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Ayn Rand citations
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Ayn Rand , de son vrai nom Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum , est une philosophe, scénariste et romancière américaine d'origine russe, juive athée, née le 2 février 1905 à Saint-Pétersbourg et morte le 6 mars 1982 à New York.

Ayn Rand est connue pour sa philosophie rationaliste, proche de celle du mouvement politique libertarien, à laquelle elle a donné le nom d'« objectivisme ». Elle a écrit de nombreux essais philosophiques sur des concepts tenant de la pensée libérale, comme la liberté, la justice sociale, la propriété ou l'État et dont le principal , est La Vertu d'égoïsme . Ses contributions principales s'inscrivent dans les domaines de l'éthique, de la philosophie politique et de l'épistémologie. Populaires hors du champ académique, ses idées et leurs supports ne remportent pour autant pas un grand assentiment auprès des philosophes, sans doute rebutés par son style assez polémique et le ton parfois dogmatique de certains de ses soutiens.

Ayn Rand a également publié des œuvres de fiction telles que La Grève , La Source vive et Nous, les vivants , qui figurent parmi les plus vendues aux États-Unis. Elle a par ailleurs écrit de nombreux scénarios pour le cinéma, dont des adaptations de ses propres œuvres de fiction.

Ayn Rand est considérée comme la théoricienne d'un capitalisme individualiste ainsi que d'un libertarianisme refusant toute forme de coercition et prônant les valeurs de la raison, du mérite et de l'« égoïsme rationnel », son concept central. Figure de l'anti-communisme radical, Ayn Rand prône également l'indépendance et le « laissez-faire » face à toute forme de collectivisme ou de religion établis.

De nombreuses personnalités, comme le psychothérapeute Nathaniel Branden, les économistes Alan Greenspan et M. Northrup Buechner, le romancier Terry Goodkind, le président Ronald Reagan ou le fondateur de Wikipédia, Jimmy Wales, se réclament de ses conceptions. Ayn Rand a aussi profondément nourri la vision libertarienne dite minarchiste, replaçant l'individu au centre de la société et de l'éthique.

Elle avait trouvé dans Ludwig von Mises, lui aussi émigré aux États-Unis, le grand théoricien contemporain du laissez-faire qui complétait sa compréhension de l'économie.

Selon Alain Laurent, un des spécialistes francophones de son œuvre, Ayn Rand représenterait l'incarnation de la « self-made woman immigrée », « car elle réussit cet exploit tout en professant un athéisme radical et critiquant violemment l'altruisme au nom de l'« égoïsme rationnel » ». Ayn Rand fut par ailleurs la cible de nombreuses critiques dont la principale s'attache à expliquer qu'en dépit d'une argumentation se voulant rationnelle, elle n'en maîtrisait pas toujours les raisonnements.

✵ 2. février 1905 – 6. mars 1982  •  Autres noms Ayn Randová, Ann Rand
Ayn Rand photo
Ayn Rand: 326 citations0 J'aime

Ayn Rand citations célèbres

“L'homme qui produit pendant que d'autres disposent du produit de son effort est un esclave.”

Ayn Rand livre La Vertu d'égoïsme

The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
en
La Vertu d'égoïsme

“Qui est John Galt?”

Ayn Rand

Who is John Galt?
en
La Révolte d'Atlas

“Je ne considère pas les collectivistes comme des « idéalistes sincères mais abusés ». La suggestion de réduire en esclavage certains hommes pour le bien d'autres n'est pas un idéal; la brutalité n'est pas « idéaliste », peu importe son but.”

Ayn Rand

Cette traduction est en attente de révision. Est-ce correct?

“Si vous ne savez pas, la chose à faire n'est pas d'avoir peur, mais d'apprendre.”

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand: Citations en anglais

“There's so much nonsense about human inconstancy and the transience of all emotions. I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.”

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Ayn Rand

“Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I have.”

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Ayn Rand livre Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes” to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No” to the wrong choices made by others.”

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Ayn Rand livre Philosophy: Who Needs It

Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It

“The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.”

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Ayn Rand

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.”

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Ayn Rand livre Atlas Shrugged

The Fountainhead (1943).
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Contexte: That particular sense of sacred rapture men say they experience in contemplating nature- I've never received it from nature, only from. Buildings, Skyscrapers. I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pest-hole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

“I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved.”

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Ayn Rand livre We the Living

Source: We the Living

“That an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.”

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Ayn Rand

“How do you always manage to decide?"
"How can you let others decide for you?”

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Ayn Rand livre The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.”

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Ayn Rand livre Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Im waiting, for what, my kind of people, what kind is that, i can tell my kind of people by their faces, by something in their faces.”

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Ayn Rand

“Moral absolute one does not”

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Ayn Rand livre Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged

“Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

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Ayn Rand

The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–1976)

“The purpose of my work: to introduce, or, rather, to re-introduce the original ways of human development. Once viewed as personal responsibility, personal growth, education, and social doctrine were highly effective. Now that they have begun to be approached as an "acceptance," our ideals have begun to rely on the willingness of others to go along with our philosophies. It is now time for us to return to the selfish ideals of the past.”

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Ayn Rand

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

“They (Native Americans) didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.”

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Ayn Rand

Q and A session following her address to the graduating class of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974 - found in Endgame: Resistance, by Derrick Jensen, Seven Stories Press, 2006, pg 220

“Never initiate the use of force against another man. Never let his use of force against you remain unanswered by force.”

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Ayn Rand

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

“Objectivism is a philosophical movement; since politics is a branch of philosophy, Objectivism advocates certain political principles — specifically, those of laissez-faire capitalism — as the consequence and the ultimate practical application of its fundamental philosophical principles. It does not regard politics as a separate or primary goal, that is: as a goal that can be achieved without a wider ideological context…. Objectivists are not "conservatives." We are radicals for capitalism; we are fighting for that philosophical base which capitalism did not have and without which it was doomed to perish.”

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Ayn Rand

“Choose Your Issues,” The Objectivist Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1962)

“Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth — the irrational.”

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Ayn Rand

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, 2009, p. 100

“No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many scholars who are elected by all the men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do. We have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not care. We forget all men, all laws and all things save our metals and our wires. So much is still to be learned! So long a road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!”

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Ayn Rand livre Anthem

Anthem (1937)

“The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.”

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Ayn Rand livre La Vertu d'égoïsme

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“Let anyone who believes that a high standard of living is the achievement of labor unions and government controls ask himself the following question: If one had a "time machine" and transported the united labor chieftains of America, plus three million government bureaucrats, back to the tenth century—would they be able to provide the medieval serf with electric light, refrigerators, automobiles, and television sets?”

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Ayn Rand livre Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

“Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym of "evil," regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not what you are extreme about, but that you are "extreme"—i. e., consistent).”

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Ayn Rand livre La Vertu d'égoïsme

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.”

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Ayn Rand livre La Vertu d'égoïsme

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders' motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world.”

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Ayn Rand livre Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

“Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday… The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.”

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Ayn Rand

The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–1976)

“The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.”

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Ayn Rand

Question period following Lecture 11 of Leonard Peikoff's series "The Philosophy of Objectivism," 1976

“Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression “individual rights” is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos). But the expression “collective rights” is a contradiction in terms.”

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Ayn Rand livre La Vertu d'égoïsme

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

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