“A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.”
Author detail
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;[a] February 2, [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (/aɪn/), was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She wrote a play that opened on Broadway in 1935. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge; she rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral[5][6] and opposed collectivism, statism, and anarchism. Instead, she supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including property rights. Although Rand opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, she is often associated with the modern libertarian movement. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals. Rand's fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics.[ Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy because of her polemical approach and lack of methodological rigor.[4] Her writings have influenced some libertarians and conservatives politically. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings
Quotes
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“A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.”
“Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.”
“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.”
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.”
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the sta...”
“I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.”
“A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.”
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”
“Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.”
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.”
“Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.”
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes...”
“When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believ...”
“Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.”
“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
“Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.”
“The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.”
“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 o...”
“God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.”