Ayn Rand Quotes About Duty

• We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.

  Ayn Rand

  Work, Men, Self

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.954, 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

• It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.

  Ayn Rand

  Law, Purpose, Return

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.443, Hamilton Books

• Don't consider our interests or desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself.

  Ayn Rand

  Desire, Duty, Interest

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.613, Hamilton Books

• Why had we let it go? Why had we both been condemned...to an exile among dreary strangers who had made us give up all desire for rest, for friendship, for the sound of human voices? Could I now reclaim a single hour spent talking to my brother, Philip, and give it to Ken Daggart? Who made it our duty to accept, as the only reward for our work, the gray torture of pretending love for those who roused nothing but contempt?

  Ayn Rand

  Brother, Giving Up, Talking

• The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.

  Ayn Rand

  Independent, Men, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.76, Penguin

• Roark smiled, "Gail, if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.

  Ayn Rand

  I Like You, Giving, Kind

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.580, Penguin

• No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as " the right to enslave .

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Duty, Obligation

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.93, Penguin

• I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Reading, Evil

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden (1966). “The Objectivist”

• 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

• One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Moral, Duty

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.94, Penguin

• My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

  Ayn Rand

  Fighting, Helping Others, Simple

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.89, Penguin

• Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent 'rights' of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Russia, Rights

• What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

  Ayn Rand

  Fighting, Ideas, Charity

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.89, Penguin

• 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.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Want, Duty

  Ayn Rand (2009). “We the Living”, p.80, Penguin

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