Ayn Rand Quotes About Sacrifice

• America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, Jobs, Moving

  "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal". Book by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden, 1966.

• 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

• America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, America

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.27, Penguin

• When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.

  Ayn Rand

  Honesty, Sacrifice, Men

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1448, Penguin

• It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Offering

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.677, Penguin

• When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed

  Ayn Rand

  Honesty, Sacrifice, Self

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1448, 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

• I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of all things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a sacrifice on their alters.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Sacrifice, Mountain

• I am not the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Sacrifice, Wish

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.52, Penguin

• Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force - and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Sacrifice, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.122, Penguin

• Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Love Is, Self

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.278, Penguin

• The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Liberty

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.58, Penguin

• I would step in the way of a bullet if it were aimed at my husband. It is not self-sacrifice to die protecting that which you value: If the value is great enough, you do not care to exist without it.

  Ayn Rand

  Love, Husband, Sacrifice

• Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible under a free economy -- and a man's position is determined, not by his productive ability and achievement, but by political pull and force. Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis -- and "the public good" is the altar on which victims are immolated.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Political

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.175, 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

• 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

• Collectivism requires self-sacrifice, the subordination of one's interests to those of others.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Self, Subordination

  Ayn Rand (1995). “The Letters of Ayn Rand”, Dutton Adult

• Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Self, Novelists

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.804, Penguin

• I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I've given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way I can want you to love me.

  Ayn Rand

  Love You, Sacrifice, Air

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.358, Penguin

• An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.'

  Ayn Rand

  Running, Sacrifice, Men

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.231, Penguin

• Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don’t ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul.

  Ayn Rand

  Hate, Sacrifice, Men

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.69, 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

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

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Morality, Creeds

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

• The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice,' but integrity.

  Ayn Rand

  Integrity, Sacrifice, Love Is

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.43, Penguin

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