Quotes by Ayn Rand

“Art is too serious to be taken seriously.”

“Love is the expression of ones values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.”

“He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident efforts on teaching their fledglings to fly - yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the childs education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think ... Men would shudder, he thought, if they saw a mother bird plucking the feathers from the wings of her young, then pushing him out of the nest to struggle for survival - yet that was what they did to their children.”

“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.”

“Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to mens vices or mens stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moments or a pennys worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then youll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?”

“A culture is made -- or destroyed -- by its articulate voices.”

“And what is the state but a servant and a convenience for a large number of people, just like the electric light and the plumbing system? And wouldnt it be preposterous to claim that men must exist for their plumbing, not the plumbing for the men.”

“We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of peace on earth, good will toward men. That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

Havent I? - he thought. Havent I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Havent I thought of nothing else for two years? ...He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her ...Since the first time I saw you ...Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if ...Through every sentence I ever said to you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed ...You trusted me, didnt you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved - as if you were a man? ...Dont you suppose I know how much Ive betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life - the only person I respected - the best business man I know - my ally - my partner in a desperate battle ...The lowest of all desires - as my answer to the highest Ive met ...Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which would never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you ...I hadnt known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought : Not I, I couldnt be broken by it ...Since then ...For two years ...With not a moments respite ...Do you know what its like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you ...When I lay awake at night ...When I hear your voice over a telephone wire ...When I worked, but could not drive it away? ...To bring you down to things you cant conceive - and to know that its I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animals pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent on the upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength - then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which Ill preform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which youll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ...I want you - and may I be damned for it!

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which mans consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit ones purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of ones values--that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others--that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your minds full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay--that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live--that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.

I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference

I want you, Hank. Im much more of an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you - and the only thing Im ashamed of is that I did not know it. I did not know why, for two years, the brightest moments I found were the ones in your office, where I could lift my head to look up at you. I did not know the nature of what I felt in your presence, nor the reason. I know it now. That is all I want, Hank. I want you in my bed - and you are free of me for all the rest of your time. Theres nothing youll have to pretend - dont think of me, dont feel; dont care - I do not want your mind, your will, your being or your soul, so long as its to me you will come for that lowest one of your desires. I am an animal who wants nothing but the sensation of pleasure which you despise - but I want it from you. Youd give up amy height of virtue for it , while I - I havent any to give up. Theres none I seek or wish to reach. I am so low that I would exchange the greatest sight of beauty in the world for the sight of your figure in the cab of a railroad engine. Amd seeing it, I would not be able to see it indifferently. You dont have to fear that youre now dependent on me. Its I who will depend on any whim of yours. Youll have me anytime you wish, anywhere, on any terms. Did you call it the obscenity of my talent? Its such that it gives you a safer hold on me than on any other property you own. You may dispose of me as you please - Im not afraid to admit it - I have nothing to protect from you and nothing to reserve. You think that this is a threat to your achievement, but it is not to mine. I will sit at my desk, and work, and when the things around me get hard to bear, I will think that for my reward I will be in your bed that night. Did you call it depravity? I am much more depraved than you are: you hold it as your guilt, and I - as my pride. Im more proud of it than anything Ive done, more proud than of building the Line. If Im asked to name my proudest attainment, I will say: I have slept with Hank Rearden. I had earned it.

Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.

Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?

To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person. A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. its yours.

I could die for you. But I couldnt, and wouldnt, live for you.

Why do they always teach us that its easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? Its the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.

To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. Thats what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why thats much harder?

Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.