Ayn Rand Quotes About Survival

• Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Evil

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.21, Penguin

• It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature -- the connection between his survival and his use of reason -- that capitalism recognizes and protects.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Survival, Connections

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.17, Penguin

• When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Evil

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

• Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Earth Day, Survival

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.226, Penguin

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Man's mind is his basic tool of survival.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Survival, Mind

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.773, Hamilton Books

• 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

• To preserve one's mind intact through a modern college education is a test of courage and endurance, but the battle is worth it and the stakes are the highest possible to man: the survival of reason.

  Ayn Rand

  Teaching, College, Men

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.83, Penguin

• Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Thinking

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

• If that's the price of getting together, then I'll be damned if I want to live on the same earth with any human beings! If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right to turn men into sacrificial animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we'd better start slaughtering one another, because there isn't any right at all in the world!

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Animal, Self

• The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does -- if that catch-phrase has any meaning -- but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice

  Ayn Rand

  Lying, Men, Justice

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.78, Penguin

• Science was born as a result and consequence of philosophy; it cannot survive without a philosophical base. If philosophy perishes, science will be next to go.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”

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