Ayn Rand Quotes About Torture

• Through all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice-it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction-only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Love Is, Two

• But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.

  Ayn Rand

  Years, Joy, May

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.36, Penguin

• Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment's torture.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Goal, Joy

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.711, Hamilton Books

• "Judge not, that ye be not judge"... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."

  Ayn Rand

  Fear, Responsibility, Men

• To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.

  Ayn Rand

  Accessories, Murder, Victim

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.435, Penguin

• Men have died in torture chambers, on the stake, in concentration camps, in front of firing squads, rather than renounce their convictions. The appeaser renounces his under the pressure of a frown on a vacant face.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Squad, Pressure

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.113, 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

• 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

• She had won the battle against her memories. But one form of torture remained, untouched by the years, the torture of the word "why?

  Ayn Rand

  Memories, Years, Battle

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.88, Hamilton Books

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