Ayn Rand Quotes About Morality

• Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Mean, Sacrifice

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.2419, Penguin

• The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Happiness, Humor

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.99, Penguin

• Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values-that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Success, Acceptance

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.105, Penguin

• Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.

  Ayn Rand

  Motherhood, Gun, Reality

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.966, Penguin

• Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Responsibility, Men

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.410, Penguin

• For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Sacrifice, Self

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.96, Penguin

• 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.

  Ayn Rand

  Money, People, Trying

  "Atlas Shrugged".

• Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth

  Ayn Rand

  Fighting, Pride, Men

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.817, Hamilton Books

• Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Life, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.109, Penguin

• A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness-non-existence-as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defect: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw-the zero.

  Ayn Rand

  Zero, Suffering, Weakness

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.32, Penguin

• The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Animal, Men

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.33, Penguin

• What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.

  Ayn Rand

  Courage, Integrity, Dedication

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.179, Penguin

• The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Morality, Creeds

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.93, 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

• 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

• Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Self, Doe

  "Journals of Ayn Rand". Book by Ayn Rand, 1997.

• 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

• A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest - but if devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

  Ayn Rand

  Cheating, Truth, Responsibility

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

• But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Frustration, Men

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.212, Penguin

• You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Reality, Men

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.323, 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

• Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live.

  Ayn Rand

  Acceptance, Productive Work, Facts

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.963, Penguin

• No value is higher than self-esteem, but you've invested it in counterfeit securities-and now your morality has caught you in a trap where you are forced to protect your self-esteem by fighting for the creed of self-destruction. The grim joke is on you: that need of self-esteem, which you're unable to explain or to define, belongs to my morality, not yours; it's the objective token of my code, it is my proof within your own soul.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Fighting, Soul

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.143, Penguin

• Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.

  Ayn Rand

  Numbers, Rights, Law

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.245, Penguin

• Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.

  Ayn Rand

  Black And White, Men, Sides

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden (1964). “The virtue of selfishness: a new concept of egoism”, Signet

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