Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.
("The Fountainhead")
More Quotes from Ayn Rand:
When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least to say. It's taken for granted that he has no voice and his reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced--since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgment on a man than an idea.Ayn Rand
Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man.
Ayn Rand
The lust that drives others to enslave an empire, had become, in her limits, a passion for power over him. She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who had made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were greater than the mother who had given it birth.
Ayn Rand
What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.
Ayn Rand
I dont work with collectives. I don't consult, i don't co-operate, I don't collaborate.
Ayn Rand
Did you ask me to name man's motive power Man's motive power is his moral code. Ask yourself where their code is leading you and what it offers you as your final goal. A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides. By their own statement, it is they who need you and have nothing to offer you in return. By their own statement, you must support them because they cannot survive without you. Consider the obscenity of offering their impotence and their need their need of you as a justification for your torture. Are you willing to accept it Do you care to purchase at the price of your great endurance, at the price of your agony the satisfaction of the needs of your own destroyers.
Ayn Rand
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Based on Topics: Abilities Quotes, Dignity Quotes, Liberty & Freedom Quotes, Man Quotes, Value QuotesBased on Keywords: hasn
I appreciate life, talk a lot, love to laugh, and am very optimistic.
Kiana Tom
And I liked that whole idea that energy comes from not disseminating your ideas and talking about them.
Cameron Crowe
Everything in excess is opposed to nature.
Hippocrates