Ayn Rand: Cytaty po angielsku (strona 9)

“This is pity,” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.”

“Because I never have any definite destination. This ship is not for going to places, but for getting away from them. When I stop at a port, it's only for the sheer pleasure of leaving it. I always think: here's one more place that can't hold me.”

“If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn't you make the most of it?”

“Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?”

“Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor--by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence--and every achievement is an expression of it.”

“Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves.”

“There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.”

“I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.”

“Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: "I will it!”

“I'll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

“There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.”

“The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves.”

“It's so graceless, being a martyr. It's honoring your adversaries too much.”

“One must never allow oneself to acquire an exaggerated sense of one's own importance. There's no necessity to burden oneself with absolutes”

“People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.”

“Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars.”

“There is no affirmation without the one who affirms. in this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours”

“It's good to suffer. Dont complain. Bear, bow, accept - and be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy.”

“Psychologically, the choice "to think or not" is the choice "to focus or not." Existentially, the choice "to focus or not" is the choice "to be conscious or not." Metaphysically, the choice "to be conscious or not" is the choice of life or death.”