Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favour others of, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifice nor accept them.
More Quotes from Ayn Rand:
Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.Ayn Rand
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
Ayn Rand
That woman and all those like her keep evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. They do it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it, because you won't permit yourself to consider anything that would spare you. They indulge their emotions at any cost. You sacrifice your emotions as the first cost of any problem. They are willing to bear nothing. You are willing to bear anything. They keep evading responsibility. You keep assuming it. But don't you see that the essential error is the same Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires. Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.
Ayn Rand
We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality
Ayn Rand
Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism.
Ayn Rand
It's not that I don't suffer, it's that I know the unimportance of suffering, I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of existence. Don't feel sorry for me. It was gone right then.
Ayn Rand
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Based on Topics: Efforts Quotes, Goals Quotes, Life Quotes, Man Quotes, Pleasure Quotes, Success QuotesBased on Keywords: alms, cannibals, unearned
There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.
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Integrity is integrity. I don't push it to the side because I'm talking to Julia Roberts.
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It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.
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