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Action Quotes by Ayn Rand

37 Action quotes by Ayn Rand

All Action quotes Ayn Rand’s page

Rand argues that inflation and monopolies arise from government interference, not private citizens. She stresses that individual rights cannot be overridden by a crowd or by collectivist rules. According to her, personal principles matter more than any word that ‘doesn’t count.’

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If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others.

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Action without thought is mindlessness, and thought without action is hypocritical.

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Honor is self-esteem made visible in action.

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The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual; everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced…

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Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions…

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There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob

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To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he…

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“A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal that is worth achieving.”

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You were not born to be a second-hander." Howard Roark to Gail Wynand in "The Fountainhead

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Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

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Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.

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Ferris: Are you going to be as impractical as that? Rearden: The evaluation of an action as practical, Dr. Ferris, depends on…

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If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society-you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you…

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Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one's own benefit is…

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[T]he only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions,…

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

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Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy . . . Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires…

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I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not…

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Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group - whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism…

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Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him,…

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No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals…

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I love you. As the same value, as the same expression, with the same pride and the same meaning as I love…

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Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute - and knowable? Or are…

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Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force…

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Through the dry phases of calculations in her mind, she noticed that she did have time to feel something: it was the…

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You must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing,…

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...only the pleasure which proceeds from a rational value judgement can be regarded as moral, pleasure, as such, is not a guide…

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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

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A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.

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An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of…

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My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to…

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

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Censorship' is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a…

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The Founding Fathers were neither passive, death-worshipin g mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters; as a political group they were a phenomenon unprecedented…

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One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor…

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A majority vote is not an epistemological validation of an idea. Voting is merely a proper political device--within a strictly, constitutionall y…

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What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus…

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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.