Ayn Rand Quotes About Choices

• Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.

  Ayn Rand

  Strength, Power, Men

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.604, Hamilton Books

• Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes” to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No” to the wrong choices made by others.

  Ayn Rand

  Courage, Choices Made, Bravery

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.34, Penguin

• A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Men, Giving

• [S]tatism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power -- to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. ... Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, War, Fighting

• Every man builds his world in his own image; he has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice.

  Ayn Rand

  Power, Men, Escaping

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.604, Hamilton Books

• "Judge not, that ye be not judge"... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."

  Ayn Rand

  Fear, Responsibility, Men

• An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil... Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Animal, Men

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.75, Penguin

• In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts – i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Mean, Men

  "Philosophy, who needs it?". Book by Ayn Rand, 1982.

• When you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil.

  Ayn Rand

  Evil, Choices, Alternatives

• Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

  Ayn Rand

  Change, Life Changing, Choices

• All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Life, Struggle

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.155, Penguin

• When personal judgment is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to justify their choice

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Choices, Firsts

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.205, Penguin

• Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Choices, Religion

• One method of destroying a concept is by diluting its meaning. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Choices, Destroying

  "A Last Survey - Part I". The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. IV, No. 2, 1975.

• My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.

  Ayn Rand

  Choices, Morality, Reason

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.961, Penguin

• No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury-the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.

  Ayn Rand

  Government, Organization, Choices

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.43, Penguin

• So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. . . . When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him by force. It is only as retaliation that force may be used and only against the man who starts its use. No, I do not share his evil or sink to his concept of morality: I merely grant him his choice, destruction, the only destruction he had the right to choose: his own.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Long, Evil

• Reality confronts man with a great many musts, but all of them are conditional the formula of realistic necessity is You must, if and the if stands for man's choice

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Reality, Ifs And

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.97, Penguin

• Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.

  Ayn Rand

  Witty, Men, Evil

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.9, Penguin

• One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation; only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one's choices.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Independent, Validation

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.450, Penguin

• Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the "unfairness" of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact - in defiance of facts. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top - the aristocracy of non-value.

  Ayn Rand

  Equality, Men, Law

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.119, Penguin

• Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.

  Ayn Rand

  Money, Mean, Men

  Ayn Rand (1957). “ATLAS SHRUGGED”

• There must be only three supreme values which govern a person's life: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge--Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve--Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.

  Ayn Rand

  Honesty, Integrity, Self Esteem

• Psychologically, the choice "to think or not" is the choice "to focus or not." Existentially, the choice "to focus or not" is the choice "to be conscious or not." Metaphysically, the choice "to be conscious or not" is the choice of life or death.

  Ayn Rand

  Thinking, Choices, Focus

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.193, Penguin

• She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it.

  Ayn Rand

  Choices, Demand, Objects

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.997, Penguin

You May Also Like:

Leonard Peikoff

Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises

Nathaniel Branden

Murray Rothbard

Alan Greenspan

Milton Friedman