Ayn Rand Quotes About Altruism

• Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism.

  Ayn Rand

  Selfish, Names, History

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”

• We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something--and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason and a view of man as a rational being.

  Ayn Rand

  Fighting, Men, Views

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.201, Penguin

• [Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Self

• I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.

  Ayn Rand

  Reason, Supremacy, Egoism

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.415, Penguin

• If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Civilization, Religion

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.63, Penguin

• Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. ... To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Order, Suffering Of Others

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.64, Penguin

• Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one's own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value - and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.

  Ayn Rand

  Taken, Long, Evil

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.80, Penguin

• The three values which men had held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism — as a cultural power — died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism — as a political ideal — died in World War II. As to altruism — it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it.

  Ayn Rand

  War, Men, Civilization

  "Philosophy: Who Needs It".

• The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.

  Ayn Rand

  Russia, Roots, Anxiety

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.71, Penguin

• Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth the irrational.

  Ayn Rand

  Real, Philosophical, Fighting

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.382, Penguin

• Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophical, Men, Opposites

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.45, Penguin

• If a man speculates on what 'society' should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society and that he, as a member of society, has the right to dispose of them...that psychological confession reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Rights, Erode

• Namely, if I am challenging the base of all these institutions, I'm challenging the moral code of altruism. The precept that man's moral duty is to live for others. That man must sacrifice himself to others. Which is the present day morality.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Challenges

  Source: blankonblank.org

• Altruism does not mean mere kindness or generosity, but the sacrifice of the best among men to the worst, the sacrifice of virtues to flaws, of ability to incompetence, of progress to stagnation-and the subordinating of all life and of all values to the claims of anyone's suffering.

  Ayn Rand

  Kindness, Mean, Sacrifice

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.128, Penguin

• Guilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Self, Guilt

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