Quotes About Sacrifice

The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not "selflessness" or "sacrifice," but integrity. Integrity is loyalty to one's convictions and values; it is the policy of acting in accordance with one's values, of expressing, upholding and translating them into practical reality. If a man professes to love a woman, yet his actions are indifferent, inimical or damaging to her, it is his lack of integrity that makes him immoral.

if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?" "I . . . don't know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?" "To shrug.

In the normal conditions of existence, man has to choose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others. He cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible.

The greatest food for the greatest number—that's my slogan. At a time of desperate public need, it's our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome foodstuff on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted for centuries. There's a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient.

Durante siglos, la batalla moral fue librada entre quienes sostenían que sus vidas le pertenecen a Dios y quienes sostenían que les pertenecen a sus vecinos; entre aquellos que predicaban que el bien es el autosacrificio en beneficio de fantasmas en el paraíso, y aquellos que predicaban que el bien es el autosacrificio en provecho de los incompetentes de la Tierra. Y nadie te ha dicho que tu vida te pertenece y que el bien reside en vivirla plenamente.

Una transacción (en el sentido inmoral del término) no consiste en abandonar la comodidad personal, sino en abandonar las convicciones personales.

Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor fire. Your mouth is cut of granite but our brothers are soft and humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but our brothers crawl. We wish to be Damned with you, rather than blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do not send us away from you.

The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone's need.

One doesn't get to be first in anything without the strength to make some sacrifices.

Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause.

I don't blame our metallurgical department!" he said angrily. "I know that results of this kind are not a matter of any predictable time. But the public won't understand it. What, then, should we sacrifice? An excellent piece of smelting—or the last center of science left on earth, and the whole future of human knowledge? That is the alternative." She sat, her head down. After

In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube.

Sacrifice' does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious. 'Sacrifice' does not mean the rejection of the evil for the sake of the good, but of the good for the sake of the evil. 'Sacrifice' is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don't.

Sacrificio' no significa el rechazo de lo vil, sino de lo precioso. 'Sacrificio' no significa el rechazo del mal por el bien, sino el rechazo del bien por el mal. 'Sacrificio' es la renuncia a lo que uno valora en favor de lo que desprecia.

only gesture of protest open to me. What else could I offer you? The things people sacrifice are so little. I'll give you my marriage to Peter Keating. I'll refuse to permit myself happiness in their world. I'll take suffering. That will be my answer to them, and my gift to you. I shall probably never see you again. I shall try not to. But I will live for you, through every minute and every shameful act I take, I will live for you in my own way, in the only way I can.

If a man dies fighting for his own freedom, it is not a sacrifice: he is not willing to live as a slave; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who's willing.

Durante siglos la batalla de la moralidad fue librada entre quienes proclamaban que la vida pertenece a Dios y quienes decían que pertenece al prójimo, entre quienes predicaban que la bondad es el autosacrificio en favor de unos fantasmas celestes y quienes predicaban que el bien es el auto-sacrificio en favor de los incompetentes de la tierra. Pero nadie vino a decir que vuestra vida os pertenece y que el bien reside en vivirla.

Si un hombre muere peleando por su propia libertad, eso no es un sacrificio: no está dispuesto a vivir como esclavo; pero sí es un sacrificio para el tipo de hombre que está dispuesto a ser esclavo.

good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.

The Objectivist ethics, in essence, hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself. It is this last that Galt's statement summarizes.

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.

When you see that in order to produce, you need to ask permission from men who produce nothing - When you see the money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1957

A "compromise" does not consist of doing something one dislikes, but of doing something one knows to be evil.