Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.
People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.
- Topic: Character, Honesty, Integrity, Truth
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Ayn Rand
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.
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.
If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.
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.
Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind.
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.
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The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against our faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by tellings against ourselves.
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.
The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow eating agony of a lie is never lost.
People all over the nation are starved for honesty and common sense.
If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: never lie to yourself.
No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.
False leaders create followers by lying.
It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.
Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.
Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.
Perfect wisdom has four parts; Wisdom, the principle of doing things right. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.
But what is happiness except for the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.
It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. . . . I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it and invent ridiculous embellishments.
Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.
Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in the newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.
The liar is no better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth.
The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
