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Existence Quotes by Ayn Rand

39 Existence quotes by Ayn Rand

All Existence quotes Ayn Rand’s page

Existence is described as an absolute that cannot be erased. The quotes say saying yes to what is real brings serenity, while saying no to wrong choices shows courage. It also argues that a moral system demanding self‑sacrifice ignores a person's right to simply be.

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I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence.

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That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.

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Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

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Do not help your jailers to pretend that their jail is your natural state of existence.

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It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.

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Courage and confidence are practical necessities . . . courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true…

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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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Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes” to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No” to the wrong choices…

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The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him--The reasoning…

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Every period ruled by mystics was an era of stagnation and want, when most men were on strike against existence,

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Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking…

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Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact…

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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe.…

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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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Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by…

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Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those…

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They had rejected the soul-body dichotomy, with its two corollaries: the impotence of man's mind and the damnation of this earth; they…

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In western civilization, the period ruled by mysticism is known as the 'Dark Ages' and the 'Middle Ages'. I will assume that…

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“Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether…

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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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Just as man's physical existence was liberated when he grasped that 'nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed', so his consciousness will…

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The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to…

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Individualism regards man - every man - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a…

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There must be only three supreme values which govern a person's life: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of…

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Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence.…

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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it-that no…

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If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.

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Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection, and the base of a moral existence.

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My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.

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Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of…

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Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is…

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But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring…

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[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others…

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One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such.…

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For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging…

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A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-non-existence-as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability,…

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It's not that I don't suffer, it's that I know the unimportance of suffering. I know that pain is to be fought…

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Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do…

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If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to…

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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.