiousmindmen She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known. Ayn Rand serenitycolorwhite People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too ... Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose. Ayn Rand echoesmirrorsreflection The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man's highest potential and strive to actualize it. The man-haters are those who regard man as a helpless, depraved, contemptible creature-and struggle never to let him discover otherwise. Ayn Rand truststrugglemen Faith and force ... are corollaries: every period of history dominated by mysticism, was a period of statism, of dictatorship, of tyranny. Ayn Rand forcetyrannyperiods A gun is not an argument. Ayn Rand argumentgun Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default. Ayn Rand winningdoecivilization As a cultural-intellectual power and a moral ideal, collectivism died in World War II. If we are still rolling in its direction, it is only by the inertia of a void and the momentum of disintegration. A social movement that began with the ponderous, brain-cracking, dialectical constructs of Hegel and Marx, and ends up with a horde of morally unwashed children stamping their foot and shrieking: "I want it now is through." Ayn Rand feetwarchildren There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all. Ayn Rand destructionwhitelying A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-non-existence-as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw-the zero. Ayn Rand weaknesszerosuffering The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong. Ayn Rand egalitarianismstrongmen Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. Ayn Rand recognitionindividualrights I take no pride in hopeless longing; I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it. Ayn Rand hopelesspridewant The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be. Ayn Rand addictiondesireinspirational "Judge not, that ye be not judge"... 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 torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged." Ayn Rand responsibilityfearmen Love is our response to our highest values. Ayn Rand responselove-islife I am opposed to all forms of control. I am for an absolute, laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy. Ayn Rand laissez-faireeconomyform I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities. Ayn Rand individualityhumanityworship
