Ayn Rand
I've always been a great fan of Ayn Rand. Her "The Fountainhead" is like my bible and has been the favourite book for a lot of the people I know.
It makes me sad though to see so many people criticizing her work without having understood it all. Anyway, there are some and there are some. I'm one of the few people who understands The Fountainhead (not Atlas Shrugged) and love it.
I'd like to put up a small passage that one of my friends (who loves The Atlas Shrugged but not The Fountainhead) sent me a few days ago. I find it a beautifully written piece and would like to share it with you. As always, comments and suggestions are most welcome.
Also I've followed the paragraph with a few very powerful quotes by Ayn Rand.
"The best of mankind's youth start life with an undefined sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one's life is important, that great achievements are within one's capacity, and that great things lie ahead.
It is not in the nature of man—nor of any living entity—to start out by giving up, by spitting in one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man.
Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lose it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one's mind (who are you to stand against what the world is saying?); security(follow your passion as a hobby, but have a real job), of abandoning one's values ( That might work in theory, but real life doesn't work like that); practicality, of losing self-esteem(who are you to succeed?).
Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that the fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential."
Ayn Rand.
“From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man -- the function of his reasoning mind.”
“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”
“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
“To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'”
"Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness."
"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. "
"Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason. "
"Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason. "
"People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it - walk. "
“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”
“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”
"When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is."
© Udit Sood., all rights reserved.
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