“A man is looking for a reflection of himself in a woman”: the best quotes from the book “Atlas Shrugged. This so logically and psychologically correct motto is simply obliged to be the guide of every self-respecting person I swear by life and its love
An American writer was born on February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg Ayn Rand (née Alice Rosenbaum). The years of her adolescence and youth fell on a difficult time: First world War, two revolutions, then the Civil War, War Communism ... This period of her life is described in the first novel of the writer "We are Living", published in 1936 in the USA, where she emigrated 10 years before.
Ayn Rand was a supporter of rational individualism opposed to collectivism. She expressed her views in the famous novel Atlas Shrugged, which has become a kind of bible of the objectivists. She also penned such books as "The Source", "Anthem", "The Art of Fiction. A Guide for Writers and Readers ”,“ Ideal ”and many other works that have become classics.
Here are quotes from a writer whose books have become a real revelation for many of us. Ayn Rand does not just speak, she shouts with the voices of her heroes about the most painful things - about disappointments, love, money, heroes and mediocrity. And all this so that we, as well as her atlas, can finally straighten our shoulders. Our selection contains the brightest revelations of this unusual personality.
1. He never asked for anything from them. It was they who strove to own him, it was they who made constant claims to him. Moreover, these claims had the form of affection, which, however, was more difficult for him to endure than any kind of hatred. For some unknown reason, these people began to love him, not wanting to know why he wanted to be loved.
2. These people are in control of you because you give yourself no mercy. They indulge their emotions. You sacrifice your feelings. They don't want to put up with anything. You are ready to endure anything. They avoid responsibility. All you do is take it upon yourself. But can't you see that it is essentially the same mistake? Refusal to recognize reality always leads to disastrous consequences.
3. Did you know distinctive feature mediocrity? Resentment over the success of another. These touchy mediocrities are shaking over how anyone might overtake them. They have no idea what kind of loneliness appears when you reach the top. This feeling of melancholy is alien to them, when they so want to see a person equal to you, a mind worthy of admiration, and an achievement that you can admire.
4. People don't want to think. The deeper they sink into their worries, the less they want to think. But subconsciously, they feel they should be thinking, and they feel guilty. Therefore, they will bless and follow the advice of anyone who can justify their unwillingness to think. Anyone who turns into virtue - what they consider their sin, their weakness, their guilt.
5. Wealth is the result of a person's ability to think. Money itself is only a means. They will lead you to any goal, but they will not replace you at the helm. Money will satisfy your aspirations and desires, but it will not replace your goal and dream.
6. Who is the basest among people? A person with no purpose.
7. What does a person feel when surrounded by mediocrity and dullness? Hatred? No, not hate, but boredom - terrible, hopeless, paralyzing boredom. What is the flattery and praise of people you don't respect?
8. If you try to use money to surround yourself with those who are higher and smarter than you, in order to gain prestige, you will eventually fall victim to those who are lower. A person cannot be less than his money, otherwise they will crush him.
9. There is nothing more important in life than how you do your job. There is nothing. It is most important. And your essence manifests itself precisely in this. This is the only measure of a person's worth.
10. What makes you confident is the moral principle.
11. A person who curses money received it dishonestly; a person who respects money deserves it. Walk away from anyone who tells you that money is evil. These words are the bell of a leper, the clash of a bandit's weapon.
12. There are no bad thoughts; only refusal to think is evil. Don't neglect your desires. Don't sacrifice them. Investigate their cause.
13. I do not accept sacrifices or make them. If the pleasure of one is bought by the suffering of another, it is better to refuse the deal altogether. When one wins and the other loses, this is not a deal, but a scam.
14. Do you know what your only real fault is? You have not learned to enjoy, although you have the greatest ability to do so. You give up your own pleasure too easily. You're willing to put up with too much.
15. It is impossible to control innocent people. The only power any government has is the right to take harsh measures against criminals. Well, when there are not enough criminals, they are created. So many things are declared criminal that it becomes impossible to live without breaking the laws. You create a state of lawbreakers and profit from guilt. Here's a game.
16. A person cannot be rendered harmless except by accusing him. Accusing him of what he might plead guilty to. If he stole a dime before, you can apply the punishment for a safe cracker to him and he will accept it. He will endure any adversity and believe that he does not deserve better. If there are not enough reasons to blame a person, you need to come up with them.
