Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.
You don’t have to depend on any material possessions, they depend on you, you create them, you own the one and only tool of production.
- Topic: Action, Leadership, Thinking
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Ayn Rand
A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes…loses its moral rights to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow.
The hardest thing to explain is the glaring evident which everybody had decided not to see.
America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the “common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.
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.
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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.
Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.
If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.
And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a life.
I'm a writer, and I will write what I want to write.
A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special...
An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over ashes.
The heights by great men reached and kept Where not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
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.
Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you. . . If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
Much of the evil in the world is due to the fact that man in general is hopelessly unconscious.
Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.
Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind.
You must try to observe yourself more and more objectively, to look at everything in yourself as though another person.
No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.
It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.
A man is as big as the measure of his thinking.
To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.