Objectivism Quotes - Page 2

• 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

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• When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.

  Ayn Rand

  Hope, Crazy, Inspiration

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.103, Penguin

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• I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Power, Needs

  Ayn Rand (2012). “Study Guide: Anthem (Study Gudie and Book)”, p.101, BookCaps Study Guides

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• 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.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Giving, Wish

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.315, Penguin

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• If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.

  Ayn Rand

  Greed, Favoritism, Corruption

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.240, Penguin

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• Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. What do you think is alive in me? Why do you think I'm alive? Because I have a stomach and eat and digest the food? Because I breathe and work and produce more food to digest? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want—isn't that life itself? And who—in this damned universe—who can tell me why I should live for anything but for that which I want?

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Philosophy, Work

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

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• The fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes [moral] objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity

  David Hume

  Law, Practice, Water

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• In the past things were either in your head (subjective, imaginary, fantasy) or else they were part of the outside world - cold, hard, concrete materialistic reality. If you want to look at it in terms of poetry, there was surrealism and objectivism. Now there's the veil of the virtual in between. The old opposition between inner and outer doesn't quite capture it, especially as it contains elements of both. It's real but not concrete.

  Elaine Equi

  Real, Past, Looks

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Objectivism advocates reason as man's sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that's all.

  Leonard Peikoff

  Atheist, Mean, Reality

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• I think it's very important to distinguish between objectivity - which tends to be open, flexible, skeptical of its own certainty and open to new information - and objectivism - which thinks, "No, we know it all, we've got it, so real thinking and learning can come to an end."

  W. J. T. Mitchell

  Real, Thinking, Objectivity

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Objectivism is basically the same thing as faith-based science or for that matter faith-based foreign policy, where you start out with the assumption "We are good, they are evil," or "We know what is good and right and we know what is wrong," so all questions are settled in advance by a set of ideological prejudices.

  W. J. T. Mitchell

  Evil, Prejudice, Matter

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.

  Gore Vidal

  Philosophy, Evil, Perfect

  FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Dec 18, 2011

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• If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with

  Ayn Rand

  Giving, Credit, Authorship

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• The theory of objectivism claims that there are certain things that most people in society can agree upon. A model is pretty. A lawyer is smart. Our society is based upon objectivism. It’s how we make rules and why we obey them.

  Portia de Rossi

  Smart, Agree Upon, People

  Portia de Rossi (2011). “Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

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• A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... how utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was.

  Don Cupitt

  People, Arrogance, Would Be

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• ... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'

  Nathaniel Branden

  Loyalty, Intellectual, Followers

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