Ayn Rand Quotes About Values

• What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Greatness, Three

  Playboy Interview, March, 1964.

• The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.

  Ayn Rand

  Majority Rule, Liberty, Principles

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.522, 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

• Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Offering

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.153, Penguin

• I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Struggle, Long

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.620, 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

• Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.

  Ayn Rand

  Love, Life, Character

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.98, Penguin

• A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Men, Giving

• 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".

• Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.

  Ayn Rand

  Happiness, Happy, Integrity

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.220, Penguin

• Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, Courage, Freedom

• The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Self Worth, Men

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.29, Penguin

• So you think that money is the root of all evil? [...] Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

  Ayn Rand

  Money, Men, Thinking

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.70, Penguin

• 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

• "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

• 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

• Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

  Ayn Rand

  Happiness, Being Happy, Time

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.213, Penguin

• Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.

  Ayn Rand

  Business, Character, People

• To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone

  Ayn Rand

  Selfish, Self Esteem, Love Is

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.29, Penguin

• Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Happiness, Loyalty

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.146, 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

• 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

• In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts – i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Mean, Men

  "Philosophy, who needs it?". Book by Ayn Rand, 1982.

• Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

  Ayn Rand

  Change, Life Changing, Choices

• Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.

  Ayn Rand

  Love, Selfish, Self Esteem

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.41, Penguin

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