17. They say that love is blind, sex is deaf to reason and scoffs at all philosophical ideas. But in reality, sexual choice is the result of a person's core beliefs. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive, and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with, and I'll tell you how he values \u200b\u200bhimself.
Contrary to the established canon of a five-book review, this time we have a triptych. But extraordinary, but sensational. Rejected and recognized many times. Criticized, anathematized, and then raised to the level of a new religion and worldview. And yes, in terms of the number of pages exceeding any five books.
All this is about Ayn Rand, who in such a detailed, deeply and simply described a person's relationship with himself, God, other people and business partners. Ayn Rand, née Alice Rosenbaum, so awkwardly hushed up in countries the former USSR and became a classic in America, whose works inspire millions of people to think with their heads and go not with the flow or against it, but where they need to go. Meet: writer by vocation, entrepreneur by conviction, lady by life.
1. "We are alive"
“And is it your business to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the millions? - Not. For my own sake, lead the masses of millions to where I need it. " Rand's very first and perhaps the most poignant novel in the purity of its hopelessness and power. A book about the 20s of the last century and about love balancing at a point of uncertainty in a city whose name has not even been properly established - either Petrograd or Leningrad ... In a city where the propaganda of impersonality, collective good and interdependence killed people the ability to love, think, make decisions, be yourself.
The main character, Kira Argunova, lost a lot, almost everything, but retained the most important thing - faith and confidence in her feelings, thoughts and beliefs. Today she would be called a bitch, feared, hated and idolized. However, even then, in hungry Petrograd, her erect posture seemed to many a mockery, and the direct and open gaze of her eyes - arrogant and insulting. Sharp on the tongue, beautiful and high-cheeked, she so annoyed those who are used to eating sprat from the newspaper, walking in formation and calling each other “Comrade Sonya” ...
- I am afraid for your future, Kira, - Victor said, - now is the time to come to terms with life, as it is. With such thoughts, you will not go far.
- This, - said Kira, - depends on which direction I want to go.
2. "Source"
"To say:" I love you, "you must learn to pronounce I."Twice as many pages and storylines that Rand masterfully pulls together into one knot. The young and talented architect Howard Roarke is ready to endure any difficulties in order to do what he loves in life, without which his life will be discolored, and he himself will become a shadow. He is ready to do anything - except for a compromise with himself. Howard Roarke does not hide his attitude to anything, says and does only what he likes and what he considers right. He does not change his decisions. And he is able to fall in love only once in his life - a woman who, ironically, will become the wife of his worst enemy.
- My dear friend, who will let you?
- It is not important. The main thing is who will stop me?
Unlike other books by Ayn Rand, this one quite unambiguously raises the question of whether the relationship between a man and a woman can be viewed from the same positions and according to the same principles as business relationships. And he gives an unambiguous answer.
“I went out to declare that I am a person who does not exist for others. It is necessary to declare this, for the world is dying in an orgy of self-sacrifice. I do not recognize any obligations to people, except one - to respect their freedom and have nothing to do with the society of slaves. I am ready to give my country ten years in prison if my country no longer exists. I will give them in memory of her and with gratitude to her as she was. It will be an act of loyalty to my country and an act of refusal to live and work in the country that replaced it. ”
3. "Atlas straightened his shoulders"
“I swear by my life and love for it that I will never live for the sake of another person and I will never ask or force another person to live for me.” 1,500 pages for advanced renderers. But if you've read the two previous novels, you're doomed to this one. It's like a code, like the Bible, like Google. The only difference is that he will give you an answer to a question that neither the Code, nor the Bible, nor Google are capable of - who is John Gault?
In Atlanta, Ayn Rand talks consistently and inspiringly about what it means to be human, how to become, and how to stay. This is a story about the vital necessity of individualism and the price that will have to be paid for it. The novel is thoroughly stitched with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe inevitability of the collapse of any relationship - political, economic, interpersonal, if they are based on mutual obligations, and not on purely personal interest.
