Ayn Rand Quotes About Reality

• To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.

  Ayn Rand

  Thinking, Reality, Errors

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.260, Penguin

• You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Consequence

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

  Ayn Rand

  Motherhood, Gun, Reality

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

• When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.

  Ayn Rand

  Learning, Winning, Reality

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.781, Hamilton Books

• Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.

  Ayn Rand

  Happiness, Real, Escaping

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

• You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

  Ayn Rand

  Witty, Humorous, Healing

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

• We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Oil, Liberty

• People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.

  Ayn Rand

  Truth, Liars, Lying

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.657, Hamilton Books

• The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Live Life, Teaching

• Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Emotion, Fit

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.25, Penguin

• Since religion is a primitive form of philosophy — an attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality — many of its myths are distorted, dramatized allegories based on some element of truth, some actual, if profoundly elusive, aspect of man's existence.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Reality, Views

  "The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z".

• Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires.... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Thinking, Reality

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1454, Penguin

• It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature-and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning-and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or "The Fountainhead" that they will betray: it is their own souls.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Courage, Betrayal

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.13, Penguin

• Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.

  Ayn Rand

  Truth, Knowledge, Mean

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.260, Penguin

• Self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. It cannot be replaced by one's power to deceive. The self-confidence of a scientist and the self-confidence of a con man are not interchangeable states, and do not come from the same psychological universe. The success of a man who deals with reality augments his self-confidence. The success of a con man augments his panic.

  Ayn Rand

  Confidence, Self Esteem, Men

  "The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z".

• Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.

  Ayn Rand

  Work, Mean, Reality

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.2260, Penguin

• A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans.

  Ayn Rand

  Truth, Knowledge, Sacrifice

  "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal".

• To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate and paralyze his means of survival to force him to act against his own judgment, is like forcing him to act against his own sight

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Reality, Men

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.781, Hamilton Books

• The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.

  Ayn Rand

  Education, Home, School

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.154, Penguin

• In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem; he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Reality, Men

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.33, Penguin

• No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth - and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man's mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.

  Ayn Rand

  Integrity, Thinking, Reality

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.260, Penguin

• An emotion as much tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something.

  Ayn Rand

  Love, Dream, Reality

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.159, 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

• But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Men, House

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.492, Penguin

• They proclaim that every man is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his 'minimum sustenance' his food, his clothes, his shelter with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright. To receive it from whom.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Men, Clothes

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.2236, Penguin

You May Also Like:

Leonard Peikoff

Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises

Nathaniel Branden

Murray Rothbard

Alan Greenspan

Milton Friedman