“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked.”
Ayn Rand (verified)
Atlas Shrugged (Primary source)
In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand explores Objectivism, a philosophy of rational self-interest. The story follows a dystopian United States where successful innovators, led by John Galt, go on strike to protest excessive government regulation and taxation.
“Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense. An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.
— Ayn Rand (verified)“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.”
— Ayn Rand (verified)“I don’t intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build.”
— Ayn Rand (verified)“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
— Ayn Rand (verified)“One loses everything when one loses one’s sense of humor.”
— Ayn Rand (verified)“Spanish girls make wonderful wives. I’ve never had one so I know.”
— Ernest Hemingway (verified)“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”
— Ayn Rand (verified)“There’s no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.”
— Ernest Hemingway (verified)