Russian/
American
Author and
Philosopher
(February 2,
1905 -
March 6,
1982)
"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death."
"Businessmen are the one group that distinguishes capitalism and the American way of life from the totalitarian statism that is swallowing the rest of the world. All the other social groups - workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers - exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction. But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship. Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars. Businessmen are the symbol of a free society - the symbol of America."
"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
"A culture is made -- or destroyed -- by its articulate voices."
"A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving."
"Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives."
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."
"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see."
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."
"The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity."
"Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver."
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
"To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power."
"The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life."
"We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."
