Ayn Rand Quotes on Power (8 Quotes)

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.

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer and that is he has acted through most of history.

The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently they are most helplessly in its power.

There are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle ... those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness.... No matter how loudly they posture in the roles of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims in matter the enslavement of mans body, in spirit the destruction of his mind ... make no mistake about the character of the mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their only purpose throughout the ages and power, the power to rule you by force, has always been their only lust.... But it cannot be done to you without your consent. If you permit it to be done, you deserve it.

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.

To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.

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 impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

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.