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Achievement Quotes by Ayn Rand

42 Achievement quotes by Ayn Rand

All Achievement quotes Ayn Rand’s page

Ayn Rand stresses that personal pride and a rational mind are the core of true achievement. She warns that surrendering to collective pressure destroys the individual spirit. She also urges us to look at other people's successes as a source of courage for our own goals.

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Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.

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Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.

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“The sight of an achievement was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others.”

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Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal.

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Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

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Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor--by our love for a single value, for the…

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“Life is achievement…Give yourself an aim, something you want to do, then go after it, breaking through everything, with nothing in mind…

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My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of…

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It is easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of…

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A culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

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There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave…

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Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my…

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Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage…

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Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my…

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Capitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose…

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The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic…

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Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible…

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Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of…

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Since a rational man's ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a lifelong process - and the higher…

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Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable…

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“People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort…

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It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience.…

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“Every achievement of man is a value in itself, but it is also a stepping-stone to greater achievements and values. Life is…

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“Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness…

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“Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest…

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Every man builds his world in his own image; he has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity…

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You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for…

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Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither…

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I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part…

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My pride and my power of vision were all that I owned when I started - and whatever I achieved, was achieved…

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Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is…

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Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope…

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Since a rational man's ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a life-long process — and the higher…

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Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness…

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Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective…

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“She could not descend to an existence where her brain would explode under the pressure of forcing itself not to outdistance incompetence.…

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She looked at the crowd and she felt simultaneously astonishment that they should stare at her when this event was so personally…

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Happiness is not something you have in your hands; it's something you carry in your heart. Happiness is one thing that multiplies…

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America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more-and nothing less. The rest-everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything…

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A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions… He will always be attracted to the woman…

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More by Ayn Rand

There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.

She watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment…

“This was reality, she thought, this sense of clear outlines, of purpose, of lightness, of hope.”

A “collective” mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of…

Lobbying' is the activity of attempting to influence legislation by privately influencing the legislators. It is the result and creation of a mixed economy-of…

“She moved her hand and let it rest against his. He did not withdraw his fingers and he did not pretend indifference. She bent…

This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before.

“There was still one response, the greatest, that she had missed. She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as…

Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to…

“We are fornicating in the sight of six billion people.”

“She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To…

Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long…

Have you felt it too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you- except the things that count? And your most…

Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of…

We are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.