“Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.”

—  Ayn Rand , book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue." by Ayn Rand?
Ayn Rand photo
Ayn Rand 322
Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905–1982

Related quotes

George Washington photo

“We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a Nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to James Madison, 30 November 1785 https://books.google.com/books?id=64MTAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA25
1780s

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Some sensations are sleeps that take up all the extent of the mind like a fog, don't let us think, don't let us act, don't let us be clearly.”

Ibid., p. 98
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Há sensações que são sonos, que ocupam como uma névoa toda a extensão do espírito, que não deixam pensar, que não deixam agir, que não deixam claramente ser.

Francis Escudero photo

“Let an hour of darkness enlighten us of the need to change our lifestyles if we are to arrest the continuing degradation of the planet. Let it also remind us of the dark future we are facing if we don't act now.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

GMA News http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/154536/news/nation/palace-senators-lgus-to-switch-off-lights-on-earth-hour
2009

Charles Sanders Peirce photo

“Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Vol. V, par. 265
Collected Papers (1931-1958)

Théodore Guérin photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Remarks at "Loyola College Alumni Banquet, Baltimore, Maryland (18 February 1958) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx; Box 899, Senate Speech Files, John F. Kennedy Papers, Pre-Presidential Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
Pre-1960

Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“Let us unite, let us hold each other tightly, let us merge our hearts, let us create — so long as the warmth of this earth endures, so long as no earthquakes, cataclysms, icebergs or comets come to destroy us — let us create for Earth a brain and a heart, let us give a human meaning to the superhuman struggle.”

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: I strive to discover how to signal my companions before I die, how to give them a hand, how to spell out for them in time one complete word at least, to tell them what I think this procession is, and toward what we go. And how necessary it is for all of us together to put our steps and hearts in harmony.
To say in time a simple word to my companions, a password, like conspirators.
Yes, the purpose of Earth is not life, it is not man. Earth has existed without these, and it will live on without them. They are but the ephemeral sparks of its violent whirling.
Let us unite, let us hold each other tightly, let us merge our hearts, let us create — so long as the warmth of this earth endures, so long as no earthquakes, cataclysms, icebergs or comets come to destroy us — let us create for Earth a brain and a heart, let us give a human meaning to the superhuman struggle.
This anguish is our second duty.

Robert Frost photo

“We can't appraise the time in which we act.
But for the folly of it, let's pretend
We know enough to know it for adverse.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Lesson for Today (1942)

Miguel de Unamuno photo

“Man is perishable. That may be; but let us perish resisting, and if it is nothingness that awaits us, do not let us so act that it shall be a just fate.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), XI : The Practical Problem
Context: More than a century ago, in 1804, in Letter XC of that series that constitutes the immense monody of his Obermann, Sénancour wrote the words which I have put at the head of this chapter — and of all the spiritual descendants of the patriarchal Rousseau, Sénancour was the most profound and intense; of all the men of heart and feeling that France has produced, not excluding Pascal, he was the most tragic. "Man is perishable. That may be; but let us perish resisting, and if it is nothingness that awaits us, do not let us so act that it shall be a just fate." Change this sentence from it negative to the positive form — "And if it is nothingness that awaits us, let us so act that it shall be an unjust fate" — and you get the firmest basis of action for the man who cannot or will not be a dogmatist.

Related topics