“There were times when people were afraid that someone would reveal secrets that are unknown to their neighbors. Today they are afraid that someone will say out loud what everyone knows about. "
Dagny Taggart, a fragile and at the same time steel woman, is ready to give her life so that the business of her family - the largest railway company in the country - stops rapidly approaching bankruptcy, suffering huge material losses due to deterioration railways and a series of wrecks of its trains. Therefore, she decides to use a new metal, which was invented by another crazy and strong-willed person - the same as her. This is where the story of a long journey to each other of two people begins, obsessed with a passionate desire to live in the name of those goals and values \u200b\u200bthat they consider worthy of their life.
“Mister Rearden,” Francisco said in a solemnly calm tone, “if you saw the Atlantean holding the world on his shoulders, you saw the blood flowing down his chest, his legs buckle and his hands tremble, and he tries with the last bit of strength to hold on to the world, and the more powerful the effort, the harder the world presses on his shoulders - what would you suggest to him?
- I dont know. What ... can he do? What would you offer him?
- Straighten your shoulders.
According to polls public opinionConducted in 1991 by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged in America was the second book after the Bible that changed the lives of American readers.
Overall, I don't know of another book that is more inspiring.
1. Thought is a weapon that a person uses in order to act.
2. Many people will try to hurt you for the good they see in you, knowing that it is good, envious of him and punishing you for it.
3. A man looks for a reflection of himself in a woman. A man is always attracted to a woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, a woman whose conquest will allow him to experience - or pretend to experience - self-esteem. A person who is confident in his own worth will want to have a woman of the highest type, the woman he adores, the strongest and most inaccessible, because only having a heroine will give him a sense of satisfaction. Having a simple prostitute will do nothing.
4. It's very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what do you give her? It’s nothing more than a fact, and it cost you nothing. Loving a woman for her dignity is pointless. She deserved it. This is a fee, not a gift. But to love a woman for her vices is a real gift, because she does not deserve it. To love her for her vices is to defile all notions of virtue for her sake, and this is a true tribute to love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your mind, your honesty and your invaluable self-respect.
5. In order to live, a person must consider three things to be the highest and decisive values: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem. Reason as the only instrument of cognition, Purpose as a choice of happiness, which this instrument must achieve, Self-respect as an indestructible confidence that he is able to think, and his personality is worthy of happiness, which means worthy of life. These three values \u200b\u200brequire all the virtues of a person, and all of his virtues are related to the relationship of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, purity, honesty, justice, efficiency, pride.
6. They say that love is blind, sex is deaf to reason and scoffs at all philosophical ideas. But in reality, sexual choice is the result of a person's core beliefs. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive, and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with, and I'll tell you how he values \u200b\u200bhimself.
7. What makes you confident is the moral principle.
8. Value is what a person obtains and retains by his actions, virtue is an action by which he obtains and retains value. Value presupposes a criterion - the goal and necessity of action in the face of choice. Where there is no choice, the existence of values \u200b\u200bis impossible.
9. There is nothing more important in life than how you do your job. There is nothing. It is most important. And your essence manifests itself precisely in this. This is the only measure of a person's worth.
10 Do you know what your only real fault is? You have not learned to enjoy, although you have the greatest ability to do so. You give up your own pleasure too easily. You're willing to put up with too much.
11. Wealth is the result of a person's ability to think. Money itself is only a means. They will lead you to any goal, but they will not replace you at the helm. Money will satisfy your aspirations and desires, but it will not replace your goal and dream.
12. These people are powerful over you because you give yourself no mercy. They indulge their emotions. You sacrifice your feelings. They don't want to put up with anything. You are ready to endure anything. They avoid responsibility. All you do is take it upon yourself. But can't you see that it is essentially the same mistake? Refusal to recognize reality always leads to disastrous consequences.
13. I swear by my life and love for it that I will never live for the sake of another person, and I will never ask, and I will not force another person to live for me.
14. Sometimes there came such moments as today, when she suddenly felt an unbearable emptiness, not even emptiness, but silence, not despair, but stillness, as if everything had stopped in her without any special problems. Then she felt the desire to receive short-term joy from the outside, the desire to be an outside observer of someone else's work or greatness. Not to possess, but only to surrender; not to act, but only to react; not create, but admire. Only then can I continue to exist, because happiness is fuel for the soul.
15. You can feel truly light and at ease only when you realize your importance.
