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Purpose Quotes by Ayn Rand

50 Purpose quotes by Ayn Rand

All Purpose quotes Ayn Rand’s page

A mirror that reflects only yourself can trap a person in endless self‑praise. The quotes argue that having a clear purpose is needed to act, and that without a valid reason, no one moves forward. They also warn that using others for survival erodes moral behavior.

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The most depraved type of human being ... (is) the man without a purpose.

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All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal.

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“We cannot say what they meant, for there are no words for their meaning, but we know it without words and we…

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In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose...

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What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose,…

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The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed.

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“A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its…

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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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People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too ... Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes.…

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Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all…

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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 source of the government's authority is “the consent of the governed.” This means that the government is not the ruler, but…

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Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression "individual rights"? is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes…

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The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable…

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Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not…

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Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a…

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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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“She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails…

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

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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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I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and…

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“And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world…

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The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence -…

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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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“to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions…

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“No! I don't want to speak of that! But I'm going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know…

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“Then she understood that what she needed was the motion to a purpose, no matter how small or in what form, the…

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“Architecture is not a business, not a career, but a crusade and a consecration to a joy that justifies the existence of…

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The purpose of man's life...is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is…

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My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own…

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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

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The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence.

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“This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am…

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It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of…

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“In a book of fiction the purpose is to create, for myself, the kind of world I want and to live in…

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The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper…

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Dagny, we can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change their form at times, if we've made…

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But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to…

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“I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and…

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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.