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Religion Quotes by Ayn Rand

54 Religion quotes by Ayn Rand

All Religion quotes Ayn Rand’s page

Ayn Rand declares that reason, not religion, should guide ethics. She argues that faith can hijack moral language and even spark wars among believers. She also affirms that the human spirit endures despite attempts to suppress truth. She suggests that true progress comes from questioning dogma.

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A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry.

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I don’t approve of religion.

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In the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.

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I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions.

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Faith is the wors curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought.

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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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Religion is a primitive form of philosophy, [the] attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality.

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The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.

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To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true.

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I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.

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From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have…

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If a man wants love he should correct his weaknesses, or his flaws, and he may deserve it. But he cannot expect…

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Faith and force ... are corollaries: every period of history dominated by mysticism, was a period of statism, of dictatorship, of tyranny.

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the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.

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The fortune my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the…

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I am an intransigent atheist, though not a militant one. This means that I am not fighting against religion - I am…

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“From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have…

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That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom…

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Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange…

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Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither…

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“Why would you want it, if it’s not the truth?” he asked. “What for?” “Now you see, that’s the cruelty of conscientious…

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The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior…

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If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense - you're ready for…

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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the…

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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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“so you see, Roark though it is to be a religious edifice, it is also more than that. you notice that we…

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“When we gaze at the magnificence of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, we are guilty of spiritual…

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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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Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to God for a good harvest), its essential,…

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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 my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the…

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These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the…

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I sat there beside him till morning - and as I watched his face in the starlight, then the first ray of…

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“Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of…

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“If his judgment is to be an object of sacrifice — what sort of efficacy, control, freedom from conflict, or serenity of…

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Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act…

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Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this…

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There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine, that attacked (or 'limited') reason, which did not preach submission to…

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In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit you had known in your childhood: that spirit…

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I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the…

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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.