Quotes from Ayn Rand

abeyance. "Is there

But you see, the measure of hell you're able to endure is the measure of your love. ? Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged . (Berkley; Reprint edition August 1, 1999) Originally published 1957.

el castigo es producto de los propios errores

He decided that pain was not a valid reason for stopping.

For the rest of us, it is a miniature preview—in the microcosm of the academic world—of what is to happen to the country at large, if the present cultural trend remains unchallenged.

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence - by his own choice.

Las personas son importantes sólo en relación a los demás, en la medida de su utilidad, en el servicio que brindan. A menos que entiendas esto no puedes esperar nada, sino una u otra forma de sufrimiento.

A man's method of using his consciousness determines his method of survival. The three contestants are Attila, the Witch Doctor and the Producer—or the man of force, the man of feelings, the man of reason—or the brute, the mystic, the thinker. The rest of mankind calls it expedient to be tossed by the current of events from one of those roles to another, not choosing to identify the fact that those three are the source which determines the current's direction.

Have you felt it too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you – except the things that count? And your most important is nothing to them; nothing, not even a sound they can recognize.

The meaning of the term "duty" is: the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority, without regard to any personal goal, motive, desire or interest.

it's the masters who despise the slaves, and the slaves who hate the masters. I don't know who is which. Maybe it doesn't fit here. Maybe it does. I don't know

A sacrifice, it is necessary to remember, means the surrender of a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a nonvalue. If one gives up that which one does not value in order to obtain that which one does value—or if one gives up a lesser value in order to obtain a greater one—this is not a sacrifice, but a gain.

La felicidad sólo es posible al hombre racional, al hombre que sólo desea objetivos racionales, busca valores racionales y halla su goce en la ejecución de actos racionales.

aquellos a quienes llamáis materialistas y espiritualistas son sólo dos mitades del mismo ser humano disecado, que trata siempre de encontrar la plenitud, pero buscándola al alternar entre la destrucción de la carne y la destrucción del alma y viceversa; de que corren desde vuestros colegios a las prisiones de esclavos de Europa y de éstas al colapso del fangal místico de la India, sin buscar refugio alguno contra la realidad, ni forma de escapar a la mente.

they saw him moving among his guests. He walked briskly, in a Morse code pattern of short dashes and brief stops

ella pregunto: -Francisco, ¿Cuál es el tipo más depravado que existe?. -El hombre que carece de propósitos.

la única manera de tener algo de ley es teniendo la menor cantidad posible. No encuentro ningún principio ético con el cual medir la concepción absolutamente inmoral de un Estado, salvo en la cantidad de tiempo, pensamiento, dinero, esfuerzo y obediencia que la sociedad arranca a cada uno de sus miembros.

Architects are servants, not leaders. They are not to assert their little egos, but to express the soul of their country and the rhythm of their time. They are not to follow the delusions of their personal fancy, but to seek the common denominator, which will bring their work close to the heart of the masses. Architects -ah, my friends, theirs is not to reason why. Theirs is not to command, but to be commanded.

No hay valor más alto que la propia estima, pero lo habéis invertido en obligaciones falsificadas y ahora vuestra moralidad os tiene en una trampa en la que os veis obligados a proteger la propia estima, luchando por el credo de la autodestrucción.

Thus, if a man is attracted to a woman of intelligence, confidence and strength, if he is attracted to a heroine, he reveals one kind of soul; if, instead, he is attracted to an irresponsible, helpless scatterbrain, whose weakness enables him to feel masculine, he reveals another kind of soul; if he is attracted to a frightened slut, whose lack of judgment and standards allows him to feel free of reproach, he reveals another kind of soul.

When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it's picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.

It is fear that drives them to seek the warmth, the protection, the "safety" of a herd. When they speak of merging their selves into a "greater whole," it is their fear that they hope to drown in the undemanding waves of unfastidious human bodies. And what they hope to fish out of that pool is the momentary illusion of an unearned personal significance.

Now project what would happen if the technique of the Berkeley rebellion were repeated on a national scale.

Every man is free to rise as far as he is able or willing, but it's only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he'll rise.