Quotes from Ayn Rand

He does not regard "because I want it" or "because I feel like it" as a sufficient cause and validation of his actions. He chooses and/or identifies his desires by a process of reason, and he does not act to achieve a desire until and unless he is able rationally to validate it in the full context of his knowledge and of his other values and goals. He does not act until he is able to say: "I want it because it is right.

Quienes poseen la facultad del pensamiento, no trabajarán por obligación, y si lo hacen no producirán mucho más que el precio del látigo necesario para mantenerles en la esclavitud.

to start here, in the United States. This country was the only country in history born, not of chance and blind tribal warfare, but as a rational product of man's mind. This country was built on the supremacy of reason—and, for one magnificent century, it redeemed the world. It will have to do so again.

there's nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.

El pensamiento es una superstición primaria. La razón es un concepto irracional. La pueril noción de que somos capaces de pensar ha constituido el mayor error de los humanos.

A "compromise" does not consist of doing something one dislikes, but of doing something one knows to be evil.

Pues conseguimos lo que queríamos. Y cuando vimos qué era lo que queríamos, era demasiado tarde. Estábamos atrapados, sin ningún sitio adonde ir. Los mejores hombres de entre nosotros se fueron de la fábrica la primera semana del plan. Perdimos nuestros mejores ingenieros, superintendentes, capataces y trabajadores especializados. Un hombre que se autorrespeta no se convierte en una vaca lechera para nadie.

Ellsworth was fifteen, when he astonished the Bible-class teacher by an odd question. The teacher had been elaborating upon the text: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Ellsworth asked: "Then, in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?

It's roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string.

Tu hermana es un síntoma de la enfermedad de nuestro siglo. Un producto decadente de la era de las máquinas. Las máquinas han destruido la humanidad del hombre, lo han apartado del suelo, le han robado sus artes naturales, han matado su alma y lo han transformado en un robot insensible. Ahí tienes un ejemplo de ello: una mujer que dirige un ferrocarril, en vez de practicar el bello arte de tejer..., y de tener hijos.

The excuse, given in all such cases, is that the "compromise" is only temporary and that one will reclaim one's integrity at some indeterminate future date. But one cannot correct a husband's or wife's irrationality by giving in to it and encouraging it to grow. One cannot achieve the victory of one's ideas by helping to propagate their opposite.

Un tren tiene los dos grandes atributos de la vida, pensó, movimiento y propósito;

El hombre recibe un cuerpo, pero no el sustento para el mismo. Se le otorga una mente, pero no el contenido de la misma. Para vivir ha de actuar, pero antes de poder hacerlo debe saber la naturaleza y el proposito de su acción. No puede conseguir alimento sin conocimiento del mismo ni del modo de obtenerlo.

when he was asked whether he could name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. "The man who uses another's pity for him as a weapon.

There was an expert competence in his manner of working; his movements were easy, intelligently economical.

achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. Joy is not 'the absence of pain,' intelligence is not 'the absence of stupidity,' light is not 'the absence of darkness,' an entity is not 'the absence of a nonentity.

The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.

you're a man whom any woman would be proud to show off as her husband.

Los defensores del alma humana estaban preocupados por los sentimientos de sus semejantes; los defensores del cuerpo tuvieron como solo objetivo el estómago, pero ambos se unieron para luchar contra la mente. Sin embargo, nadie, ni el más ruin de los seres humanos, puede renunciar totalmente a su cerebro.

no hay nada importante en la vida... excepto el modo en que se cumple la propia tarea. Nada. Tan solo eso. Todo cuanto seas procede de ahí. Es la vieja medida del valor humano. Todos los códigos de la ética que intentan hacerte tragar, son sólo papel moneda puesto en circulación por timadores para despojar de sus virtudes a la gente.

There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it—it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it—you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

You who won't allow one per cent of impurity into an alloy of metal," the unforgotten voice was saying to him, "what have you allowed into your moral code?

El mundo de hoy es el mundo que desearon; la vida, el objetivo de su odio. Dejadles con esa muerte a la que adoran. En nombre de vuestra magnífica devoción a esta tierra, dejadles; no empleéis la grandeza de vuestra alma en conseguir triunfo de su mal. ¿Me oyes... amor mío?

I can say—not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots—that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world. | ~~Ayn Rand "Philosophy: Who Needs It, 10