Ayn Rand and/or Atlas Shrugged Quotes to ponder

[Lando Lincoln]

I was going to call it "Quote of the Day", but that would require discipline and it has an implied promise...

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"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction."
- Atlas Shrugged - Part 2, Chapter 2

[andy58-in-nh]

Along that line, I'll offer another:

“Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.”

[Lando Lincoln]

Along that line, I'll offer another:

“Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.”

Excellent Andy! 

[Lando Lincoln]

I need to re-state that quote with more of the complete thought.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."

[Lando Lincoln]

“Through all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice–it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two make four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction–only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human.”
Atlas Shrugged Part 3, Chapter 1

[famousdayandyear]

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone."  Ayn Rand

[Lando Lincoln]

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone."  Ayn Rand

Excellent!

[Bigun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ykWQMg_F8Ts




"... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any
government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one MAKES them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
......just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- p.411,
Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Signet Books, NY, 1957

[Bigun]

"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality" -- Ayn Rand

[Lando Lincoln]

Well done Bigun, well done.

[Rapunzel]

This is an interesting thread.  She was a very complex and fascinating woman.  I watched the movie made about the period of time she was writing Atlas Shrugged - The Passion of Ayn Rand - a couple of months ago, I did some further reading and it seems the movie was historically accurate....  it piqued my interest in her writings all over again.

[Cincinnatus]

Rand was capable of some brilliant thoughts and devastating insights about collectivism but she could also be extraordinarily petty; in her private life did not practice what she preached (just try contradicting her); was a fanatically devout atheist; and carried on a long time affair with a married man (which says a great deal about her moral standards outside the boundaries of a religious like devotion to capitalism).   

Yes, she was indeed "was a very complex and fascinating woman", a rigorous thinker in many ways, a hypocrite and libertine in others.

[Rapunzel]

Rand was capable of some brilliant thoughts and devastating insights about collectivism but she could also be extraordinarily petty; in her private life did not practice what she preached (just try contradicting her); was a fanatically devout atheist; and carried on a long time affair with a married man (which says a great deal about her moral standards outside the boundaries of a religious like devotion to capitalism).   

Yes, she was indeed "was a very complex and fascinating woman", a rigorous thinker in many ways, a hypocrite and libertine in others.

Exactly!  Which is why the movie of her life during this period fascinated me... hard to equate the person who wrote Atlas with her personal life.

[mountaineer]

"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality" -- Ayn Rand

That one is spot on.

[Cincinnatus]

Interesting development, although it appears from the story the legislator at issue isn't quite serious about this but has another agenda entirely. Too bad.

Reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" may become a requirement for high school graduation in Idaho if Coeur d'Alene Senator John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate's Education Committee, decides to pursue the matter.
 
Goedde introduced a bill with the requirement but doesn't appear serious about pushing it:...

Goedde said he doesn't plan to press forward with the bill, but it was formally introduced in his committee Tuesday on a voice vote. He said he was sending a message to the State Board of Education, because he's unhappy with its recent move to repeal a rule requiring two online courses to graduate from high school, and with its decision to back off on another planned rule regarding principal evaluations.
 
"It was a shot over their bow just to let them know that there's another way to adopt high school graduation requirements," Goedde said after the meeting. "I don't intend to schedule a hearing on it."
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/02/bill_introduced_in_idaho_that_makes_reading_atlas_shrugged_a_requirement_for_graduation.html

Just a side note, apropos of nothing. I have always loved the name of that city, Coeur d'Alene. Just so pretty.

Ok, carry on.



 

[Lando Lincoln]

“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence... The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.”
Atlas Shrugged Part 3, Chapter 7

[Lando Lincoln]

“Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live–that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values–that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind...”
Atlas Shrugged - Part 3 Chapter 7

[Lando Lincoln]

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality."

From Francisco d'Anconia's "money speech" in Atlas Shrugged

[Lando Lincoln]

"Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper."

Atlas Shrugged Part 3, Chapter 7

[Cincinnatus]

An aside. The movie, "Atlas Shrugged", is now out on DVD.

[Lando Lincoln]

An aside. The movie, "Atlas Shrugged", is now out on DVD.

I have it ordered through Amazon.

[Lando Lincoln]

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Atlas Shrugged Part 2, Chapter 3

[Oceander]

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Atlas Shrugged Part 2, Chapter 3

I cannot even begin to tell you how much truth there is in that statement.

[Lando Lincoln]

I cannot even begin to tell you how much truth there is in that statement.

Yes.  Really hits home.

[Oceander]

Yes.  Really hits home.

And the police and the prosecutors slowly degenerate into nothing better than "good Germans" and end up reinforcing the arbitrariness and cruelty of the system by becoming less interested in doing justice than in scoring points by arresting and convicting as many people as possible.