Desire Quotes by Ayn Rand

43 Desire quotes by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand says the world you want can be won if you see it as real, and she stresses that reason, not feeling, should guide desire. She warns that denying reality brings disaster, and she questions why some call desire immoral while praising profit.

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“and the desire would never be satisfied, except by a being of equal greatness.”

Ayn Rand

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The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.

Ayn Rand

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A rational man is guided by his thinking - by a process of Reason - not by his feelings and desires.

Ayn Rand

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The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Ayn Rand

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A 'whim' is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.

Ayn Rand

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To know one's own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.

Ayn Rand

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The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.

Ayn Rand

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A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

Ayn Rand

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Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my body? I was. Have…

Ayn Rand

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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…

Ayn Rand

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Only the man who extols the purity of love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of…

Ayn Rand

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Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good…

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom. . .To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend…

Ayn Rand

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There's only one passion in most artists more violent than their desire for admiration: their fear of identifying the nature of such…

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit…

Ayn Rand

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Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not…

Ayn Rand

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You'll come back, because yours is an error of knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but…

Ayn Rand

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If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, I'll tell you: I cannot bring myself to abandon to…

Ayn Rand

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Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to…

Ayn Rand

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You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider…

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East…

Ayn Rand

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If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, I'll tell you: I cannot bring myself to abandon to…

Ayn Rand

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So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. . . .…

Ayn Rand

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Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor…

Ayn Rand

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I am speaking to those among you who have retained some sovereign shred of their soul, unsold and unstamped: '- to the…

Ayn Rand

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“They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you just about in some such way as if…

Ayn Rand

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Then no rightful cause was left, and the pain of anger was turning into the shameful pain of submission. He had no…

Ayn Rand

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“Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and…

Ayn Rand

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Everything has strings leading to everything else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a net, the net is waiting, and…

Ayn Rand

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“The people had come to witness a sensational case, to see celebrities, to get material for conversation, to be seen, to kill…

Ayn Rand

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“I want you, Hank. I'm much more of an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I saw…

Ayn Rand

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Don't consider our interests or desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself.

Ayn Rand

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“An honest man does not desire until he has identified the object of his desire. He”

Ayn Rand

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Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor…

Ayn Rand

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Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a…

Ayn Rand

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In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his…

Ayn Rand

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Why had we let it go? Why had we both been condemned...to an exile among dreary strangers who had made us give…

Ayn Rand

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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.

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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…

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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…

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand

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

Ayn Rand