Quotes About Philosophy

to rest one's case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one's enemies- that one has no rational arguments to offer.

When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another — except brute, physical force.

There are no defenders of man's mind—in the world's greatest scientific-technological civilization. All that is left is a battle between the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle—between men guided by their feelings and men guided by their reflexes.

He demonstrated that there was no such thing as free will, since men's creative impulses were determined, as all else, by the economic structure of the epoch in which they lived.

There is only one power that determines the course of history, just as it determines the course of every individual life: the power of man's rational faculty—the power of ideas.

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.

This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

There is no necessity for pain-why, then, is the worst pain reserved for those who will not accept its necessity?

Logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.

We are not used to persons who do things simply for the love of god whom they don't believe in.

The purpose of philosophy is not to help men find a meaning in life, but to prove to them that there isn't any

When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights." No human rights can exist without property rights.

A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war.

There's no way to make the irrational work.

When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind - and it's roper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.

Any human being who accepts the help of another, knows that good will is the giver's only motive and that good will is the payment he owes in return.

Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.

Make no mistake about the character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their only purpose throughout the ages - and power, the power to rule you by force, has always been their only lust (John Galt)

a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. 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. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment

Reason is not automatic, those who deny it cannot be conquered by it

If everybody were compelled to have the proper kind of education, we'd have a better world. If we force people to do good, they will be free to be happy.

A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False? - Right or Wrong?

He was seeing the final contradiction, the grotesque absurdity at the end of the irrationalists' game

Happiness? But that is so middle-class. What is happiness? There are so many things in life so much more important than happiness.