Famous Quotes from Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand quote #448 from Atlas Shrugged

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which mans consciousness controls his existence a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit ones purpose of translating an idea into physical form of remaking the earth in the image of ones values--that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others--that your work is yours to choose and the choice is as wide as your mind that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time and to settle down into a job that requires less than your minds full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion decay--that your work is the process of achieving your values and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live--that your body is a machine but your mind is its driver and you must drive as far as your mind will take you with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work is the purpose of your life and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you that any value you might find outside your work any other loyalty or love can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.
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Ayn Rand famous quote #450

Havent I - he thought. Havent I thought of it since the first time I saw you Havent I thought of nothing else for two years ...He sat motionless looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form the words he had felt known yet had not faced had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her ...Since the first time I saw you ...Nothing but your body that mouth of yours and the way your eyes would look at me if ...Through every sentence I ever said to you through every conference you thought so safe through the importance of all the issues we discussed ...You trusted me didnt you To recognize your greatness To think of you as you deserved - as if you were a man ...Dont you suppose I know how much Ive betrayed The only bright encounter of my life - the only person I respected - the best business man I know - my ally - my partner in a desperate battle ...The lowest of all desires - as my answer to the highest Ive met ...Do you know what I am I thought of it because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need which would never touch you I have never wanted anyone but you ...I hadnt known what it was like to want it until I saw you for the first time. I had thought Not I I couldnt be broken by it ...Since then ...For two years ...With not a moments respite ...Do you know what its like to want it Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you ...When I lay awake at night ...When I hear your voice over a telephone wire ...When I worked but could not drive it away ...To bring you down to things you cant conceive - and to know that its I who have done it. To reduce you to a body to teach you an animals pleasure to see you need it to see you asking me for it to see your wonderful spirit dependent on the upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are as you face the world with your clean proud strength - then to see you in my bed submitting to any infamous whim I may devise to any act which Ill preform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which youll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ...I want you - and may I be damned for it
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