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Philosophy Quotes by Ayn Rand

82 Philosophy quotes by Ayn Rand

All Philosophy quotes Ayn Rand’s page

Work is called an act of philosophy, and the author claims that philosophical battles are far more intense than political ones. The quotes criticize religion for taking over morality and label promiscuity immoral because sex is too important. They also suggest that philosophy shows life has no inherent meaning.

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Get the hell out of my way!

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To achieve, you need thought

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All work is an act of philosophy.

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“I am, therefore I'll think.”

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“Who is John Galt?”

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I think, therefore I'll think.

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But Aristotle's philosophy was the intellect's Declaration of Independence.

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Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.

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A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices.

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I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.

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Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.

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An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the…

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One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.

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“A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war.”

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The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently; they are most helplessly in its power.

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I will not die, it's the world that will end." paraphrase of unknown philosopher

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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.

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Science was born as a result and consequence of philosophy; it cannot survive without a philosophical base. If philosophy perishes, science will…

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Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of…

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What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and…

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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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“The Objectivist ethics, in essence, hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his…

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Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight…

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I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values…

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Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person…

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Through all the years that I spent formulating my philosophical system, I was looking desperately for “intelligent agreement” or at least for…

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“But of all the deadly theories by means of which you are now being destroyed, I would like to warn you about…

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The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power. The men who…

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“philosopher has given a rational, objectively demonstrable, scientific answer to the question of why man needs a code of values. So long…

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“Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without…

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In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must…

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“It is often asked: Why was capitalism destroyed in spite of its incomparably beneficent record? The answer lies in the fact that…

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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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“The purpose of philosophy is not to help men find a meaning in life, but to prove to them that there isn't…

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“Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man’s relationship to existence.”

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By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.

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I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important.

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Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.

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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

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Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.

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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.