Ayn Rand Quotes - Page 4

One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.

We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Do you know what she did today?" He leaned confidentially across the table, pointing at the dishes in the sink. "She went to the market and left all the breakfast dishes there and said she'd do them later. I know what she wanted. She expected me to do them. Well, I'll fool her. I'll leave them just where they are.

Dont switch the blame to her, that's the oldest trick of all cowards

There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and the air of the streets. Fear walks through the city, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare speak.

Now you see, Dr. Stadler, you're speaking as if this book were addressing to a thinking audience. If it were, one would have to be concerned with such matters as accuracy, validity, logic and the prestige of science. But it isn't. It's addressed to the public.

Andrei, did you like the opera?"
"Not particularly."
"Andrei, do you see what you're missing?"
"I don't think I do, Kira. It's all rather silly. And useless."
"Can't you enjoy things that are useless, merely because they are beautiful?"
"No. But I enjoyed it."
"The music?"
"No. The way you listened to it.

Keating stood still, because he understood for the first time what it was that artists spoke about when they spoke of beauty.

In the many months of his absence, she never wondered whether he was true to her or not; she knew he was. She knew, even though she was too young to know the reason, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence were possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil.

The course led them to the moment when, in answer to the highest of one's values, one's spirit makes one's body become the tribute, recasting it-as proof, as sanction, as reward-into a single sensation of such intensity of joy that no other sanction of one's existence is necessary.

But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life.

Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves.

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

Art is inextricably tied to man's survival - not to his physical survival, but to that on which his physical survival depends: to the preservation and survival of his consciousness.

Do it first and feel about it afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart

I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother.

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

For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.

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

It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.