If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences.
To be exact, writers are self-made.
- Topic: Leadership, Self
- Location: Valley of Fire State Park
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Ayn Rand
When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.
It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own.
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 hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.
If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default; by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.
More Quotes from Valley of Fire State Park
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The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided. No personal considerations should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.
Let us resolve to be masters, not victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the door.
Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.
Oh, I offended you with my opinion? You should hear the the ones I keep to myself.
We can secure other people’s approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.
If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your own integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.
I had long since taught myself to follow the inner voice. I delighted in submitting to it. To act against it would be difficult and painful to me.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.
Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
