Quote #138

Nobody respects an altruist, neither in private life nor in international affairs. An altruist is a person who keeps sacrificing himself and his values, which means: sacrificing his friends to his enemies, his allies to his protagonists, his interests to any cry for help, his strength to anyone's weakness, his convictions to anyone's wishes, the truth to any lie, the good to any evil.

More from Ayn Rand

  1. No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.
  2. One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation;…
  3. Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence. & In the realm of cognition, the sp…
  4. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum of his knowledge.
  5. Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.
  6. Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as a man is free to attempt to survive by any random me…
  7. Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics- on a theory of man's nature and of man's …
  8. 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 productiv…

All Ayn Rand quotes