Quotes from Ayn Rand

The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. The ego you seek, that essential 'you' which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you've impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your 'feeling.

no sentiste nunca la impresión de que de niño te habían prometido algo, y luego te miras y piensas: Entonces no sabía que me sucedería todo eso, y te das cuenta de que todo es extraño, y ridículo, y un poco triste a la vez?»

Did you ask me to name man's motive power? Man's motive power is his moral code. Ask yourself where their code is leading you and what it offers you as your final goal. A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.

Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted. "If

I don't propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me.

Più sappiamo, più impariamo che non sappiamo niente.

Señorita Taggart, ¿sabe lo que caracteriza a un mediocre? Es resentimiento por el logro de otro hombre.

All work is an act of philosophy. And when men will learn to consider productive work—and that which is its source—as the standard of their moral values, they will reach that state of perfection which is the birthright they lost..

Roark walked now to these drawings; they were the first things to be packed.

La più piccola minoranza al mondo è l'individuo. Chiunque neghi i diritti dell'individuo non può sostenere di essere un difensore delle minoranze.

fastidiousness

there have been centuries of philosophers plotting to turn the world into just that—to destroy people's minds by making them believe that that's what they're seeing. But you don't have to accept it. You don't have to see through the eyes of others, hold on to yours, stand on your own judgment, you know that what is, is—say it aloud, like the holiest of prayers, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

It was the ultimate form of our admiration for each other, with full knowledge of the values by which we made our choice.

Cuál es entonces su norma de conocimiento y de verdad? Lo que otros crean, responden. enseñan que no hay conocimiento, sino fe.

cardboard displayed a water-color perspective of a gray granite

She moved her hand and let it rest against his. He did not withdraw his fingers and he did not pretend indifference. She bent over, holding his hand, not raising it from his knee, and she pressed her lips to his hand. Her hat fell off, he saw the blond head at his knees, he felt her mouth kissing his hand again and again. His fingers held hers, answering, but that was the only answer.

had never learned the process of thinking about other people.

The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others… Look at history. Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots. Without personal rights, without personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against the collective.

It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money—and

Truth or falsehood must be one's sole concern and sole criterion of judgment—not anyone's approval or disapproval; and, above all, not the approval of those whose standards are the opposite of one's own. Let me emphasize that the Argument from Intimidation does not consist of introducing moral judgment into intellectual issues, but of substituting moral judgment for intellectual argument.

The relief was not in the surrender of responsibility, but in the sight of a man able to assume it.

To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.

loafing failures—I saw the labor unions who won every claim against me, by reason of my ability to make their livelihood possible—I saw that any man's desire for money he could not earn was regarded as a righteous wish, but if he earned it, it was damned as greed—I saw the politicians who winked at me, telling me not to worry, because I could just work a little harder and outsmart them all.

There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.