Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.
- Topic: Happiness, Values
- Location: Grand Cayman
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Ayn Rand
Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.
Words are a lens to focus one's mind.
I could not understand how any man could be so brutalized as to claim the right to dispose of the lives of others, nor how any man could be so lacking in self-esteem as to grant to others the right to dispose of his life.
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.
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.
More Quotes from Grand Cayman
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Happiness is a quality of the soul, not a function of one's material circumstances.
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.
Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.
Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
Values are related to our emotions, just as we practice physical hygiene to preserve our physical health, we need to observe emotional hygiene to preserve a healthy mind and attitudes.
Just keep in mind: the more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.
To live is in itself a value judgment. To breathe is to judge.
I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.
